Quirks of SEGA Backwards Compatibility

Sega one of the Fallen superpowers of the games industry at one point a serious competitor to Nintendo and Atari in the home gaming console Market Sega these days might as well be spelled b-a-n-k for Bank you've heard the old phrase license to print money generally meaning that someone or some product is so successful they've gotten a license to print money some examples are very successful people like Bill Cosby this uh this documentary did not age well from 1983 to 2001 they had a solid run developing and selling Hardware but what comes up must come down with some questionable business decisions and a surge from the competition in the mid to late 90s sega's hand was forced as they bowed out of the hardware Market to focus on developing and publishing software exclusively the time between Hardware iterations has practically doubled since the time of sega's Reign instead of waiting eight years for the next Xbox or Playstation pre-turn of the Millennia you might see new hardware popping up every single year whether it be in the form of new consoles handhelds or graphic boosting add-ons life expectancy of the hardware was a big concerned back then if I buy this now will it be obsolete in another year I mean just take a look at when Apple tried to make one of these this is a popular question from consumers even nowadays and the answer is never immediately clear today I want to go over how Sega handled this which gaming media and accessories can I bring into another Hardware generation whether that be an upcoming one or a past one you'll find a link in the description to a Google Sheets document that has a list of all the hardware and there you can find what's compatible with what I also quickly want to plug I have additional backwards compatibility charts for PlayStation Nintendo and Xbox on that sheet those of which all have their own videos so if you have a question you might find your answer there we'll be sticking in the realm of official Hardware compatibility so I'm not going to talk about any hacks or mods being that some of these consoles are almost 40 years old you know and I'm sure at this point someone has a guide out there showing how to play PS3 games on a Dreamcast using only rubber bands for the sake of Simplicity we'll be mostly sticking to sega's primary licensed lineup so sit back and relax as we head back to the early 80s a time when arcade machines were at the height of their popularity and home consoles were only at their infancy contrary to what the average American might think the Sega Genesis nor the Sega Master System was sega's first Home console that honor goes to the sg-1000 released July 15 1983 in Japan Faithfully the exact same day Nintendo would release the famicom Sega approved a rebranded release in a few other countries like Australia and New Zealand it never made its way officially to the states despite this there was an unauthorized clone known as the telegames personal arcade that was produced and made available in the U.S and Taiwan not only could this play sg-1000 games it could play ColecoVision games I wanted to touch on this because there are a lot more official and unofficial clones of Sega consoles and for this video I'll primarily be sticking to the boxes manufactured by Sega themselves it really shows how far we've come today or I suppose how primitive it was back then For Better or For Worse you definitely don't see little Taiwanese companies making clones of the PS5 Sega released another box that played these cartridges called the SC 3000 this was sega's first home computer slash video game console also I knew how batshit insane the Sega commercials were back in the 90s but turns out they've uh they've been like that since the very start [Music] foreign [Music] video game consoles were fairly new at the time this was supposed to be the only device released plans for the sg-1000 which could only play games came around after Sega learned about Nintendo's plans to make a games only device it kind of showed sega's business mentality to just throw everything at the wall and see what sticks at the very least I guess you could say that they were reactive and aware of what was going on moving one year further into the timeline to 1984 an upgraded model of the sg-1000 called The sg-1000 Mark II was released internally it was identical and as you would guess it retained the ability to play all sg-1000 cartridges the most noticeable upgrade was the controllers those of you who have an eye for this sort of thing might notice they copied off of a certain somebody the original sg-1000 did support two controllers but the first controller was hardwired into the console itself so there was a port for the second but these controllers were obviously inspired by the Atari joypad except just way worse I mean they looked like bricks with sticks attack on them and the Triggers on the side tended to go bad very quickly I have an idea of how to hold one of these but I can't imagine that it would be comfortable in the slightest the stick was also very unresponsive so sega's choice to rip off Nintendo and give the Mark II the soap bar controllers ended up being a solid Choice as Nintendo's invention of the d-pad and their General layout of the controller serve as a precursor to what we have today and these new sg-1000 Mark II controllers were now both detachable unfortunately if you wanted to use the player one port in your original sg-1000 with these new controllers you had to buy this special kit it looks pretty involved and I don't think they sold a lot but you gotta give it to Sega for you know giving people the option the controller ports on the Mark II and the player 2 port on the original all use the same port it was