Sega Master System
The Master system (originally called SG-1000 Mark III) was released in Japan on October 20, 1985 and then later redisnged and released in the United States on year after the NES under its new name (Master System) in June 1986. The console originally sold for about $200. Until this point Sonic the Hedgehog did not yet exist and Alex KIdd was the mascott of the system.
Although the Master System had more technical advancement than the NES it did not gain nearly the same popularity. The main causes were due to the fact that games released on the NES differed from those on the Master System and games often had a later release date. The Master system only sold 125,000 consoles in its first four months while the NES in that same time span sold nearly 2,000,000 conosles. At this point Nintendo had control of nearly all of the North American market and Sega decided not to push the console in an NES saturated market. Sega eventually sold the rights of the Master System to Tonka but this was a bad decision as Tonka had no experience in the Video Game market and thus popularity continued to deminish.
In 1990 the master system had a bit of a rebith if you will. While Sega was having great success with the Genesis they bought back the rights to the Master system, gave it a redisgn and called it Master System II. Some specs of the original were lost in an attempt to make the console smaller and reduce production costs. Sega tried just about everything to market the console but it still could not gain popularity. The Master System did manage to become quite popular in Brazil however and characters in the games had been modified to more appeal to Brazilan audiences. Overall the Master System failed to capture Japanese and North American Markets but Sega learned from the mistakes of the Master System and was able to make the Genesis become a huge player all around the world.
On a side note, the master system had a few secret built in games. To access the games turn on your Power Base without a cartridge. While the Sega Master System logo is coming on, press and hold the directional UP while simultaneously holding down buttons 1+2. Once the logo fully appears, the games will be available Different models had different games, Alex Kidd, Missile Defense, Hang On/ Safari Hunt, or Hang On/Aster Warrior. The original SMS had a maze game dubbed "Snail Maze".
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