History of Sega in South Africa

History of Sega in South Africa
Official Sega distributor(s): Prima Toys (198x-199x), Consumer Electronics (1992?-199x), World Web Entertainment (2003-2008), Numetro (2009-2012), Apex Interactive (2012-2017), Ster Kinekor Entertainment (2012-2018), Gamefinity (2018-present)

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The SC-3000 is rumored to be the first Sega console released in South Africa, but not much is known.

In the late 1980s, the Master System was released by Prima Toys, which sold the console until the early 1990s, when Consumer Electronics (established by Ozisoft) began the distribution of Sega consoles, starting with the Master System II and Mega Drive I. They released Game Gear and Mega Drive II around 1993 and until the mid-1990s, also sold the Sega Mega-CD II and Mega Drive 32X.

Before 1994, many video games in South Africa were gray imports from America and Japan, which were very popular in places where official products were unavailable. For instance, an American SNES cost R800, the Sega Genesis slightly less and the Sega CD over R1000. In the 1990s, bootleg consoles were popular too, such as the KW-501, which was sold by local retailers. The most recent clone was the TeleGamestation 2, released by Lektron in 2002. Master System multicarts were sold here, but strangely enough carts use Ozisoft moulds which may suggest more shady business from distributors. As well as Famicom and Mega Drive clones, Sega consoles also competed with the Game Boy and Nintendo Entertainment System (distributed from 1992 by Josse Feldman) and PC Engine.

The Sega Saturn was also released by Consumer Electronics in around early 1996 and competed with the PlayStation (distributed from November 1996 by Ster Kinekor Entertainment), Super Nintendo, Game Boy Pocket and Nintendo 64 (distributed from 1996 by THE Games).

Since the Dreamcast, games imported from Europe have been sold under many distributors. World Web Entertainment initially distributed games from Empire and Xplosiv before distributing all Sega games from 2003 to 2008. Numetro then became the official Sega distributor in 2009. In 2012, distribution switched to Ster Kinekor Entertainment, which was sold to KOODOO in 2018, which distributes games under the Gamefinity brand. Additionally, the Sega Mega Drive Classic was sold from 2016 by Apex Interactive, which has also sold select PC games.