Joe Montana Football (Mega Drive)
From Sega Retro
- For other versions, see Joe Montana Football.
Joe Montana Football | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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System(s): Sega Mega Drive | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Publisher: Sega | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Developer: Park Place Productions[1], Electronic Arts[2] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Supporting companies: Sega of America[3] (production) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Distributor: Hent Gruppen (SE rental) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sound driver: Electronic Arts/Rob Hubbard | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Genre: Sports[4][5] (American football) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Number of players: 1-2 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Joe Montana Football (ジョー・モンタナ フットボール) is a Sega Mega Drive American football game co-developed by Park Place Productions and Electronic Arts, and published by Sega. Directly endorsed by professional football player and NFL star Joe Montana, it was first released in the United States in December 1990, and is most notable for being both one of the earliest celebrity-sponsored sports video games, and one of Sega of America's first domestically-produced successes.
Released alongside a redesigned Sega Master System version, Joe Montana Football, it would also receive a sequel the following year courtesy of American developer BlueSky Software, Joe Montana II: Sports Talk Football.
Contents
Gameplay
While Sega were able to feature Joe Montana in Joe Montana Football, it did not secure the rights from the NFL to include any official team names (or other real-world players). This means teams are simply named after US cities and much of the content is fictionalised. It is, however, loosely based on the 1989 NFL season.
Teams
Only 16 of the 28 NFL teams are represented in Joe Montana Football:
- San Francisco
- Tampa Bay
- Denver
- Cleveland
- Detroit
- Atlanta
- Philadelphia
- Cincinnati
- Houston
- Kansas City
- Washington
- Chicago
- Miami
- Buffalo
- Los Angeles
- New York
History
Sega signed with Joe Montana in mid-1990[10], before they had a game to show. The contract was thought to be the most expensive celebrity video game signing to date[11], with Montana both having a hand in the game's design, and promoting it before its launch in the Christmas season of 1990.
Joe Montana was likely the biggest name in American football at the time. Playing with the San Francisco 49ers, he led the team to victory at the Super Bowl XXIV in January 1990, and had picked up both the Super Bowl Most Valuable Player Award (as he had in 1982 and 1985) and Associated Press Most Valuable Player Award for the 1989 season. Reportedly Montana was also a fan of the Mega Drive (Genesis in North America), with his favourite game being Arnold Palmer Tournament Golf[11].
At the time, Sega did not have the facilities in the US to develop a Mega Drive game from scratch, so had to seek outside developers, with three separate development studios working on the project[12]. Among these was Mediagenic, who were attempting to turn Hard Yardage into this game[13], but quality concerns saw the project re-worked from scratch[14]. Michael Katz first approached BlueSky Software, who wanted to assist but felt the game's tight schedule would be too great of a detriment and thus declined.[15] Sega then approached Electronic Arts with the view of licensing the upcoming John Madden Football, but the deal fell through[14], however the engine was used (with major modifications) for the final game[12].
This confused development schedule meant that Joe Montana Football changed from having a "horizontal" perspective to a "vertical" one. Sega had wanted to use the horizontal view, though was unable to until the following year, when they found a developer that could produce a satisfactory game in Joe Montana II Sports Talk Football. Early promotional material for Joe Montana Football includes screenshots from one of the "horizontal" builds[12].
Production history
Magazine articles
- Main article: Joe Montana Football (Mega Drive)/Magazine articles.
Promotional material
also published in:
- Electronic Gaming Monthly (US) #13: "August 1990" (1990-xx-xx)[16]
- GamePro (US) #12: "July 1990" (1990-xx-xx)[17]
- VideoGames & Computer Entertainment (US) #18: "July 1990" (1990-0x-xx)[18]
also published in:
- GamePro (US) #16: "November 1990" (1990-xx-xx)[19]
- Game Players Sega Guide! (US) #0101: "Vol. 1, No. 1: Fall 1990" (1990-10-xx)[20]
- Sega Visions (US) #3: "Winter 1990/1991" (1990-xx-xx)[21]
Physical scans
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69 | |
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Based on 26 reviews |
Mega Drive, US (Sega Classic) |
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Mega Drive, SE (rental; Hent; black) |
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External links
- Behind the Design: Joe Montana Football article by Ken Horowitz at Sega-16
Technical information
- Main article: Joe Montana Football (Mega Drive)/Technical information.