called the de-9 port and you can remember that because if you turn it at a 90 degree angle it's shaped like a d it was an industry standard used in a bunch of game consoles and computers back in the day not only did every single Sega console use these ports stopping at the Sega Saturn and Dreamcast which had proprietary controller ports but other consoles outside of Sega even outside of Japan used these ports like Atari the Commodore computers ColecoVision the 3DO and the list goes on this being the case there's actually a ton of controller compatibility between these consoles for what it's worth all of the Sega 8-bit consoles are forward and Backward Compatible as far as controllers go once we get into the three button or six button controllers in 16-bit with the mega drive or Genesis it gets a little bit more fuzzy I want to give a big shout out to discombobulated ad83 on the Master System subreddit for testing this ultimately if you bring your old sg-1000 or Master System controllers forward to the Genesis they're gonna partially map so for example on an sg-1000 Mark II controller the left button will map to the a button on the Genesis and the right button will map to the start button on the Genesis so if you're playing like a Genesis game where you need the B and C buttons you're kind of out of luck but if you're playing sonic your A-Okay I know we've been jumping ahead a bit but if you want to know more about the de9 port and how it relates to Sega Genesis controllers I suggest you go watch genovi's video titled sega's mode button part 1 how do the three and six button gamepads work he goes into more detail talking about which pins correlate to which buttons a very interesting watch I suggest you go check them out although technically still 8-bit sega's next jump in Hardware came in the form of the Sega mark 3. [Music] hearing that Sega jingle even today is just so satisfying just a choir of men screaming Sega I guess sega's advertising team would see it as a bit too Serene considering their commercials that played in the 90s the Sega Mark III was initially released in Japan and later Taiwan and South Korea don't worry I promise we'll be going worldwide soon despite still being in the 8-Bit category of consoles the Mark III offered a new video display processor and more RAM over the sg-1000 and sg-1000 Mark II and despite having its own cartridges it is fully backwards compatible with the sg-1000 library right below the cartridge slot there's a slot for another peripheral we have not talked about called Sega my cards these cards were an alternative to the much more expensive to produce cartridges the storage on these guys was only 32 kilobytes so you weren't going to find any big Fantasy Star Final Fantasy RPGs on here and they were eventually considered a health risk with young children trying to eat them now like a lot of stuff that Sega markets this gets a bit confusing so just stick with me here there were two variants of the cards released the Sega mic card and the Sega micard Mark III in Japan they called them Sega my cards but everywhere else there or just Sega cards so it's just something to keep in mind as well out of the box the Sega Mark III's card slot you can play both variants you are set now the sg-1000 and sg-1000 Mark II can play the non-mark 3 cards they can play the earlier cards but they require an adapter called the card catcher the card catcher is compatible with everything we've talked about so far as the mark one two and three all have the exact same cartridge slot size so if you want to be redundant you can use the card catcher on the Mark III despite it having its own card slot or I suppose in the event that the card slot breaks there was a rewritable version of the card released in Japan called the my card EP some retailers had machines installed where customers could take their EP cards pay a fee and have a game written to the card itself you could overwrite what was already on the card and the cards came pre-written with one of two games Dragon Wang which is hilarious or the game starjacker despite being cheap to produce the whole card format did not meet sega's expectations in terms of retail success but my grandpa put all his gaming knowledge his whole heart into assembling this deck ah this card is useless given that the Mark III was sega's first true leap in Hardware I'm giving it a big thumbs up in terms of backwards compatibility being that the software library from the sg-1000 models is really small it's obvious the bar was set low despite that it's impressive that all of the previous controllers can be brought forward and the fact that the Sega cards can now be played out of the box on the Mark III with no adapter required Sega challenge ultimate video game the Sega Master systems to the excitement with sports pads controls dicks and the first video games ever in 3D Sega is the one the Sega Master System the challenge will always be there yes the Sega Master System the first Sega console to have a widespread distribution outside of Japan the Japanese variant would see full backwards compatibility with sg-1000 cartridges as well as Mark III cartridges this is because the Master System is essentially just the Mark III with a new coat of paint unfortunately this is not the case for Master System models released outside of Asia these cartridges use the different form factor as they were shorter and wider and used a different pin out so ntsc EU pal Brazilian Australian Master System cartridges they will not fit into a Japanese model and vice versa it was fairly easy to tell if a Japanese cartridge was made during the Mark III production or the Master System production as it was stated at the top of the cartridge and they match the color of their