On this episode of Classic Gaming Quarterly,
with the help of UK author and podcaster Paul Driscoll and Brazilian YouTube host Eric Fraga
we take a look at Sega’s first entry into the worldwide home console market, with the
1986 launch of the Sega Master System. <Theme music playing…> Sega Games Company, Ltd. can trace it's roots
all the way back to 1940, when 3 American businessmen in Honolulu founded ”Standard
Games" to supply military bases in the Pacific with electromechanical amusement machines
during World War II. After the war, the company was sold off, but
just a few years later founder Martin Bromley and his father Irving Bromberg created "Service
Games" to essentially continue the same business model, taking advantage of increased military
activity due to the outbreak of the Korean War. In 1951, the passage of the Johnson Act outlawed
coin-operated gambling devices on military bases inside the United States, and Service
Games moved its headquarters from Hawaii to Tokyo and focussed on providing machines to
local US military bases, as well as private Japanese buyers. David Rosen was a Korean War veteran who fell
in love with Japan after spending significant time there during the war. Rosen moved to Japan in 1954 and transformed
his existing company, Rosen Enterprises, into an exporting and manufacturing business. In post-war Japan, every citizen was required
to carry a photo ID card, and Rosen saw an opportunity to import instant photo booths
to allow people to quickly create needed pictures. Rosen had an instant hit on his hands, and
was soon looking for ways to expand his business. With the Japanese people beginning to have
more disposable income with the revival of the country's economy, Rosen began importing
older coin-operated amusement machines from the United States, and games like Seeburg's
Shoot the Bear were popular with Japanese consumers, as guns had been outlawed at the
conclusion of the war. In the late 1950's, Service Games began manufacturing
their own coin-operated machines under the brand name "Sega". At the same time, David Rosen saw his marketshare
beginning to slip due to increased competition, and proposed a merger with his friendly competitor. In 1965 the two companies merged, forming
Sega Enterprises, Ltd. with Rosen installed as the CEO. The following year, Sega produced their first
internationally-successful arcade game, Periscope, which cost a then-whopping 25 cents per play. In 1969, Sega was purchased by international
conglomerate Gulf & Western for the modern equivalent of $62 million, with Rosen remaining
as CEO. Sega prospered during the arcade boom that
began in the late 1970’s, producing absolute classics like Zaxxon and Monaco GP. In 1979, Sega bought a Tokyo-based arcade
game distribution company called Esco Trading, owned by Hayao Nakayama, who much like David
Rosen would be an instrumental figure within Sega for years to come. In the early 1980's, in an attempt to diversify
due to slumping arcade sales, Sega decided to enter the home video game market, and in
1983 released its first home video game console, the SG-1000. The hardware was designed around a Zilog Z80
processor and has a palette of just 16 colors. The SG-1000 accepts both cartridges and, the
Sega My Card, which has reduced storage space and as a result sold for less than cartridge-based
titles. The launch of the SG-1000 was unfortunately-timed
both in that more broadly, it coincided with the American home video game crash eliminating
the US as a potential market, and more specifically in that it launched at the same time as Nintendo's
first home console, the Famicom. While the SG-1000 was a commercial under-performer,
selling about 2 million consoles worldwide, it is noteworthy as providing the platform
for legendary game developer and father of Sonic The Hedgehog Yuji Naka's very first
game at Sega. Due to declining revenue, Gulf & Western split
the company up, selling the American assets to Bally in late 1983, while the Japanese
side of the company was purchased by a group of investors led by Rosen and Nakayama. In 1984, the SG-1000 was cosmetically redesigned
and dubbed the mk. II, the most notable change probably being the integration of a card slot,
eliminating the need for a card catcher. The design of both the console itself and
the controllers laid the groundwork for Sega's next home console, which was released the
following year. In 1985, Sega released the Mark III. Like the 1000, the Mark III's hardware is
based around the Zilog Z80, but the amount of both system RAM and video RAM were greatly
increased. The console uses a custom video processor
based on the Texas Instruments TMS9918, which can display up to 32 colors on screen at once
from a total palette of 64, and has a display resolution of 256x192. The
only area in which the Mark III’s hardware lags behind the Famicom is sound. Sega’s system uses an off-the-shelf Texas
Instruments 4-channel programmable sound generator, while the Famicom has a more advanced 5-channel
