This put Sega in a tough position, it could only survive on it’s own arcade conversions for so long, the solution wasn’t perfect but it was workable, Sega would obtain the rights to “reprogram” other developers games for their own system, however most of these titles were not the AAA games that had lit up the local arcades, Nintendo seemed to have a stranglehold on those, so although the Master System’s software library was bolstered, it was with games that were unlikely to give them a killer hit.īy 1986 Nintendo controlled 90% of the American video-game market, Sega couldn’t find anyway to secure a foothold, the NES had an impressive library of games and at the time retailed for $10 less than Sega’s hardware, Nintendo also had a far superior distribution chain including outlets like Toys ‘R’ Us, which gave them much better brand recognition, to all intent and purpose when Americans thought of video-games, they thought of Nintendo. Nintendo had their reasons, which some would argue were not all about destroying any potential competition, the videogame crash of 1983 had pretty much destroyed every company in the industry at the time, blamed in no small part on the market being flooded with sub par games, Nintendo sought to prevent this from happening again by forcing developers to adhere to Nintendo’s licensing terms, as a result developers had to sign agreements limiting them to only producing five games a year, all of which would have to pass Nintendo’s seal of quality and be exclusive to the NES, which obviously seems like a massive overstretch if they were just worried about shovelware, by design of course it also left Nintendo with a complete stranglehold of the wordwide console market.
Nintendo had courted pretty much all of the major developers, companies like Taito, Namco, Capcom, et al, had happily signed on, Nintendo as part of their licensing agreement insisted that developers keep their games exclusively on the NES platform and given that at that point they were the only real player in the game, everybody was more than happy to acquiesce, so despite having superior hardware Sega’s lateness to the party would cost them dearly. The problem was immediately apparent, the move to break America still left Sega in a head to head competition with Nintendo and their popular NES hardware which had been available in America for almost a year before the Master System arrived, to make matters worse, just like in the Japanese market Nintendo had most of the big third party developers tied up in licensing agreements that prevented them for producing their games on rival systems. The Sega Mk III was released in Japan in October of 1985, but like its predecessors the machine was far from successful, Nintendo had the Japanese market sewn up and it seemed like any competiton was doomed to failure, Sega however remained undeterred, setting their sights squarely on the American market the Mk III was redesigned in a sleek new casing and rebranded as the Master System, the new revision was unleashed upon the American market originally planned for September of 1986 but stock didn’t hit shelves until the following month, for around $139 you could pick up the Power Base which came packaged as the console with one controller, for $10 more you could pick up the Master System which also included a second control pad and the Light Phazer peripheral. The birth of the Master System lies in Sega’s first foray into home consoles, Sega had been in existence since the 1960s and was one of the early arcade pioneers, so their entry into the home market wasn’t too much of a shock, their first home console the SG1000 was released in Japan on July 15th 1983, the machine was a little powerhouse, Hardware expansions were released for the machine that allowed it to function as a personal computer with a similar specification as Sega’s SC3000, the console was succeeded by the SG1000 Mk II, both of which failed to make any waves in the Japanese market.
The Sega Master System was a machine, for its time it was far more powerful than its nearest rival Nintendo, but failed to put a dent into either its home territory of Japan or the lucrative American market, it did however perform well in Europe and Brazil leading to a lot of territorial exclusives that makes it a perfect machine for collectors, especially as the North American machine can play European games without the need for modding.