The Sega Master System (セガ・マスターシステム, Sega Masutā Shisutemu^?) is a home video game console introduced by Sega in 1986 and was capable of 8-bit graphics and sounds. It was a rival to the very successful Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The Master System is regarded as being superior to the NES in terms of general system capabilities^[11] but it unfortunately failed to gain enough attention in both North America and Japan. Its successor is the Sega Genesis.

However, the Master System was quite successful in Europe and especially South America. Its lifespan was long enough to see four Sonic games (except Brazil which has five Sonic games), before its discontinuation in 1991 in North America, 1992 in Japan, and 1996 in Europe. Except in Brazil, where this console remains produced to this day due to the massive popularity of this console in that country.^[12]

The Sega Game Gear is based on the Master System's architecture, resulting in the handheld and game console being cross-compatible in certain titles and hardware. Due to the Game Gear's slight technological edge over the Master System however, any title ported to the Master System results in a minor graphical downgrade.

List of Sonic games

	(Europe, South America) [citation needed]	(Europe) [citation needed]
		(Brazil)

Characters introduced

• Miles "Tails" Prower
• Silver Sonic

Trivia

• The Master System so far is the only Sega system that had two completely different names on the same region, with the Mark III and Master System both having released in Japan.
• The Master System version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (8-bit) was only released in Europe and South America.^{[citation needed]}
• The Master System VDP was based on a video display controller made by Texas Instruments named the TMS9918 which was used on the preceding Sega console, the SG-1000.
• The Master System version of Sonic Chaos was only released in Europe,^{[citation needed]} while Sonic Blast was only released in Brazil by Tectoy.
• The Sega Master System made regular cameo appearances in Regular Show. Both console and controllers are exactly the same despite the show apparently being mirrored.
• The Sega Master System has no exclusive Sonic games, as all games released for it having also been ported to the Game Gear.
• There are 318 games officially released for the Sega Master System.
• The Master System had no region lock chip inside the hardware. This means owners can play any games from any region.
• The Master System is the longest living console in the world, surpassing the Atari 2600. Despite being discontinued internationally by Sega since the 1990s, the console is still in production, specifically in Brazil, after 38 years of its first 1985 introduction in Japan, due to 3rd-party companies producing new variants of the original system.
• In South Korea, the Sega Master System was released by Samsung under the name "Gam*Boy" in April 1989, followed by the Master System II, under the name "Aladdin Boy", in 1992.^[13]

References

External links

• Master System at Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia