Sega Power Strip

Sega Power Strip.

The Sega Power Strip is a special type of power strip/extension lead manufactured by Sega during the early 1990s. It was only sold in North America.

The Sega Power Strip exists mainly because of Sega's decision to house video game console AC adapters within the console's plug, rather than place the AC adapter within the console (or use the "brick in-line" configuration, housing it half way between the two). With the release of the Sega Mega Drive, it was not seen as a huge problem, but when Sega introduced the Sega Mega CD and Sega 32X, both of which need an extra socket, consumers would often be left without enough room to have all three plugged in at once. Other consoles such as the Super Nintendo shared these design flaws.

AC adapters are notoriously big, and so when placed in a standard socket they restrict the use of the sockets that surround it. The Sega Power Strip, however, is designed so that there is a larger gap between the sockets. There are five sockets in the Sega Power Strip, meaning a television, Mega Drive, Mega CD and 32X can be hooked up without any troubles (and there'll still be one to spare). It has power and reset buttons and is surge protected.

Sega would learn from their mistakes, and the Sega Saturn has an internal power supply as a result (as does the Sega Dreamcast). These days all video game consoles come with either built-in or "brick in-line" AC adapter configurations.