chip. But Sega released an external FM sound unit
for the Mark III containing a Yamaha YM2413 FM chip that made compatible games sound head
and shoulders above the competition. While this was never officially made available
for the North American Master System, it is possible to modify the console to add FM functionality. The Mark III was never released outside of
Asia, but did sell almost 1 million units, which while no where near the number of consoles
sold by Nintendo, was also nothing to sneeze at. Due to the resurgent American home video game
market, Sega decided to try exporting the Mark III to the United States, creating Sega
of America in March of 1986 with David Rosen as its first CEO. Sega completely redesigned the Mark III and
gave it a new name, the Sega System. This design still featured both a cartridge
and card slot, 2 controller ports, and both an RF out and a multi-AV jack that outputs
monaural sound along with both composite and analog RGB video. The Sega System made its press debut at the
1986 Summer Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago. The system was on store shelves in time for
the Christmas shopping season, and two bundles were available at launch; the $100 Sega Base
System included the console with a combo cartridge featuring Hang-On and Astro Warrior, while
consumers could also purchase the console with a light gun, and a combo cartridge featuring
Hang-On and Safari Hunt for about $30 more in a deluxe bundle called the Sega Master
System. “Sega challenges you with the ultimate video
game. The Sega Master System. With twice as much memory as any other video
game. Advanced video technology like scrolling backgrounds,
graphics in 64 colors, digital sound, and light phasers. And you can add to the excitement with sports
pads, control sticks and the first video games ever in 3D. “Sega’s the one.” Sega Master System: the challenge will always
be there.” The console was of course still competing
with Nintendo's Famicom, which had been released in North America the previous year as the
Nintendo Entertainment System. The Sega System would go on sell 125,000 units
in 1986, but this paled in comparison to the 1.1 million systems sold by Nintendo. Although technically superior to the NES,
the Master System was hampered by a lack of third-party developers due to Nintendo's restrictive
licensing agreements, and Sega only moved about 2 million units in North America, compared
to 34 million systems sold by Nintendo. To make matters worse for Sega, in their home
country they re-released the Mark III under the new Master System design, and it fell
just as flat as its predecessors. While the Nintendo Entertainment System almost
single-handedly revived the home video game market in North America and was a cultural
icon in the late 80's and early 90's, here the Sega Master System has, perhaps unfairly,
been relegated to an esoteric or cult status. But in other parts of the world, the system
didn't just compete, it absolutely dominated. In the early and mid 1980’s, home video
games in the United Kingdom were, for the most part, played on home computers rather
than video game consoles. This was due to a combination of companies
like Atari being slow to move into that market, and the government in the UK pushing computer
literacy in schools. “I bet there’s hardly a pub in the country
that doesn’t have a couple of computers in the lounge bar…” This resulted in the UK following a very different
path to the US in terms of video games; with its emphasis on tape-based home computers
such as the Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad, and BBC Micro. As a result of this emphasis on computer education,
companies began releasing low-cost, mass-market home computer systems like 1980’s Sinclair
ZX80 and 1981’s Acorn BBC Micro. While for a few years video games all but
disappeared from the American cultural landscape, in the UK they were flourishing thanks to
the market penetration of these “educational” home computers. In 1986, the Sega Master System was released
in North America. By this time, the graphics in the popular
home computer platforms such as the Spectrum were beginning to look aged, and people there
were hungry for better graphics and sound. So in early 1987, the hugely-popular British
budget software publisher Mastertronic approached Sega about distributing the console in the
UK, seeing an opportunity to seize the British home console market with a relatively low-cost
system capable of much higher-quality ports. “Do me a favour, plug me in to a Sega!” The Master System made its debut in 1987,
at the Personal Computer World Show in August and was on stores shelves soon after. The machine, costing only £99, came bundled
with the popular Sega arcade classic Hang On, which came built in to the console. By the end of the year over 20 games were
available for the system. Such highlights were the side-scrolling beat-em-up
