The importance of Tom Kalinske cannot be underestimated, if they listened to him then the situation would have been very different. Reduced to a constantly overruled figurehead, you can't blame him for walking

Great, positive episode. Some other things Sega got right: 1. Buying Atlus, Creative Assembly, Relic, Technosoft IPs etc. 2. Aggressive Genesis marketing campaign 3. Choosing the Motorola 68000 as the Genesis/Megadrive CPU 4. Allowing fans/indie developers to make Sonic Mania

"Being a Sega fan was like being on a roller coaster". Absolutely nailed it with that comment

I wasn’t around for the master system, but I came in during the Genesis days. I remember my mom had came home to surprise me with the Genesis bundle and my step dad had gotten his son/my little brother a Snes. That was the day I met Sonic and life was beautiful.

I remember waking up on Christmas morning, and opening my Sega genesis with sonic and streets of rage, ong the music and gameplay had me in bliss soooo happy lol .

As someone from Europe who had (still have my original unit) a Master System I can say it's still my favourite console with my most nostalgic feelings to date.

LOVE the Shinobi III music 🥰

I think their failures have been so mythologized that people forget just how many successes they’ve had throughout their entire existence

I wouldn't say the SVP is something they got "right". It was another case of them squandering a fantastic idea. I actually owned a copy of the Genesis port of Virtua Racing, and it was faster and smoother than anything the SuperFX chip could pull off.

Packing Sonic in with the Megadrive was one of Sega’s greatest moves, and may just be one of the best business decisions ever made.

The subject of Sega's failures and success always come back to my mind, they spent 18 years in the console market and that was a great ride, they teached some lessons to other companies about what to do and not to do, i'm also very grateful to all those years, and their hardware are one of the reasons i became a gamer, and i play until today, although the void Sega left in my heart never will be filled.

They’ve always excelled at creating awesome mascots, from Sonic’s 90s hegemony to Sony’s bane - and Alex Kidd’s badass godfather - Segata Sanshiro (RIP).

Here in the UK and Europe we had Clamshells for the Saturn too! Originally we had a kind of semi Clamshell affair with a piece of thick card glued to 2 halves of plastic which were a bit naff but after a year or so of the Saturn's UK release they were changed to a full plastic Clamshell that is really are solid, imo are even better than the Mega Drive ones.

I bought a Master System when it first came out, bought a Genesis before I got a SNES. Picked up a 32X. Purchased a Saturn long before a Playstation. Got a Dreamcast and enjoyed it long after the PS2 came out. Though Sega had some mistakes I always enjoyed their games and systems.

Seriously this is my favorite Retro Channel ever way better than any of the others out there i love the passion you put in your videos and they are something i look forward to every time one pops up keep up the work man

I remember setting my Saturn clock and realizing it went up to some crazy year like 3000. I never thought in the mid 90s that I would still be setting that date in 2019.

What an amazing company! Sega we love you!!!!! 😁

Sega! A man can dream about an alternate timeline where they still made killer hardware :)

One the best things about watching these videos, - is instantly recognizing 99% of the music segments that are used here.

Here in Belgium, the master system was very popular

Honestly, an honorable mention would be hiring Tom Kalinske in general. Several other things Sega got right in my opinion was targeting maturing gamers with the release of the Genesis, and creating an environment that promoted creativity risk-taking in its first and third party developers (games such as Toejam and Earl, Road Rash, Decap Attack, Comix Zone, Mutant League Football/Hockey and Ecco the Dolphin to name a few, would likely never have seen the light of day on other consoles).

Those clamshell cases made a huge difference - it protects the Master System/Genesis/Mega Drive cartridges from dust and damage.

Great video as always! One thing that Sega always did really well that stood out to me was innovation. Whether it was pushing hardware and software or new crative ways to play games Sega was always at the front of the pack for good and for bad. I miss this kind of almost reckless innovation in gaming today.

Yeah those clamshells did make a difference, I love how the cover art looks when in a crisp genesis case. The only cases that seemed more impressive to me are the shock boxes for the AES

One day good sir would love to see your updated game room tour. Cheers love the content

Your "I'm Sega Lord X, thanks for watching, Catcha next time" is so iconic that I can do an impersonation of it.

Am I the only person who would love to see a collaboration video with Sega Lord X, and Classic Gaming Quarterly? The 2 most epic voices on all of KZfaq

I loved the Master System vhs like cases. I have never understood why Sega used the nes like paper cases with the Game Gear. Cool video looking forward to the top 10 bad decisions one.

