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| − | :''This rewrite is '''under active development''' and will replace the original page once complete.''
| + | #REDIRECT [[Sega Mega Drive]] |
| − | {{ConsoleBob
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| − | | logos=[[File:Mega Drive logo.png|320px]]
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| − | | consoleimage=Megadrive1.jpg
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| − | | imgwidth=320px
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| − | | maker= [[Sega]]
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| − | | variants= Mega Drive 2, [[Genesis 3]], [[Sega Mega Jet]], [[Sega Nomad]], [[Sega Teradrive]]
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| − | | add-ons=[[Sega CD]], [[32X]], [[Power Base Converter]], [[Super Magic Drive]]
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| − | | processor=[[Motorola]] [[68000]] (or equivalent), 7.67MHz NTSC/7.61MHz PAL; [[Zilog]] [[Z80]] (or equivalent) for sound programming and [[Master System]] compatibility, 3.58MHz NTSC/3.55MHz PAL
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| − | | europe=Winter 1990
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| − | | usa=9 January 1989
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| − | | japan=29 October 1988
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| − | | australia=
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| − | | benelux=
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| − | | brazil=Winter 1990
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| − | | germany=
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| − | | scandinavia=
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| − | | southkorea=
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| − | }}
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| − | The '''Sega Mega Drive''', called '''Sega Genesis''' in the United States due to trademark issues, is a video game console developed by [[Sega]] in 1988 in an attempt to take back its losses in the home gaming market from Nintendo by creating a home console to provide a closer arcade experience at home. Arcade hardware manufacturers had been creating games with more complex visuals and soundscapes than the Nintendo Entertainment System could provide, and Sega saw an opportunity for success — using scaled down versions of commonplace arcade components that would fit more easily in a consumer's budget and building on its existing [[Master System]] hardware to make manufacturing cheap (consequently, the Mega Drive can run in Master System mode, and various cartridge converters were made).
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| − | It was first released in Japan on October 29, 1988 with two launch titles, ''[[Space Harrier II]]'' and ''[[Super Thunder Blade]]'', and retailing at ¥21,000. International releases would come over the next few years. The early game library and marketing campaigns focused on the arcade-at-home stance, and the Mega Drive found itself following the trends of arcade games at the time — [[:Category:Mega Drive Shoot-'em-Up Games|shoot-'em-ups]].
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| − | Consumers quickly became weary of the constant stream of arcade ports, and over time, game developers started putting different games on the Mega Drive — from RPGs like ''[[Sword of Vermilion]]'' and ''[[Shining in the Darkness]]'' to strategy games like ''[[Super Daisenryaku]]'' (the first third-party game in Japan) and ''[[Herzog Zwei]]'' (generally referred to as the first real-time strategy) to platformers like ''[[Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse]]'' and so on. [[Electronic Arts]]'s support as a third party developer furthered this distancing, as EA's catalog, stemming from their history as computer game publishers, was much more diverse, primarily focusing on sports games. The release of ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' in 1991 finished this distancing, as developers scrambled to compete with Sega's new success.
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| − | Sega also played the console add-on game with the [[Sega Mega CD]], which impressed gamers in Japan with a rich variety of games, however overseas, marketing focused on "full motion video" games that continuously failed to impress.
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| − | Nevertheless, games from all genres continued rolling in through to 1995. The [[Sega Saturn]] was already out in Japan and newcomer Sony was ready to tout its new PlayStation as the future. The success of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System had started to increasingly steal Sega's thunder from 1991. Third-party support for the Mega Drive disintegrated as the newer consoles and the improved capabilities of the Mega Drive's competitors wooed developers away. Finally, in a combination of poor communication between [[Sega of America]] and [[Sega of Japan]] and the desire to keep the Mega Drive afloat, Sega of America released the [[Sega 32X]], an add-on which added its own additional capabilities to the Mega Drive, such as a larger color gamut. The 32X was released too late, had manufacturing errors at launch, and was too expensive to impress, and promptly fell flat on its face.
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| − | The Mega Drive died in Japan in 1995, with Sega releasing [[Pepenga Pengo|its last first-party game]] in Decenber and [[Compile]] releasing [[Madou Monogatari I|the last third-party game]] the following year. However, Sega contracted [[Majesco]] to continue manufacturing Mega Drives in the US and Europe through 1998, and the few third party developers and first party studios that stayed on board produced games like ''[[Vectorman 2]]'' and ''[[Sonic 3D: Flickies' Island]]'' and many compilations. In an ironic twist of fate, a straight port of ''[[Frogger]]'' would be the last officially released Mega Drive game.
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| − | ==Hardware==
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| − | * Main CPU: [[Motorola]] [[68000]] running at 7.67MHz NTSC/7.61MHz PAL
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| − | **The 68000 has a 24-bit address space, allowing access to up to 16MB of memory. Sega's memory map for the Mega Drive allowed games to be up to 4MB without the use of a memory mapper; games that tried to go up to 10MB would find their memory maps crushed by the Sega CD (which took the second 4MB block) and Sega 32X (which took 2MB of the third 4MB block). All devices are memory mapped.
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| − | * Main RAM: 64KB (repeated over the upper 2MB of address space)
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| − | * Graphics: "VDP:" modified [[Texas Instruments]] [[TMS9918]] based on the modifications made for the Master System; all TMS9918 modes were removed and replaced with several new modes.
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| − | ** Screen resolutions: 320x224, 256x224, 320x240 (PAL only), 256x240 (PAL only), 320x448 (double interlaced mode, used by some games like ''[[Sonic 2]]'' [for the 2-player screen])
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| − | ** Four graphics layers: two tile planes (just a grid of tiles), a "window" tile plane (cannot be transparent), and a sprite plane
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| − | ** 64KB internal VRAM — used to store graphics tiles, mappings for all layers, and horizontal scrolling
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| − | ** ??KB internal CRAM — used to store the color palette
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| − | *** 64 colors split into four 16-color lines; each tile can be drawn with one of these four color lines
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| − | *** The first color in each line is transparent; consequently the Mega Drive can display 60 colors on screen at once
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| − | ** ??KB internal VSRAM — used for vertical scrolling
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| − | * Sound:
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| − | ** Sound CPU: [[Zilog]] [[Z80]] running at 3.58MHz NTSC/3.55MHz PAL
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| − | *** Some games did not use the Z80, other games used it only for sample playback, but most used it for sound processing
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| − | ** [[Yamaha]] [[YM2612]] clocked at the 68000 clock speed
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| − | *** 6 channels of FM synthesis, Operator Type-N
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| − | *** The third channel can enter a Special Mode, or multifrequency mode, where each individual operator has a different frequency
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| − | *** The sixth channel can enter a DAC mode where the sound program constantly streams 8-bit unsigned PCM data to mix directly into the output waveform
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| − | ** [[Texas Instruments]] [[SN76489]] clocked at the Z80 clock speed and built into the VDP — same as with the Master System
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| − | *** Three channels of pure square tones and one noise channel
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| − | *** The noise channel can play either white noise or "periodic noise" either at one of three preset frequencies or using the frequency of the third tone channel (consequently, that channel will be mute)
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| − | ** The cartridge connector has two pins which allow stereo sound mixing directly from cart. No game used this, however the 32X uses it for its PWM audio.
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