Black Belt and the excellent Spy Hunter clone Action Fighter. Due to diminishing budget software sales on
the 8-bit micros, Mastertronic’s revenue had begun to decline in 1987, and the Master
System was perhaps the brightest star in the company’s portfolio. Seeing an opportunity to expand into the growing
home console market in the UK, Virgin’s Richard Branson, who already owned a minority
share of the company, purchased Mastertronic outright, merging it with Virgin Games. With little competition from Nintendo, a price
point equal to the ZX Spectrum, and an aggressive marketing campaign the Master System was able
to slowly eat away at the dominance of the 8-bit home computer systems in Britain, and
later the wider European video game market. <Narrator speaking in Italian…> So popular was the Master System in Europe
that it received a number of PAL-only releases, including exclusive ports of arcade hits like
Gauntlet and Forgotten Worlds. Not to mention console-exclusive hits like
Master of Darkness. The Sega Master System would go on to sell
6.8 million units in the European market, accounting for over half of worldwide sales. So successful was Virgin Mastertronic at marketing
the Master System, that they were bought out by Sega in 1991. And so they became Sega of Europe. To talk about the Master System in Brazil,
we need to first go back to Atari and the arcades. We Brazilians played a lot of arcade games. We loved games like Namco’s Pole Position
and Rally-X, which was renamed here to Stock Car by “Taito do Brasil”, probably the
biggest pinball and arcade games distributor here in the 1980’s. Also, many Sega games were in the arcades
here, and I was a lucky enough to play Altered Beast, After Burner, Golden Axe and Shinobi. The actual experience of playing those games
in the arcade back then feels to me like being in heaven, next to my Atari 2600 games at
home. The Atari 2600 came to Brazil in 1983, the
year of North America’s video game crash. For us, that year was just the beginning of
home consoles. The Atari 2600 brought Missile Command and
Pole Position into our homes along with original games like Pitfall and Enduro. I loved my Atari, but that “Sega”, that
Japanese touch was not there. Before the Master System itself appeared here,
there was a very small home computer market, basically dominated by clones of the ZX Spectrum. The, as we call it here, the “te ca noventa
chis”, the “TK90X” was the one I played at a friend’s. But the MSX computer was launched here before
the Master System and that computer was big, probably the most popular home computer in
Brazil before the IBMs took over. I had many friends who had it so I played
a lot of Konami games like Knightmare, Goonies and somehow got used to and started to love,
without realizing it of course, the Z80 processor and the PSG sound and music. Then at the very end of the 80’s, Tectoy
released the Master System, along with TV ads, magazine ads, and all that. I got mine for Christmas in 1989 with Alex
Kidd in Miracle World, besides Hang-on and Safari Hunt that was built-in and of course
the snail maze game that we called here in Brazil “Jogo do Labirinto Secreto”, meaning
just “Secret Labyrinth Game”. Tectoy released the Master System making it
sound like a premium device for us in Brazil, because at the same time the NES and Famicom
clones started selling here. There was a lot of models and makers, just
too many to list here, but also there was just one problem: not one of them was an official
Nintendo product. On the other hand, they were a little bit
cheaper than the Master System, which kind of helped its image as a premium console. The build quality and presentation also helped
because Tectoy was mostly importing parts from Japa nand assembling them here with some
changes; the most notable change I think was not having the multi AV out and instead the
direct composite outputs, which was OK for us because all of our TV sets were composite
or RF-only, at the time anyway. It’s also not NTSC, it’s PAL-M, which
actually is more like NTSC than European PAL, apart from the acronym. The Master System gave us Brazilian players
who came from the Atari 2600, arcades and a bit of MSX, games like World Grand Prix,
a very simple racing game that was very smooth, had a nice and clean presentation and those
Namco’s Pole Position arcade colors. That was awesome for a gamer like me who hoped
to have this kind of smooth gameplay at home. And keep in mind that we Brazilians really
loved simple racing games. Enduro from Atari 2600 was one of the most
successful games here in the 80’s. Maybe it’s Ayrton Senna’s fault? We will never know… But the Master System was so much more than
that for us; it was the Sega arcade conversions. For gamers who actually played Altered Beast
and Golden Axe in the arcades, we knew that we could not have the same experience at home. But even with the low framerate, the games
actually looked like the arcade original, had the same music and almost the same gameplay. The Master System did not have the huge library