"And have them in Stock" Hear that Nintendo? THAT is how you launch a product.

Fundamentally, Sega's strategy was their biggest success: being different, always thinking outside of the box. To be a Sega fan was an act of rebellion against the PC culture embodied by Nintendo. That they did very right!

Ahh.. if only the svp was packaged into a game genie or sonic and knuckles style cartridge. Also, six button controller rocks!

Man the SEGA logo screams “classic”

Great video. That SEGA roller coaster ride was great to experience first hand and I'd jump aboard again with you.

If not for the 32x and the absurd Saturn launch & price it may have fared better. It had a library that eclipsed the N64 and a controller I prefered over the original PlayStation pad. Saturn deserved better than it got.

Even the SVP chip should have been a lock on cartridge with Virtual Racing Included doing it's release date. Sega dropped the ball during there meeting during early 1994. They could discuss about making plans for the SVP chip to SOA and communication on the update of the Saturn.

As an addition to #10, I love the Sega CD cases. Yeah, they cracked a bit too often but there's just something awesome about looking at that faux glass plastic. Cosmic Star Heroine had a printing from Limited Run Games and it came in a case like that. It's fitting because the game feels like a Sega CD JRPG.

Just going through some of your old videos Sega Lord X. I will never forget when I played the Sega Megadrive as it was here in the Uk. My stepbrother brought one home one night and had sonic the hedgehog and Fire Shark and was completely blown away. Played it for hours on end and never got bored of it. Even till this day I’m still reliving my youth by playing the games via emulation.

Great video!!! And don't forget... Tuesday is the big day!! One of the things Sega did right thanks to legendary Yu Suzuki Shenmue lll !!!!!!!!!!

I remember those late 80's early 90's Sega Genesis ads! Even the print ones in EGM and Gamepro! Such a great trip down memory lane. Thanks for posting this!

The MD/JP Saturn pad is indeed a dream. It saddens me that almost every controller nowadays abides to a SNES like layout on some level.

Great video, I felt the nostalgia of when Sega was on top. I would love for them to make a comeback.

VR!!!! Still the most amazing conversion for me ❤

Man talk about nostalgia. My parents got me the 3 game saturn bundle for Christmas back in the 90's. One of the best Christmases i had.

A friend of mine got the Genesis with Sonic for his birthday right around the time they made the change. I was both a Nintendo and Sega fan. Originally, I was holding out for the Genesis, but then wavered after getting the NES late in its life as a supplement to my Master System. When I got to see Sonic in action and play it, I was done. It was a brilliant move to do that. I remember when I got the 6-button pad. I loved it immediately. I bought the controller as soon as I saw it, so it was a bit ahead of Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter 2. Luckily, I read the instructions on the car ride home, because I coincidentally used Golden Axe 2 as the first game to test the controller, which is one of the few games that requires the mode switch. I know there were people that didn't even know what the mode button did and didn't come across any game that needed it. But the first game I picked didn't work properly without doing the mode switch, which is kind of funny. Anyway, nice list. Those game boxes were great. Even Sega's paper boxes were good compared to other paper boxes, though definitely not as good as the old plastic cases.

It’s strange. I was a Master System kid and my younger brother loved his NES. I loved all the games on the NES that are now classics today, but there was just something about the Master System. It had better graphics, incredible games (Phantasy Star, Zillion, etc.) and those 3D glasses.

Here in Brazil the Saturn was bundled with Virtua Fighter, Daytona USA and Sega Worldwide Soccer. Unfortunately I was only able to get mine on a big sale, later I knew that it was because Sega was soon getting out of console business... and with it, all local support. As you said, rollercoaster.

I've said it before but you're the only one on KZfaq that understands the importance of a sports lineup. Montana and Sports Talk Baseball were the initial reasons I wanted a Genesis as a kid. All you gotta do is see that success, Saturn's failure and Dreamcast success. Huge common theme is the sports games. When great systems sold then you have the Saturn sports games. Ugggg. No. 11 on the list would be wait Sega has finally been doing the past 2 years. Hopeful it gets so good itd make a future top 10!