respective console and if you're a fan of the Sega my cards you'll be happy to hear that the majority of the models retained the card slot the Master System models that didn't release with a new form factor in non-japanese markets these came about after the Genesis and Mega Drive were already on the market and you can tell just by looking at the design that they took a lot of inspiration from those consoles not to mention the naming scheme was different depending on where you lived you have the Master System Too in North America and Europe the Master System 3 in Brazil because they already had a Master System too which does have the card slot and two South Korean models the super gamboy 2 and the Aladdin boy I can't believe it I'm losing to a rug Sega would go on to engineer another accessory to utilize this card slot in the form of Sega scope 3D glasses not even 3D effects like these can match what you'll see through these amazing Sega scope 3D glasses Believe It or Not these were actually made by Mark Cerny during his time at Sega the same guy who engineered the PS4 and 5 in a cave with a box of scraps there was also an NES zapper rip-off called the light phaser for the Master System unlike the 3D glasses this was not backwards compatible with the Mark III Mega Drive moving right along we have sega's most successful and popular console the Genesis as it was known in North America in mega drive everywhere else apologies to all the international viewers as I'll be referring to it as the Genesis for I am a true yank [Music] whatever you want to call it it was the first Japanese Sega console to break the full backwards compatibility streak going all the way back to the sg-1000 models and as you may be aware it was sega's first proper 16-bit console now despite there not being any old Tech that we can throw on to the Genesis and make its gears spin apart from the old de-9 controllers there is a pile of adapters accessories and console revisions released throughout the late 80s and 90s let's start at the foundation and go over the primary models released the model one was chunky sported a headphone jack on Console volume control and actually had two variants the original and a later released revised model the first of which had the text high definition Graphics above the cartridge slot and a female de9 port that was pretty sparsely used except in Japan for the Sega Mega modem which allowed for Japanese Mega drives to access online feature is provided by Sega and third parties the earlier release model 1 variant is arguably the best of the bunch as it had better audio quality than any other model and supported cartridge swapping this was a method of swapping cartridges while the Genesis was still powered on pressing reset and something hopefully favorable would happen like unlocking level selects infinite lives Etc doing this is not recommended as it has the chance to completely fry your system the Genesis model 2 received a smaller modernized shell and dropped the headphone jack and volume slider this model in the model 1 both featured an expansion slot for the first major peripheral that would allow Sega to take advantage of the CD media format foreign [Music] the Sega CD or Mega CD as it was known outside of North America and Brazil not only could this guy play sega's new Sega CD game format but it could also play audio CDs there were two models of Sega CDs produced one for each form factor of the Genesis that we've covered so far you had the power bottom for the model 1 and the motorcycle sidecar for the model 2. what's nice about this is that you can mix and match both models of Sega CD to both models of the Genesis what makes this kind of nasty is that rather than the Sega CD drawing power from the Genesis itself both variants of the add-on required a separate power supply both used the Sega Genesis model 1 AC adapter so if you had a model 2 you could not mix and match the power supplies and that's just the beginning of Sega accessories taking up your power strip real estate the later release Sega 32x add-on which plugged into the cartridge slot boosted the bits from 16 to 32 would take up another outlet and to make things more difficult it uses the Genesis model 2's AC adapter so if you're using a Sega CD and 32x concurrently you will not only be drawing the same amount of energy required to power a Tesla Model S you will always be using two different AC adapters regardless of what model of Genesis you have and these aren't the AC adapters that have the brick halfway in the middle or the power supply is in the device itself no these are the big hunk of the loofahs that have it on the plug and I am thankful these have been phased out of modern devices well mostly now on 32x it makes me sweat welcome to the world Doom the 32x was compatible with both the model 1 and model 2 Genesis and used its own proprietary cartridge format for 32-bit games it could even talk to a Sega CD if one was plugged in to play games that use both add-ons creating what is now dubbed as the Tower of Power on top of the additional AC adapter a crossover cable was also needed to send a signal from the Genesis into the 32 2X and then your original AV cable would lead the signal from the 32x into the TV set and one last flick to the nuts if you're using a model one there's an adapter cable needed between the Genesis AV out and the patch cable this is because the model 1 and 2 use different AV cables and the 32x came out pretty late and uses all model 2 stuff it was intended to be a semi-permanent add-on as you could always plug in just original 16-bit Genesis games into the 32x and play them like normal I say semi-permanent because there was another first party accessory previously released that also used