that the NES had, but Tectoy managed to release most games and Sega did its part without Konami,
Capcom and all those great Japanese companies, because as we all know they were only allowed
to develop for the NES. Of course, I missed games like Castlevania
and Zelda on my Master System, but Master of Darkness and Golvellius were filling this
void. Later came Phantasy Star, for which Tectoy
even released a fully translated version. And it did not stop there: Ultima IV, a Sega
conversion of a landmark RPG. I was lucky enough to get that game and remember
being so puzzled by it! It was not translated like Phantasy Star,
but by that time I was learning English just to play Master System RPGs and adventure games. All those type of games were available officially
for us, thanks to Sega really working hard on porting and developing games across all
genres and Tectoy releasing most of them here in Brazil. And guys, that’s the story of the Master
System in Brazil. To us, it’s just one of the best home consoles
of all time. The Sega Master System was on store shelves
here in North America in September of 1986. In addition to the combo cartridges included
with the two system bundles, five stand-alone games were immediately available at launch. Choplifter, World Grand Prix and Fantasy Zone
were released on Sega's Mega Cartridge media, with Transbot and Ghost House released on
Sega Cards. Lastly, there was a hidden game on the console’s
system ROM called Snail Maze, accessible by pressing “up” and both buttons on the
controller when starting up the system without a cartridge inserted. “Sega: hot hits today; hot hits on the way. Plug in to today’s hottest arcade hits,
like After Burner, and Alien Syndrome. With even more red-hot arcade hits on the
way like Shinobi, Thunder Blade, and 2-player Double Dragon. The fun keeps comin’ at’cha, only from
Sega. Hot hits today, hot hits on the way.” The pack-in game common to both the Base and
Master System, Hang On is a port of a 1985 arcade hit by Sega AM-2 and celebrated game
designer Yu Suzuki. While the arcade machines featured analog
controls and either handlebars or a motorcycle chassis to sit on, which was revolutionary
in 1985, this home version obviously depends on digital controls using the Master System
controller. The game scrolls smoothly and features a vibrant
color palette, which is used to give a unique look to each of the five areas in every course. The game has 8 such courses which have differing
layouts but the exact same environments. If you at any time touch either one of the
opposing riders or items on the side of the road, like bushes, cactuses, or light poles,
you perish in a fiery inferno, losing precious seconds in the process. There is no in-game music, and although the
sound effects are good, part of your bike’s engine noise cuts out whenever you’re passing
or being passed by another rider, probably due to the limited number of sound channels
in the stock PSG chip. This home version of Hang On is both a fun
game and a respectable port of the arcade hit, all things considered. Were it the stand-alone pack-in game for the
system, as it was in the UK, it might be a bit of a let-down due to the lack of any real
replay value, but thankfully, here in North America you got a 2-game combo cartridge,
regardless of which system you bought. Available only as part of the Base Bundle,
Astro Warrior is a vertically-scrolling space shooter that was specifically developed for
the home market. When the game begins, your ship, the Astoro
Raider, is cumbersomely slow and has a little pea-shooter for a weapon. Grabbing power-ups that float down the screen
both increases your speed, and adds firepower. You can also pick up little helper ships,
just like the options in the Gradius series. Astro Warrior has good sound effects and catchy
music, and once again takes advantage of the Master System’s expanded color palette. There’s an interesting variety of enemies,
but the end-level bosses are much too easy to defeat, and the entire game is only three
levels long, cycling back to the beginning ad infinitum. The Hang On/Astro Warrior combo cart was never
made available in Europe, as the game was instead paired with action puzzler Pit Pot. Uninspired as it may be, it’s still a decent
pack-in game, especially as part of a 2-pack. The gameplay is certainly primitive compared
to later shooters of the 8-bit generation, but for a 1986 launch title and pack-in freebie,
much like Hang-on, it’s good for some short-term fun. Paired on the cartridge with Hang-On in the
Master System bundle was Safari Hunt, a light gun game that was ostensibly Sega’s answer
to Nintendo’s Duck Hunt. Speaking of light guns, the Sega Light Phaser,
which was both packaged with the Master System bundle and subsequently available as a separate
purchase, worked on the same principle as the NES Zapper. Although I have both heard and read it stated