Cool video! When i saw the title, i immediately thought of your number 1 item! People always say the Master system was populair in Europe, but i never heard of the system before the Megadrive launch (i live in the Netherlands by the way). I wanted to buy the Megadrive with Sonic but in our country the pack-in game was still Altered beast (Not that it mattered, because i didn't have enough money to buy the console anyway). However, sometime (and a bit of saving) later, i finally could buy my Megadrive and at that time the pack-in game was Sonic! I couldn't have been happier! The first six months or so i had only Sonic to play with but man, wat a great game it was! I always thought that Sega was very innovative with their consoles, cool idea's and peripherals, maybe it didn't always worked out as intended but i liked Sega for being a bit more experimental en taking more risks than Nintendo did at the time.

I wholeheartedly agree with the clam shell cases. Not only were the practical, but they also had a secondary effect. They created the sense of collecting and fostered a desire to build a collection. As you mentioned.. part the pride and joy was building up a book shelf of boxes that mimicked a library of books. This also had an effect years after as it's far far more common to find complete in box collections for Sega Genesis / Master System games compared to Nintendo. Sadly the boxes for the Sega CD / and the Saturn suffered from being oversized brittle and easily cracked or broken variations on the acrylic CD Jewel case design. Thankfully they did opt to offer DreamCast games in the more practical and common CD Jewel that the PlayStation (and PC games) had also adopted. One of the things not mentioned in this video would be the original Sega CD pack in games / software. Sometimes I think I'm in a very small minority as I was one of the few people that bought ( or begged my mom to buy ) a model 1 Sega CD back when they first came out.. so I guess it's not something many would remember... but they packed in a pretty large amount of stuff with the system. You got a CD with 4 pack of Genesis games on it, a 5th game on a separate disc ( Sol Feces? ) a 6th game ( Sherlock Holmes ) and two music CD's one of which introduced me to Jimi Hendrix for the first time. ;p Though it's arguable that some of the collection isn't as strong as a single pack in like Mario 64..It was still nice to get an instant collection of games that showcased a variety of different genres. Lastly I would mention Virtua Fighter Remix. Sega sent this upgraded version of the Saturn pack in game free of charge to anyone who had sent in their registration card. Though the Sega Saturn didn't fair very well for reasons.. this attempt to give their early backers something of a thank you seemed to give you hope that someone in the company was trying to... care about their company and customers.

Sega certainly got its advertising right as well. "Genesis does what Nintendon't," "blast processing," and Japan's Segata Sanshiro all make for great memories that I think about when I hear the name "Sega."

I was in that initial 1.5M systems. I bought my Genesis because I had to have the sequel to one of my favorite arcade games, Shinobi. It was probably the most expensive thing I bought with my own money to that point. I still remember sitting in science class, calculating when I would have enough money saved up and dreaming about Revenge of Shinobi. I barely passed that class.

Loved it. I feel the main focus lately is always the negative side of SEGA. It's fresh to see some of the good stuff.

I still have my original Dreamcast and play it at-least 2-3 times a week for a change of pace, it is and forever will be my favorite game console of all time. I'm approaching 60 yrs old now but still game on a daily basis and the Dreamcast was so far ahead of it's time it's amazing looking back at all it had all those years ago. Now if you'll excuse me I have some Phantasy Star online that requires my attention, thanks for the great vid.

Thanks! You help me remember some good days. I remember getting the Altered Beast Sega Genesis with a mail in Sonic the hedgehog game.

I completely agree about the clam-shell plastic cases - that thinking about game preservation and collecting in a time before the idea of game preservation and collecting existed

i get flashbacks watching your videos. this one alone made me think i need to look who needs medals to boost their troop numbers. now i have to go play dragonforce.

To this day, I think that the HAG commercial's Sonic is the best-looking animated Sonic ever. It's very short, but I sometimes imagine what a full movie with him in it would have been like. Anyway, thanks for the video!

I can remember all the times my mom hid my Master System controllers because I couldn’t stop playing. I just remember every time she left the house, running into her room, hooking my Sega up to her then, huge 27” Toshiba TV and playing for hours on the floor. Best days, for sure.

Bought a copy of Virtua Racing for the Japanese Mega Drive with case and manual just for the aesthetics. Love how bold and stylish it is!

I guess I shouldn't be too surprised that the Sega Channel didn't make the cut. We're all talking about streaming these days but Sega kind of already did that back in the mid 90s. I only know of one person who had it. My brother's best friend belong to a quite wealthy family, so they had the money to pony up to get the Sega Channel service. A selection of games available through your TV cable provider. It blew my young mind. It was like having a game rental store right there in your house. Just get that special cartridge with a cable hooked up to it and you can browse and play quite a number of titles.

