Mega Drive consoles in Asia
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From Sega's perspective, everything east of Europe and west of Japan/South Korea is classed as "Asia". This is a very large region and covers dozens of countries, but the markets are generally considered to be quite small as we're dealing with second world and potentially even third world countries. The company made more of an effort to localise for specific countries with the Sega Master System, but generally targeted fewer countries and was not tremendously successful.
With the Mega Drive, we generally see the same hardware distributed across this region, sometimes in the same basic boxes, but with added stickers, leaflets and support by localised distributors. Similar to Europe, Sega also was unable to market their console in every country in the region, however whereas the vast majority of Europe was covered by Sega, only a minority of Asia saw traditional Mega Drive consoles, and the timeline is patchy.
From a hardware perspective, there are only a few Mega Drive models - Sega built "one size fits all" systems in with either PAL or NTSC video output, and sold the system in whichever country they could. The Asian "region" covers the middle east, the islands of south east Asia, and the likes of India, China and Russia on the mainland. This consoles were also sold in Africa and even in some parts of Eastern Europe. It does not cover Japan, nor does it cover South Korea.
Mega Drives are still in production in Asia to this day, mostly handled by AtGames who ship scaled down consoles to all over the world, but they will not be covered on this page.
Contents
China
Box | Name | Date & Price | Console | Label | Hardware | Software | Documentation | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mega Drive
(メガドライブ) |
|||||||||
Mega Drive 2 |
The Gulf
Box | Name | Date & Price | Console | Label | Hardware | Software | Documentation | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mega Drive II 1 Free Game Set | |||||||||
Mega Drive II | |||||||||
Mega Drive II 2 Pads Set | |||||||||
Mega Drive II 1 Free Game Set | |||||||||
Mega Drive II 1 Free Game Set II |
India
Box | Name | Date & Price | Console | Label | Hardware | Software | Documentation | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mega Drive 2 (Shaw Wallace Electronics distribution)
(メガドライブ) |
|||||||||
Mega Drive 2 Sonic and Moonwalker Set (Mitashi Edutainment distribution) | |||||||||
Mega Drive 2 Cricket Set (Mitashi Edutainment distribution) |
Hong Kong, Macau
Box | Name | Date & Price | Console | Label | Hardware | Software | Documentation | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mega Drive
(メガドライブ) |
|||||||||
Mega Drive Sonic Set
(メガドライブ) |
Taiwan
Box | Name | Date & Price | Console | Label | Hardware | Software | Documentation | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mega Drive | |||||||||
Mega Drive 2
(メガドライブ2) |
Russia and CIS
Steepler and Dendy
In addition to the official products in Russia and CIS, it was possible to buy Mega Drive from Steepler and Dendy. They were very widespread. Some of them came from the original sources, for example from Buka and Nissho Iwai, and some were imported from other countries or they are clones.
Box | Name | Date & Price | Console | Label | Hardware | Software | Documentation | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mega Drive II (Original console, unofficial box) | |||||||||
Mega Drive II (Imported from Singapore) | |||||||||
<div style="margin:auto; min-width:Expression error: Unexpected < operator.px"> 320x80px | Mega Drive II (Clone) | 50x50px
Manual |
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<div style="margin:auto; min-width:Expression error: Unexpected < operator.px"> 320x80px | Mega Drive II (Clone) | 50x50px
Manual |
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<div style="margin:auto; min-width:Expression error: Unexpected < operator.px"> 320x80px | Mega Drive II (Clone) | ||||||||
Mega Drive II (Import from Buka) | |||||||||
Mega Drive II (Import from Buka) | |||||||||
Mega Drive II (Import from Buka) | |||||||||
<div style="margin:auto; min-width:Expression error: Unexpected < operator.px"> 320x80px | Mega Drive II (Import from Buka) | 50x50px
Manual |
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Mega Drive II (Import from Buka) | Control Pad (x2) |
50x50px
Manual |
Original consoles
The first original consoles could only be purchased in Russia from Forrus. Later, they were introduced to other countries by Buka and Bitman.
