Sega Genesis / Sega Mega Drive
Developer: Sega
Year Released: 1988
Generation: 4th
The Mega Drive was the successor of the Master System and was released in Japan in 1988. For the North American market it was re-branded as the Genesis when released there in 1989.
The Genesis was adapted from Sega’s System 16 arcade board, centered on a Motorola 68000 processor as the CPU, a Zilog Z80 as a sound controller, and a video system supporting hardware sprites, tiles, and scrolling. It played a library of more than 800 games on ROM-based cartridges. Several add-ons were released, including a Power Base Converter to play Master System games. It was released in several different versions, some created by third parties.
The Mega Drive did very well in North America, Brazil, Australia and Europe but its success in Japan was limited in Japan due to its main competitor Nintendo’s dominating success with the Famicom.
The Mega Drive II was released in 1993 as a smaller, lighter version. It has a less expensive mainboard that required less power and made it a cheaper model. However it also removed the headphone jack and replaced the A/V out connector with a smaller version that supported stereo sound.