Oh my god, these videos take me BACK, bro! LOVE this channel. So glad the algorithm tossed you my way.

Even before I finished watching: Road Rash on Genesis

I always find myself automatically crank up the volume to hear the ending theme.

I loved calling the tip line back in the day. 1 800 USA SEGA. I still have it in my muscle memory. They sent me a typed two page guide for Phantasy Star with a little map drawn on it.

Genesis’s six button control is the best control ever made

I'll always have a soft spot for Sega, been a big fan since I was a kid played pretty much all their platforms hell I even rock a Sega T-shirt sometimes. Great company, good memories

Very very very soon 40K subs my friend! Keep on the good work👍

It's better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.. Thanks for great times Sega!

How did they do it Right concerning #9 ? Anyhow, nice episode! And every day is a great day to be a SEGA Fan :)

That promo package with the Saturn is by far my favorite gaming memory. My brother and I begged our parents for a Saturn for months, and so they decided to put one on layaway (we grew up kinda poor...). Then, the promo came out just as they'd made their final payment for the original system. They took the system back to K-Mart and asked for the new packaged deal and their extra $50 they had paid. LOL Needless to say, my brother and I were so happy that our parents got us the coolest present that just so happened to come with my favorite game at the time, Virtua Fighter 2. Virtua Cop and Daytona USA became instant faves too. Ah, such great memories!

I so miss hearing this music for the end of all your videos. It's so fitting. Please go back to using this for all your new content

Nice video dude! I love your channel, keep up the good work

If SEGA had any brains, the Genesis/Megadrive would have packed sprite scaling technology in order to play good versions of SEGA's most popular arcade games at that time. If only Outrun on the Genesis was on par with the arcade, the Megadrive would have sold at least ten times more consoles.

Got my Sega Genesis in 1992 on my Sixth birthday, after going to my cousins house and seeing it for the 1st time. I was blown away on how much better it looked than my Nintendo and had no idea a Super Nintendo and Genesis was even a thing before then. All I knew was Nintendo and my older bro had a Sega Master System. The Genesis was one of the Best gaming generations of my life!

They should have had a final version of the genesis called the SONICBOX with every sonic title built into the unit and colored blue with a sonic badge on the unit. Could have sold at least a hundred thousand units I recon.

I was really not expecting this when clicking the video. Amazing work!

Man, we were diehard sega fans back in the day. I remember getting a genesis for xmas and staying up playing sonic for like 7 hours straight!

Sega have a lot excited things for his consoles,his joystick and steering wheel was something what interested me than others

Just gonna be that guy and say that Sega are never gonna get away from the fact that they made Sonic 06, gaming's The Room. It's probably the first thing a lot of people associate them with by now.

Nice I didn't know the mouse worked with Virtua Cop. That's somewhat of a solution to not having a CRT. I enjoyed the crap out of Virtua Squad for PC using the mouse. Far better than a directional pad.

id be happy to be on that rollercoaster as well. just something timeless about sega classics...really ahead of their time. been playing some of those super scaler games that were ported to 3ds and i couldnt believe my eyes how games like thunder blade and power drift still stand the test of time visually. maybe its just nostalgia but those super scaler games still impress me and almost look better than actual polygonal 3d in some ways especially with the 3ds 3d effect. dont get me started on after burner and space harrier. man sega rocks!

The Saturn 3D control pad was the best controller ever. The D-Pad on the US launch controller was what really made it terrible. The worst part of being a Saturn owner in the 90's was waiting for the Sonic Xtreme game that never materialized.

I entered Sega with the Genesis and for me, your number one was spot on for me. I got the Genesis with the Sonic game. It changed my life at the time. Sonic was the coolest character of all time for me way into Sonic and Knuckles. Even when great games like Donkey Kong Country came out and I had a SNES, Sonic always was my favorite. My second game I got actually at the same time as the system with Sonic was Spiderman. Awesome game way before its time. The climbing mechanics would not be matched in a 2D Spiderman game ever again. And my third game... let me not get started on the greatest Beat'em up game in history... there was rage in these streets my friend.

I had many friends in middle school who just wanted to come over and play Virtua Cop 2 🤔

Sega thought it was actually crazy to have what was meant to be their prized game to be packed-in with the console; now it is industry standard.

