It was on October 29, 1988 that Sega released the Mega Drive in Japan. That’s two years before Nintendo released its 16-bit console. Mega Drive was launched in North-America in August 1989 under the name Genesis. European gamers had to wait to November 1990 before they could enjoy the Mega Drive.
Sega was a greate gamemaker for the arcades. And with the Mega Drive, gamer could play arcade games at home with their 16-bit console. Arcade games like Altered Beast, Golden Axe and Ghouls n’ Ghost where converted.
It was when Sonic the Hedgehog was a bundled game with the Genesis, that the sales realy took off in North-America.
In it”s lifetime, over 900 games where released on the Sega Mega Drive and the console itself sold over 35 million units worldwide.
October 29, 2013 marks the 25th anniversary of the Sega Mega Drive.
This blogpost will be updated in a couple of days, when I have more time to write.