the cartridge slot this was the power base converter and the key to unlocking the backwards compatibility of the Genesis as this allowed the use of Master System cartridges and Sega Mark III cards you heard right the cards were back this might seem like an odd Choice from a Japanese perspective as this format was getting really really old and wasn't all that successful to begin with but to all the regions where the Master System was their first Sega console the cards were a little bit more fresh and the this was the Mark III version of the cards not the sg-1000 version of the card so Sega wasn't holding on to them that hard thankfully the power base converter did not need its own separate AC adapter so you can save a power outlet for your mini fridge unfortunately the power base converter does not physically fit into a Genesis model 2. theoretically all of the innards are compatible so you'd have to tear up some plastic if you want to get it to work Europe saw the release of the Master System converter 2 their version of the power base converter this guy would physically fit into the Genesis model 2 and is backwards compatible with the model 1 retaining all of its functionality except for the ability to play cards note that there were some Master System games that required a Master System Controller while being played on the power base converter there were also a couple that were designed for an sg-1000 Graphics mode these games were not compatible with the power base converter at all before we move on from the Genesis we have a few more devices that can play Genesis cartridges to cover there is a japan-only version of the Mega Drive called the Sega Mega jet which initially started as a device to be used on in Japanese commercial flights it didn't have a screen and had to be plugged into an external display the controller was on the device itself it had an additional controller port for a second player it lacked the expansion Port so a Sega CD could not be used it's not listed as compatible with the 32x or powerbase converter nor could I find anyone willing to test but being that it has all the hardware to support one the only thing that would block it is the plastic mold of the device being that there's nothing official saying that this is true I'm still going to mark it as no but if anyone has any information please leave it in the comments and I'll update my sheet the mega jet would actually be the basis of another device released later called the Sega Nomad this was a true portable Genesis sporting its own screen and battery pack taking Six Double A's an option Mega jet users did not have in terms of compatibility it's the exact same as the mega jet it has been confirmed that the 32x won't physically fit all the way in there but with a bit of modification you can make it happen despite having its own screen you could still plug The Nomad into its own external display and like the mega jet it accepted a Genesis 2 AC adapter all in all it was the real deal of portable Genesis although at the rate this thing eats batteries you'll probably be stuck to a wall outlet most of the time another first party Genesis was made in the form of the Sega CDX as it was known in North America or the Sega multi-mega CDX as it was known in Brazil this was a Genesis with a built-in Sega CD it retains all of the functions of that console and its add-on with the additional ability to play audio CDs on the go you see it could be powered by two double a batteries to use the CD player function but you could not play Genesis games like this I mean this thing lacks a screen so you're going to be grounded to a television set anyway it's also compatible with the 32x and power base converter this backwards compatibility like I said at the start of the video there are several licensed and unlicensed imitators for these consoles and the Genesis is no different in fact in the realm of Sega consoles it probably has the largest amount of offenders released very late in the lifespan the model 3 falls under the category of being manufactured by a third party in this case majesco and licensed by Sega under the name Genesis 3 only ever released in North America its compatibility with accessories is less of that compared to the model 1 and 2 as it lacked the CD expansion port and a chip required for the 32x to function it was also incompatible with the virtual eraser Genesis game no dice on the power base converter either it did have one major benefit over its older brothers its cartridge slot shape can accommodate Mega Drive cartridges from Japan which had a wider form factor before we leave the Genesis I want to give a shout out to the JVC officially licensed Genesis clones these include the Wonder Mega its revised model the Wonder Mega 2 and the JVC XI these were premium made premium price Genesis clones that came with a Sega CD built in the CD read time for these were faster than your usual Sega CD and they were compatible with the 32x unfortunately none of them support the originally released power base converter another one of those situations where technically the innards would support it but you'd have to Frankenstein your console to make it work but if you're in Europe and have the Master System converter too that'll work just fine much like the Genesis 3 these also had a wider cartridge slot so you could play any region of Genesis game as long as the game itself didn't have any region lockout capabilities I feel good alright we are finally done talking about the Genesis let's go back to sega's first true handheld console in 1990 the Sega Game Gear The Game Gear was not a revision of a previous Sega console gone handheld nor was it some kind of portable CD player it was Sega just straight up copying the Game Boy