Box | Name | Date & Price | Console | Label | Hardware | Software | Documentation | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
<div style="margin:auto; min-width:Expression error: Unexpected < operator.px"> 320x80px | Mega Drive (Forrus distribution)[1] | ||||||||
<div style="margin:auto; min-width:Expression error: Unexpected < operator.px"> 320x80px | Mega Drive II (Nissho Iwai distribution) | ||||||||
Mega Drive II Sonic 2 Set (Nissho Iwai distribution) | Control Pad (x2) |
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Mega Drive II Aladdin Set (Nissho Iwai distribution) | Control Pad (x2) |
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Mega Drive II Asian Standard Set (Nissho Iwai distribution)[2] | |||||||||
<div style="margin:auto; min-width:Expression error: Unexpected < operator.px"> 320x80px | Mega Drive II Asian Standard Set II (Nissho Iwai distribution) | ||||||||
Mega Drive II (Bitman distribution) | |||||||||
Mega Drive II (R-Style distribution) |
**Prices are in the RUR currency
Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei
In 1990-1993, Mega Drive was distributed by Hi-Star Electronics. The company was a Sega distributor in Southeast Asia, but so far it is known to be in Malaysia and Singapore and possibly other countries. The models they sell are here.
Box | Name | Date & Price | Console | Label | Hardware | Software | Documentation | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mega Drive | |||||||||
Mega Drive 2
(メガドライブ2) |
|||||||||
Mega Drive 2 | |||||||||
Mega Drive 2 |
Thailand
Box | Name | Date & Price | Console | Label | Hardware | Software | Documentation | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mega Drive 2 | MK-1630-07[3] |
||||||||
Mega Drive 2 |
Philippines
Box | Name | Date & Price | Console | Label | Hardware | Software | Documentation | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mega Drive |
Israel
Box | Name | Date & Price | Console | Label | Hardware | Software | Documentation | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mega Drive (Bug Multisystem distribution) | |||||||||
Mega Drive Sonic Set (Bug Multisystem distribution) | Control Pad (x2) |
||||||||
Mega Drive Sonic 2 Set (Bug Multisystem distribution) | Control Pad (x2) |
||||||||
Mega Drive (מגה דרייב) (Suny distribution) | |||||||||
Mega Drive II (Suny distribution) | |||||||||
Mega Drive II 2 pads Set (Suny distribution) | Control Pad (x2) |
||||||||
Mega Drive II Sonic 2 Set (Suny distribution) | Control Pad (x2) |
||||||||
Mega Drive II Aladdin Set (Suny distribution) | Control Pad (x2) |
||||||||
Mega Drive II Lion King Set (Suny distribution) | Control Pad (x2) |
Retailers
Box | Name | Date & Price | Console | Label | Hardware | Software | Documentation | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mega Drive (Genesis store) |
Iran
Box | Name | Date & Price | Console | Label | Hardware | Software | Documentation | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mega Drive |
Mongolia
Box | Name | Date & Price | Console | Label | Hardware | Software | Documentation | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mega Drive II |
Unidentified
NTSC
The Philippines and Taiwan were the only other Asian markets apart from Japan and South Korea which used NTSC.
Mega Drive
Mega Drive 2
Mega Drive 2, NTSC Asia |
---|
Mega Drive 2 (Green Box)
Mega Drive 2, NTSC Asia |
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PAL-B
PAL-B was widely used throughout most of the rest of Asia, although these models may have only been intended for South East Asia.
Mega Drive
Four language manual; English, Chinese, Malay, and Thai.
Mega Drive, ?? |
---|
Mega Drive (with Sonic)
NOTE: Console itself uses undocumented region code -15
Mega Drive, ?? |
---|
Mega Drive (CEE Sega Official)
PAL
Whilst the original Mega Drive had an internal RF modulator which meant different models were required for different countries' TV Systems the Mega Drive 2 had an external RF modulator which meant the same model could be sold throughout PAL Asia.
Mega Drive 2 (Green Box)
Four language manual; English, Chinese, Malay, and Arabic. Alesayi United were Sega's distributors throughout the Gulf region, this includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates. Alesayi initially distributed the Mega Drive 2 in the Gulf via their "DOTTS" brand, but had switched to using Aleyasi United by the time that they distributed the Sega 32X in the region. It would seem likely that this model would have also been sold by them due to the presence of Arabic in the manual.
Mega Drive 2, ?? |
---|
Hi-Star Electronics
Hi-Star Electronics Pte Ltd. was an importer of Sega consoles in South East Asia. They sold consoles in the PAL and NTSC version.
Even more unidentified
Some are probably for South America.
References