that the design of the Light Phaser was based on the Sega co-produced anime series Red Photon
Zillion, the reverse is actually true, with the cartoon being designed so as to tie back
in to Sega’s hardware. A total of 13 games were made for the Light
Phaser, including Gangster Town, and a port of Taito's arcade hit Operation Wolf that
was never released in the United States. Much like Duck Hunt, in Safari Hunt you have
to shoot a requisite number of animals in each stage in order to move on to the next. The three levels in the game take place in
lake, forest, and jungle settings, and each have their own variety of prey to shoot. The trio of levels just loops, so you're playing
for high score rather than to complete the game. As early 8-bit light gun games go, this one
certainly compares favorably, but as I’ve just never been able to get into the genre,
Safari Hunt is still pretty forgettable for me, and I suspect that the 10 year old version
of myself would have been much happier with the Base Bundle's included games. Choplifter was originally programmed by Dan
Gorlin and released by Broderbund on the Apple II in 1982. Due to its popularity, the game was subsequently
ported to just about every other home computer platform, including the Commodore 64, which
is where I first played it. In 1985, Sega created a coin-op version of
the game for their System 1 arcade hardware, sometimes referred to as the Sega System 8. It was this version of the game was in turn
ported to the Mark III and Master System. In Choplifter, you take the role of a combat
helicopter pilot. However, rather than the objective of the
game being to shoot as many enemies as possible, your goal is actually to save prisoners of
war. You take off from a landing pad that seems
uncomfortably close to enemy lines and land near enemy strongholds to allow prisoners
to board the helicopter. In doing so you become a sitting duck, meaning
that you’ll often need to take off and attack approaching enemies in order to protect both
yourself and the defenseless prisoners. Being that it’s based on the updated arcade
version of the game, the Master System’s Choplifter looks quite a bit better than the
earlier home computer and console versions, aided by both the variety between levels,
and the Master System’s expanded color palette. This version of the game also expands upon
the original, with levels taking place over land and sea, and even in caves. Choplifter provides great arcade action with
a unique twist, and the only real criticism that I can level at the game is that it’s
frustratingly difficult. But in my opinion, that’s where arcade games
got their replay value back in the day, and Choplifter is absolutely worth the challenge. The first of two games released at launch
on Sega Card, Transbot is a horizontally-scrolling shooter that was specifically developed for
the Mark III, where it was released as "Astro Flash". Ostensibly, the game was inspired by the then-popular
TV show and toy line "Transformers", and in fact the game was ported to Sega's System
E arcade hardware, on which it was released in the west as "Transformer". Maybe Transformers weren’t popular in Brazil,
as this game was released there as “Nuclear Creature”. Transbot uses a randomized power-up system
that frustratingly, gives you limited-use advanced weapons, or just turns you into a
flying robot, enlarging your hit-box accordingly. The game isn't horrible, but it's certainly
unremarkable, and was easily the weakest of the three shooters available at launch. World Grand Prix was the other racing game
initially available for the Master System, this time loosely based on Formula 1 grand
prix racing. If not a proper sequel, the game is at the
very least a spiritual successor to the 1985 SG-1000 and MSX game "GP World", which itself
was a home conversion of a 1984 arcade game. Rudimentary as they may be, the game at least
tries to mimic real-world grand prix circuits, and while the game never actually tells you
in which country each race is being held, it’s often easy enough to figure out based
on the colorful background graphics specific to each circuit. The game has the same sound limitation as
Hang On, but once again it’s a minor annoyance, at best. On the surface, World Grand Prix might seem
similar-enough to Hang On to make one wonder why anyone would buy it, but this game has
a wider variety of levels, the ability to upgrade your car, and perhaps most importantly,
a built-in track editor, which was actually a carry over from the aforementioned GP World. Unfortunately it isn’t possible to save
your tracks due to the lack of any kind of battery back-up, but this was back in the
days when I was using a pen and paper to map out dungeons in role-playing games, and one
could easily do the same here. Whether or not the game is worth visiting
today is up for you to decide, but I can easily see my childhood self spending a Saturday
night sleep-over with a friend designing and challenging each other with increasingly ridiculous
