Sega's first major international console, the Sega Master System, simply does not get the recognition it deserves.
Look at it, you can almost hear it, Rodney Dangerfield style, saying “I don’t get no respect”.
Sega recently announced the Mega Drive 2 mini, the second Mega Drive (or Genesis) micro-console, once more passing over the 16-bit system’s often overlooked predecessor.
And to make matters worse, Sega felt the need to address the noise around Dreamcast and Saturn mini’s, saying they’d be too expensive to manufacturer, while seemingly forgetting they had an 8-bit alternative to making another Mega Drive Mini.
But why is this?
The Mega Drive is Sega’s most popular and successful system by quite a margin. That’s why it receives the attention Sega lavishes upon it, with two micro-consoles and countless compilations.
The Saturn meanwhile is their most successful console in Japan, again, by some margin, despite being a sales disappointment in the West.
The Dreamcast, despite being the lowest selling of the Sega home console quartet, is a cult classic beloved by so many.
That’s why there’s demand for those three systems.
But the most important fact around all of their relative success (or lack of) compared to the Master System is that they made impacts in the regions which have the most influence.
The Master System is Sega’s second biggest selling piece of hardware, selling more than the Saturn and Dreamcast combined if you count the Tec-Toy versions in Brazil (and you should).
Yet therein lies the issue. The Master System helped Sega become a household name in Europe, soundly making the NES a non-event in the region for years.
And it would be Brazil where its popularity would help it break records as the longest supported games console, selling at least 8 million units in the region alone.
The problem is that Europe and Brazil don’t seem to matter. Unless you make it big in Japan or America (and no Sega console has managed to do both) you’ll be forgotten.
What doesn’t help is the Master System’s complicated origins in its home country. Tracing it’s birth back to the SG-1000, Sega’s first attempt at a games console, it took two updates before the hardware of the console we grew to know as the SMS was finalised in the Sega Mark III. It was only when it came to America that it was given a makeover and the name Master System. It then was re-released in Japan in its Westernised form just after the European launch.
So that’s regional bias and a Japanese identity crisis to blame. But is the game library also an issue as many have suggested?
Region once again comes into play. Less than 150 titles saw release in Japan and the US, a very modest number and certainly attributable to the console’s reputation.
In Europe, however, that number is more than doubled with over 300 games in its library. That may still be less than the Dreamcast, but it’s still a decent number not far off the N64’s library size.
But that library isn’t just about size either, there’s an exquisite quality to the PAL Master System library. Not only are there PAL exclusive entries to storied Sega franchises such as Outrun and Shinobi, ports of arcade classics like Chase HQ, Gauntlet and Mortal Kombat, and Mega Drive ports such as Streets of Rage 2, Road Rash and Ecco the Dolphin, but there were original titles too, like Power Strike 2, Master of Darkness and Asterix.
With so many excellent PAL exclusives - and I didn’t even mention the numerous exclusive versions of 8-bit Sonic titles - it’s little wonder that there is such a disconnect between the US and Japanese perceptions of the Master System, which influence gaming discourse, and the European and Latin American view.
At the end of the day, a great console is a great console. There’s a reason, over 300 in fact, that the Master System is so revered in the corners of the Earth it found a home. It rewarded its admirers with gaming gems through its long life in those regions.
The smaller library, caused by a lack of third party support, isn’t plagued with shovel ware either, like it’s contemporaries. Sure, there’s a few stinkers like there are for any console, but there’s a fair bit of wheat for the chaff, especially taking into account those European exclusives.
It also feels to me that the Master System was almost a generation ahead of the NES graphically, though behind the PC Engine in what is the fairly wide 3rd Gen – 8-bit wave of consoles, with games that often look closer to Mega Drive games than those on the Nintendo platform. As such, graphically they seem to hold up better, and games such as the Sonic entry’s hold up well against their 16-bit counterparts. Indeed, even ports such as Space Harrier demonstrate the sort of colourful visuals and giant sprites the NES could only dream of.
The Master System is full of classics, its games look great and they hold up well today. Some titles such as Sonic, Castle of Illusion and Thunder Blade are arguably better than their Mega Drive versions in terms of gameplay.
And yet, it is all too often passed over by gamers, from US-centric players who know only that Nintendo was once king of their land, to Retro revisionists who lambast its supposed small library and popularity in unfashionable regions, to Sega themselves who too often forget it exists.
But it’s time the system got its due, without the success in Europe and Latin America we may not have had the Mega Drive, consoles might even have taken a different trajectory in Europe given the Master System was arguably the first to wean British gamers off of those 8-bit Home Computers we loved so much.
But mostly, it deserves recognition and respect for just being a damn fine piece of hardware, with an excellent library that remains important and also, in many corners, relevant. Just check out the numerous new releases from the Retro scene (many covered by Dudley of Yesterzine), or the #MasterSystemChallenge held weekly by 8BitBoyUK, this is a console that has been loved and will remain loved forever more.
If you’ve never grown to love Sega’s first major international home console, then its probably time you gave it some attention, and it won’t take long to earn that respect from you it so rightly deserves.
