I remember being in junior high when everyone was talking about Sonic. The local video rental store had rows of Genesis games, and there was more hype around that blue hedgehog than another Mario game. At the time, I was shifting away from family-friendly Nintendo games toward Mortal Kombat and Madden.
The Table of Contents
What Goes Up, Must Come Down
The Genesis felt more advanced - 16-bit graphics, a new character, something Nintendo didn't offer yet. Even though the SNES eventually got those same games, the Genesis had captured that early-90s cool factor.
Summer 1991: David vs. Goliath
In the summer of 1991, at the Summer Consumer Electronics Show, video game behemoth Nintendo revealed the follow-up to its much-adored NES console. The Super Nintendo would improve on the original in every way, featuring 16-bit graphics and capacity for some 32,768 colors.
And they had Mario. But a little system called the Sega Genesis (Mega Drive in Japan) was determined to play David to Nintendo’s Goliath.
With the same processing power but just 512 colors, the Genesis previewed a game with an obscure blue protagonist no one had ever heard of. And Sonic the Hedgehog debuted. To follow up on the buzz, Sega of America's president proposed a wild idea: drop the console price to $149 while bundling it with Sonic.
Sega Japan was vehement in its opposition, but after a chaotic board meeting that involved chair throwing, the American got his way. The gambit paid off: the Sonic bundle sold 15 million units, Sega was the toast of the town, and the Genesis had entered the cultural zeitgeist.
It was the height of success for the brash and ambitious company. And they would never repeat it again.
Everyone loves an underdog
A bit of history. Sega didn’t begin in the late ‘80s. Far from it, they’d been around since 1940. But why one decade in their 76-year history was a make-or-break one for them was that the ‘90s were the final battleground in the console wars.
By the time Y2K arrived, there would be those consoles sitting atop Mount Olympus, and those that had fallen into obscurity (the TurboGrafx-16, anyone?). Sega was determined to remain the last system standing.
The American Bluster and the Mario Slayer
At least the U.S. arm of the company was. With typical American bluster, new Sega America president Michael Katz, heading a skeleton crew of 40 employees, made the bold statement in 1990 that Sega was going to capture 50% of the console market (this at a time when Sega enjoyed a paltry 6% share).
- But Katz clashed with Sega Japan and was eventually replaced by former Mattel president Tom Kalinske, who was on the same page as the Japanese. The company needed an icon, a “Mario slayer.”
- Enter a wide-eyed blue hedgehog with bubble-gum-pop spiked hair and an arrogant smirk. Sonic the Hedgehog was the brainchild of Sega artist Naoto Ohshima and programmer Yuji Naka. It was a character built for speed, as evidenced by Sonic’s sleek angles.
In hindsight, it was a masterstroke, as the Genesis’s hardware allowed for a faster gameplay the likes of which console owners had yet to experience. The end result: a hyperactive blue rodent zipping along an adventure storyline at a pace Nintendo could only dream of. What better way to appeal to the Ritalin generation?
60% Market Share: The Mountaintop
By the end of 1992, Sega boasted 60% of the console share in North America. It was a chest-thumping achievement that silenced all critics and announced to the world that Sega’s Mega Drive/Genesis was a force
to be reckoned with.
They had reached the mountaintop. All they had to do was cement their legacy, and they would enjoy first place for the foreseeable future. But, alas, it wasn’t to be.
The harder they fall
The first was Sega’s decision to focus on developing console add-ons, which, historically, don’t help game companies expand market share. First, it was the Mega-CD, a disc-playing attachment that promised to immerse gamers in interactive movies. The problem was that the drive was consumer-grade, not CD-ROM, which meant it could barely deliver what was asked of it.
Many test units even burst into flames because the attachment overheated the drives.
- One statement from Scot Bayless, who served as senior producer of Sega during the era, gets straight to the crux of the matter: “The Mega-CD never really had a reason to exist.
The 32X Disaster
You’d think Sega would have learned its lesson after that debacle, but instead, it doubled down with the 32X. It was yet another add-on that was supposed to boost the Genesis’ capabilities to 32-bit in order to compete with Atari’s 64-bit Jaguar console. Sega saw its potential as a shot of nitrous oxide to the Genesis engine, but delivering such power was cost-prohibitive.
They had to scale back the 32X, which resulted in a lack of functionality. Combine that with the fact that they released it a year before the Sega Saturn console, effectively diverting resources from what should have been their sole focus, and they simultaneously sank their next-gen ambitions while delivering a subpar product.
Throwing Everything at the Wall
Throughout the rest of the ‘90s, Sega’s strategy was wholly reactive. Instead of following through on an original vision, they threw everything at the wall in the futile hope that something would capture the public’s imagination.
They released console after console, add-on after add-on, to the point that they had the Genesis, Sega CD, 32X, Game Gear, Master System, etc., always hoping beyond hope that one of them would capture the public’s imagination.
I checked out during this era. The movie clip games that dominated the Sega CD didn't appeal to me, and watching Sega release add-on after add-on made me question where they were headed.
My next console purchase was a PlayStation something new that felt focused and age-appropriate. Nintendo felt too kid-focused, and Sega seemed scattered after the Sega CD and 32X failures. I wasn't putting money into a company that didn't seem focused on what consumers actually wanted.
The Dreamcast: One Last Stand
At the end of the '90s, Sega marshaled all its forces one last time in an attempt to learn from its mistakes. The result was the Dreamcast, a solid, powerful system that could compete on hardware terms with the PlayStation, Xbox, and GameCube.
But Sega had already lost the cultural war. In college in 1998, I was playing the hell out of Gran Turismo on PlayStation. My friends and I were deep into Tomb Raider, Twisted Metal, and Resident Evil. I never saw a
Dreamcast or Saturn in anyone's dorm room.
The occasional Genesis, sure, but nothing from Sega's later years. Looking back, I understand the Dreamcast had a solid library, but Sega had ruined their reputation with me after the Genesis. I never considered buying another Sega console, and judging by what I saw on campus, I wasn't alone.
The console was expensive to manufacture, and it cost more to launch than it recouped. Ultimately, Sega's unsavory reputation followed the Dreamcast, and the machine died with a whimper.
Rising from ashes
But all was not lost for the company. An infusion of cash, as well as a deathbed investment from ailing investor Isao Okawa, kept Sega solvent and facilitated its transition from hardware manufacturing to software publishing.
Today, it is responsible for some successful titles, and the company turns a handsome profit. But the days of Sega as a console powerhouse on the global stage are long gone, never to return again. Possibly.
Collecting Sega Consoles Today
Sega Genesis systems are the easiest Sega consoles to find because millions were sold in the early 90s. Sega CD add-ons are popular with collectors, even though the games were not great. Serious Sega fans buy these up quickly. The Sega CDX is the most expensive because it combined a Genesis and a CD player into one system. The 32X sells well if you have all the pieces, the spacers, cables, and adapters that make it work.
Sega Saturns are harder to find than Genesis systems because they did not sell well in North America. This makes them worth more. If you have the original box and manual for any Sega console, you can sell them together for a lot more than the console alone.
We no longer buy Sega game gears console due to durability issues, as the screens do not work properly because the capacitors inside them have failed over the years. We buy Sega Genesis, Sega CD, 32X, and Saturn systems at The Old School Game Vault - loose or complete, any condition - for cash.
