1990:
In Japan, Nintendo finally released its Super Famicom with
Super Mario Bros. 4 (released elsewhere as
Super Mario World) as the launch title. The system soon showed that its graphics could at the very least match the Mega Drive's and its sound chips were more sophisticated. Nonetheless, the delay in releasing the console as the SNES in America (one year) and Europe (two) would prove crucial...
The Nintendo Super Famicom
Super Mario Bros. 4 a.k.a. Super Mario World
Two new handhelds came out in Japan to challenge the Game Boy's dominance, both failing to make much of a dent in its sales. Like the Lynx in America, both were more technically capable than the Game Boy but also more expensive. Sega's Game Gear was essentially a portable Master System, while NEC's TurboExpress, more impressively, was a portable PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16. The latter's sales were disastrous thanks to poor marketing, and Japan was not the only market in which marketing would spell trouble for NEC...
The Sega Game Gear (Japanese/American version 1)[1]
The NEC TurboExpress
Nintendo proved the NES' continuing popularity in North America by releasing the celebrated
Super Mario Bros. 3 and the puzzle game
Dr. Mario, clearly inspired by Tetris but, unlike many Tetris-clones on the market, using distinct game mechanics as well as simple mascot power. Capcom also continued its Mega Man series on the NES with the release of
Mega Man 3 in both Japan and North America: once more, a two-year delay in the European version (already hampered by the NES' poorer sales there) continued to ensure that series stayed off the European radar.
Super Mario Bros 3
Dr. Mario
Mega Man 3
But for all of Nintendo's success, great things were afoot. A tectonic shift, a - if you'll pardon the pun - game changer.
Disappointed with the "Genesis"' poor impact in North America, Sega of America's CEO Michael Katz's marketing strategies were criticised. As Nintendo owned the rights to many arcade ports - which hampered the "Genesis"' major selling point of arcade-style graphics compared to the NES - Katz elected to publish a large number of games with celebrity tie-ins to try and build publicity. Most of these were sports-related and sold poorly. One exception was
Michael Jackson's Moonwalker, a licence of the eponymous singer's equally eponymous film. The game was developed with Jackson's oversight, incorporated his trademarks and music (as well as the console could reproduce it) and, unlike many licences, was a genuinely good platformer which well represented the "Genesis"' superior graphics, for all its peculiarities. It also began a long relationship between Sega and Jackson.
"Michael Jackson's Moonwalker"
Katz's other tactic had been to adopt a very confrontational approach to illustrate the "Genesis"' superiority over the NES, emphasising its graphics and its 16-bit nature, culminating in the slogan "Genesis Does What Nintendon't".
That infamous Sega ad campaign.
But this had failed to make much impact on "Genesis" sales, and midway through the year Katz was replaced as Sega of America CEO with Tom Kalinske, who had new and radical ideas for selling the console. Kalinske decided that the "Genesis" needed its own iconic mascot to rival Mario, and the resulting game should be packaged with the console rather than
Altered Beast. The Japanese board of directors thought he was mad, but President Hayao Nakayama approved Katz's strategy, and Sega's AM8 division was directed to create Katz's game-changer of a game.
By contrast to its disappointing American sales and positively anaemic Japanese ones (where it was consistently outsold by the PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16) the Mega Drive roared into supremacy in Europe practically from its release, also this year. It helped that the competition was limited: the Master System had outsold the NES, and the TurboGrafx-16 only made it to Britain, and then in limited numbers. Sega also capitalised on the Master System's strong sales by releasing the Power Base Converter, a peripheral which allowed Master System game cartridges to be played on the Mega Drive.
Sega Mega Drive with Power Base Converter (American model shown, hence "Genesis" signage)
The Mega Drive's 16-bit graphics blew away the remaining competition from the home computer market and Sega adopted a marketing campaign that needed not be so confrontational as in North America, but was nonetheless "edgy" and attacked the kiddie image of computer games. Their preferred slogan was "To be this good takes AGES - to be this good takes SEGA!"
The Sega Pirate, host of European Sega adverts
Raunchy Mega Drive advert in "Viz"
And so the Mega Drive would be the "cool" console of the rebellious European kid of the early 90s, even before the release of Katz's master plan...
[1] In OTL, the Game Gear only had one version. Bear that in mind...