References
- ↑ K Horowitz (2016). Playing at the Next Level: A History of American Sega Games
- ↑ K Horowitz (2016). Playing at the Next Level: A History of American Sega Games
- ↑ K Horowitz (2016). Playing at the Next Level: A History of American Sega Games
- ↑ File:JMF MD JP Box.jpg
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 https://sega.jp/history/hard/megadrive/software.html (Wayback Machine: 2020-07-20 09:51)
- ↑ https://groups.google.com/g/rec.games.video/c/2664YaQUdlg/m/cgVUGA1hfqsJ
- ↑ GamePro, "April 1991" (US; 1991-xx-xx), page 41
- ↑ Sega Visions, "August/September 1992" (US; 1992-xx-xx), page 20
- ↑ Sega Power, "June 1991" (UK; 1991-05-02), page 21
- ↑ File:TheDanvilleNews US 1990-03-23; Page 4.png
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 Game Players, "Vol. 2 No. 6 June 1990" (US; 1990-0x-xx), page 100
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 Interview: Jim Huether (2006-10-31) by Sega-16
- ↑ Game Players, "Vol. 2 No. 9 September 1990" (US; 1990-0x-xx), page 57
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 Electronic Gaming Monthly, "November 1990" (US; 1990-xx-xx), page 26
- ↑ K Horowitz (2016). Playing at the Next Level: A History of American Sega Games
- ↑ Electronic Gaming Monthly, "August 1990" (US; 1990-xx-xx), page 7
- ↑ GamePro, "July 1990" (US; 1990-xx-xx), page 61
- ↑ VideoGames & Computer Entertainment, "July 1990" (US; 1990-0x-xx), page 59
- ↑ GamePro, "November 1990" (US; 1990-xx-xx), page 100
- ↑ Game Players Sega Guide!, "Vol. 1, No. 1: Fall 1990" (US; 1990-10-xx), page 8
- ↑ Sega Visions, "Winter 1990/1991" (US; 1990-xx-xx), page 22
- ↑ 1700 igr dlya Sega, "" (RU; 2001-xx-xx), page 149
- ↑ Ação Games, "Maio 1991" (BR; 1991-05-21), page 45
- ↑ Beep! MegaDrive, "March 1991" (JP; 1991-02-08), page 35
- ↑ Console XS, "June/July 1992" (UK; 1992-04-23), page 131
- ↑ Computer & Video Games, "May 1991" (UK; 1991-04-14), page 76
- ↑ GamePro, "April 1991" (US; 1991-xx-xx), page 40
- ↑ Hippon Super, "March 1991" (JP; 1991-02-04), page 42
- ↑ Joystick, "Mars 1991" (FR; 1991-0x-xx), page 144
- ↑ Sega Mega Drive Advanced Gaming, "January 1993" (UK; 199x-xx-xx), page 92
- ↑ Mega Drive Fan, "May 1991" (JP; 1991-04-08), page 95
- ↑ Mega, "June 1993" (UK; 1993-05-20), page 20
- ↑ Mega Play, "March/April 1991" (US; 1991-04-xx), page 45
- ↑ MegaTech, "Xmas 1991" (UK; 1991-12-06), page 78
- ↑ Mean Machines, "April 1991" (UK; 1991-04-01), page 76
- ↑ Mean Machines, "February 1992" (UK; 1992-01-27), page 74
- ↑ Mean Machines Sega, "October 1992" (UK; 1992-09-xx), page 139
- ↑ Player One, "Juillet/Août 1991" (FR; 1991-xx-xx), page 57
- ↑ Power Play, "5/91" (DE; 1991-04-12), page 123
- ↑ Sega Power, "June 1991" (UK; 1991-05-02), page 20
- ↑ Sega Power, "October 1991" (UK; 1991-09-05), page 53
- ↑ Sega Pro, "February 1992" (UK; 1992-01-16), page 18
- ↑ Sega Pro, "April 1993" (UK; 1993-03-11), page 66
- ↑ Sega Saturn Magazine, "September 1995" (JP; 1995-08-08), page 85
- ↑ Tilt, "Mai 1991" (FR; 1991-0x-xx), page 78
- ↑ VideoGames & Computer Entertainment, "March 1991" (US; 1991-0x-xx), page 32
- ↑ Video Games, "2/91" (DE; 1991-06-07), page 94
Joe Montana Football (Mega Drive) | |
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Main page | Comparisons | Magazine articles | Reception | Region coding | Technical information |
American Football games published by Sega | |
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Joe Montana Football (Mega Drive) (Master System/Game Gear) (DOS) (1990) | Joe Montana II Sports Talk Football (1991) | NFL Sports Talk Football '93 Starring Joe Montana (1992) | Joe Montana's NFL Football (1993) | NFL Football '94 Starring Joe Montana (1993) | NFL '95 (1994) | Prime Time NFL Football Starring Deion Sanders (1995) | NFL '97 (1996) | NFL 98 (1997) | |
Joe Montana NFL Football (IBM PC) (unreleased) | NFL Football '94 Starring Joe Montana (Game Gear) (unreleased) | |
College Football | |
College Football's National Championship (1994) | College Football's National Championship II (1995) | NCAA College Football 2K2 (2001) | NCAA College Football 2K3 (2002) | |
NFL 2K Series | |
NFL 2K (1999) | NFL 2K1 (2000) | NFL 2K2 (2001) | NFL 2K3 (2002) | ESPN NFL Football (2003) | ESPN NFL 2K5 (2004) |
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