custom-designed circuits. The other game initially released on Card
was Ghost House, which was also the sole platform game available at launch. The game certainly has its own charm, but
ultimately is fairly shallow and repetitive compared to later platform games of the 8-bit
era. I feel like a broken record saying that Ghost
House has colorful graphics, so I guess I just really like the Master System’s color
palette. The
gameplay however can be rather frustrating, which isn’t helped by the fact that the
“jump” and “attack” buttons are backwards compared to most platformers. This game was released in Brazil by Tectoy
as “Chapolin vs. Dracula”, Chapolin referring to “El Chapolin Colorado”, or “The Crimson
Grasshopper”, who was the main character in an eponymous Mexican comedy TV series from
the 1970’s, and who was also the inspiration for the “Simpsons” character Bumblebee
Man. This version is basically a graphical hack
of the original, replacing the main character “Mick” with Chapolin, and changing some
of the background elements, but also swapping the “jump” and “attack” buttons, making
this the more playable of the two versions. Ghost House is the kind of game that, had
I owned it in 1986, I would have played just because I had it, but it was certainly nothing
more than weekend rental material. Three of the 8 Sega Master System launch titles
were arcade ports, and all three were originally released on different arcade platforms. Hang-On was developed on purpose-built hardware,
and Choplifter was a Sega System 1 release, while Fantasy Zone was released on Sega’s
System 16, the newest of the three platforms and the basis for the hardware design of the
Sega Genesis. Fantasy Zone was designed by Yoji Ishii, who
also developed the 1984 arcade hit Flicky, directed both Hang On and OutRun alongside
designer Yu Suzuki, and later produced notable Saturn titles including Panzer Dragoon and
Burning Rangers. Fantasy Zone is one of the original games
in a sub-genre that has come to be known as “Cute-em-Ups”. Other examples include 1985’s Twinbee by
Konami, and the famously-expensive Magical Chase by Palsoft on the PC Engine and TurboGrafx-16. Ishii was tasked with designing a game to
compete with Konami's arcade hit Gradius, but not wanting to create a straight knock-off,
he chose to use a pastel color scheme and a hand-drawn graphical style. Drawing from his experience creating Flicky,
he also chose to use a free-scrolling, rather than fixed-scrolling design, reminiscent of
arcade classic Defender. In Fantasy Zone you take control of “Opa-Opa”,
a sentient space ship trying to save its world, the “Fantasy Zone”, from alien invaders. In each level, you need to destroy the 8 alien
bases, triggering a boss battle. Vanquished enemies drop coins, which can be
used to buy limited-use weapons and ship upgrades and even extra lives, from a shop that periodically
appears in each level. I know I just got done saying how much I like
the Master System’s color palette, but admittedly I’m not a fan of the color scheme in the
first level of this game. While it looks great in the arcade, the Master
System's comparatively-limited color palette make it a look that was difficult to replicate
at home. Thankfully, the rest of the levels in Fantasy
Zone look gorgeous. The game’s catchy and upbeat soundtrack
was composed by Hiroshi Kawaguchi, who also composed the music for Hang-On, Space Harrier,
After Burner, and the musically-iconic OutRun. The game’s cuteness belies it’s difficulty,
and unlike Astro Warrior, this is probably not a game that you’re going to immediately
finish and grow tired of. What it is however is a much more rewarding
gameplay experience, and it was by far my favorite game to play for this episode. Were I buying a Master System at launch, I
think I would have opted for the Base Bundle, having no real interest in light gun games,
and would have grabbed Fantasy Zone and World Grand Prix to sink my teeth into once I was
done playing Hang-On and Astro Warrior. That’s going to do it for this episode of
Classic Gaming Quarterly, but before we go I want to give a huge thanks to my 2 guests,
who helped make this episode a success. Paul Driscoll is a published author and co-host
of the RGDS podcast, and his first book “Press Start - The Birth of Video Games Before 1977”
is available on Amazon. Eric Fraga hosts the Brazilian YouTube channel
“Cosmic Effect”. Now, it’s all in Portuguese, but a video
he made chronicling the the design and construction of his “Super Console” is worth checking
out whether you understand the language or not. Eric is also a talented electronic musician,
and you can check him out on SoundCloud.com/CosmicEffect. As for us, you can always keep track of us
between episodes on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, or our website cgquarterly.com. As always, thanks for watching and I’ll
see you next time. Oh, and Chris, by the way, nice Ayrton Senna
hat on the Sega Saturn episode!