its main selling point being its backlit color LCD screen [Music] color [Music] and it had the Game Boy Advance PSP sideways format long before those two would even come to the table much like the Game Boy it had its own cartridge adopting the Genesis jet black look in contrast to the game boy's gray like a lot of Nintendo's handhelds The Game Gear was completely region free the only caveat being that depending on which region of Game Gear you have some cartridges have the ability to read that and will boot into that Region's language now unlike the Genesis which had a pile of adapters and converters to play different game formats The Game Gear really only has one primary licensed one the master gear converter simply put it allowed Master System games to be played on The Game Gear it was only ever released for non-asian markets so if you remember from about 10 minutes ago the western style Master System cartridges were wider while the Asian ones were thinner and taller the master gear converter will only accept the Western ones unfortunately it lacks a card slot to run Sega cards although with a Master System region converter you could convert The Wider Master System some cartridge format to the Japanese smaller thinner one and that would allow you to use a card catcher thereby allowing the use of Sega cards this is like the theme of the video but I just love how if you have enough plastic stuff to plug in you can just go back in time with these Sega consoles additionally if you wanted to play a two-player Master System game on your Game Gear with the converter there was an accessory for that the master link cable this allowed a second player to use a de9 controller surprisingly there was no official way to play Game Gear games on your Genesis I'd say surprisingly because Nintendo did that with the super Game Boy and the Super Nintendo I don't know it may be a bit too tame for Sega we're busy building The Stairway to Heaven over here okay so next up is the Saturn right you would be wrong enter the Sega Pico and advanced Pico Bina Bina Lite these were educational consoles that had proprietary cartridges made for them the first Pico came out right before the Saturn in 93 it saw a worldwide release and it came with these cartridges called storyware which were in fact region free we also have the advanced picobina and Vina light which unfortunately were not backwards compatible with anything from the original Pico wildly enough there were Pokemon games released on the Bena this was around the time where you started seeing Sega games on Nintendo consoles so it's kind of crazy that the same thing was happening vice versa well at least in Japan on this children's toy these were released in 2006 and 2008 respectively exclusively in Japan making them sega's last released game consoles I thought I'd get him out of the way now I'm really just trying to give Sega some respect and end on the Dreamcast as it was meant to be but before we get to the Dreamcast we have to talk about the Sega Saturn and remember Saturn there there's really not too much to say in terms of backwards compatibility as it was a CD based console yet Sega CDs were not supported it could play audio CDs in karaoke CDs but lacked the ability to play Saturn games from other regions unfortunately the same goes for the Dreamcast man stay off the light speed my bad Saturn games nor any other previous Sega games will work on a Dreamcast and yet again it had its own proprietary controllers the Dreamcast did retain its ability to play audio CDs but lost its karaoke CD compatibility one fun fact I can leave you with is that in the late 90s when Microsoft was conceptualizing the original Xbox they were in talks with Sega and the idea that the Xbox would be backwards compatible with Dreamcast games was thrown around obviously this never played out but looking at how Microsoft is handled backwards compatibility of their consoles throughout the years I like to imagine a future where my original Sonic Adventure disc would play on a series X actually probably a good call by Microsoft with all the ramp and piracy going on with Dreamcast games back in the day maybe that was sega's Hail Mary like Microsoft please make a console where people have to buy our games and can't just download them off the internet and burn them to a CD barely made it all right folks well Sega is out of consoles and out of money so that marks the end of the video it truly is wild how different their business mentality was from Nintendo's in the 90s not to say Nintendo didn't have some major flops during that time period but they seem to be a lot more clean cut more willing to move on than cling to what was old and established like it was a huge deal with consumers that the Super Nintendo did not play original NES games but regardless of that I think Sega took another approach and that was just building this big ecosystem of products some definitely got more out of hand than others but if anything it's a Marvel to look back at especially for a Sega fan such as myself alright well that's about everything I wanted to ramble about it's about a midnight at the time of recording so I gotta cut this off thank you so much for watching please hit all those buttons if you don't mind they really help the algorithm recommend this video to others if I got something wrong which I probably did please leave a comment telling me what a big stupid idiot I am please don't forget to tip your waitresses watch out for each other and stay safe out there [Music] [Applause]

Channel: Shanmania

Views: 56,569

Keywords: Sega, backwards compatibility, Sonic, master system, sg1000, cd, 32x

Id: UoLbkZUUv3U

Length: 27min 32sec (1652 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 11 2023