Sega was a pioneer in the industry. Constantly releasing stuff that tested and pushed boundaries years before its time. The Dreamcast, at launch, was the best system available out there...problem was Sega already built up a checkered past which scared people away. Sega CD/32X/Saturn. It was hard to take the Dreamcast seriously enough for the mainstream to buy in based on the track record Sega was showing in supporting their products. One thing you forgot that Sega got right and it was way before its time...Sega Channel back in 1994.

The return of the Japanese Saturn pad is a bit strange since it's still a Sega mistake and people still had those American pad. If Sega offered to exchange the old pad for the new, it would be a "thing that Sega got right" indeed. It's a bit too bad most of those things are marketing campaign related though. We could talk about the way Sega handled censorship which they definitely got right, the way they handled their arcade development. ( even if i still think this is why their marketing was "too much" concentrated on arcade which interested fewer and fewer people as times passes) You talked about the controller but didn't talked about how the Megadrive was the first one to take into consideration the shape of the hardware in order to not hurt the player hand... Those NES Controllers were spiky in comparison ! Sega also got the online right on Dreamcast since that's what would be implemented on Xbox, saving that legacy. There is a lot of things Sega got right compared to their competitor even outside of marketing campaigns which are.. Always hard to see if they were a real success or not. ( well, the commercials are the exception since they really defined the Megadrive success ) I mean, yeah, it sell consoles but if the company loses money in the process, maybe it's not a real success ? I prefer more concrete things that Sega got right. Even the way that Sega handled the Brazil market is something they got definitely right compared to Nintendo ! Even after Dreamcast's "death", Sega is really an exemple of buying other companies and, contrary to Microsoft, let them do what they do the best. Total War, Football Manager is really what made Sega bread and butter today and Atlus don't seems to be handicapped by the fact they are under Sega and Persona 5 was a very good success. Let's not even talk about the successful manner Sega handle their fans and how it leads to the excellent Sonic Mania. A success good enough to make everyone forget about Sonic Team's own failure. If THAT's not something Sega's done right compared to Nintendo, nothing else will be !

You’re one of my favorite informative gaming channels, you do some great work man keep it up

It is weird how so many gamers out there remember Sega only for their "failures." It's like remembering a rock star only for his suicide or drug overdose.

Yup, my parents got me a Genesis a couple of months after Sonic debuted and was a pack in, I am guessing they bit the bullet with the price drop. I bought myself a Saturn once they did the 3 game pack in. I already owned a PSX (mainly for Squaresoft games and Castlevania) but probably spent 70% of my time with the Saturn from 96 until the system died with Panzer Dragoon Saga.

Loved dreamcast. Walked into gamestop on 9.9.99 and walked out with system, extra controller, nfl 2k, ready to rumble, blue stinger and Tokyo racer. Best launch lineup.

Well said and, much appreciated. Especially part about the hard cases! Something that Nintendo took awhile to learn..

One of the best things Sega did in our region (France) was to not discontinue the Master System, but to offer it as a cheaper alternative to the Mega Drive. Consoles were overpriced at that time... so few people had experience with them. Having a cheaper alternative with a slightly reduced version of their flagship franchise (Sonic) meant not only sold Master Systems, but Mega Drives as well, as people would aspire to own the real deal. They could even keep their old games as they upgraded from the budget to the flagship experience, thanks to the power base converter. Yes, the Master System (and the similarly priced Gameboy) finally caused the French market to open up for consoles, and I know of many people who love theirs to this day!

Makes me wish I still had a Sega Saturn.

1:20 Oh yes, the cases are a wonderful thing. I tried as a kid to keep some of my SNES games in boxes, but they were just a pain to get back into the box with the manuals and not tear the with that goofy cardboard insert and all. The Super Famicom games aren't quite like the MS or Gen/MD games, but they too were packaged in much better boxes that had a plastic insert that held a spot for the game and manual, that really helped keep alot of those in better shape over the years too.

The 3 game pack in was when I got a Saturn. It’s funny they picture the old controller on the flyer but it came with the new conty

You damn right we would hop back on that Sega ride

Wish Sega would make a new system and use your intro as their system startup screen.

I was a big fan of the original UK / USA pad, however I won't argue the d pad on the later version was far superior.

Regarding the Dreamcast's US release, it's also worth noting how well marketed it was. From the 9/9/99 date to the edgy MTV "it's thinking" ad campaign. It really nailed the Dreamcast as a cool, futuristic, modern, "edgy" system. For a brief moment, Sega was back at being relevant and appealing to the "cool kids" and Sony appeared almost naff. I was so mad at the bland european ads in contrast.