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Hi,

I was thinking back in its times did you choose the Sega SMS and/or GG console for one specific reason/choice or you just received it?

When I think back I clearly remember those far times, the Master System console (the pal version with Hang On and Safari Hunt) wasn't my choice but my brother had it when people usually had the Commodore 64 or the N E S console, but the SMS graphic was amazing. :D
I usually played electronic monochrome lcd single-game-portables and some C64 tape games and its never ending loading times. I was impressed by the Night City level backgrounds of Hang On or the moon sprite parallax effect in Zillion and its unforgettable soundtrack.
My personal own console was some years later a brand new GG with Columns and later Ax Battler; I went for this console for the same reason where the GB graphic wasn't comparable, not to mention the backlight even if I still remember taking the power supply around everywhere lol.

I always preferred the alternative consoles/hardware generally. All the people I knew had the N consoles, only some had the GG even less the SMS.
What about your story with these console?
Thank

Being born in the early 90s, my story's a tad different to tell here.

As a kid, I practically grew up on the Mega Drive, the family PC, and I daresay - sorry! - my Game Boy Color.

Over time, my Father showed me a box in the garage. It was the Master System!
We tried to get it to run, but it wouldn't. He said this was the reason they boxed it.

So, we checked the Trading Post, and saw a guy local to us was selling two Master Systems for $5AUD!
Naturally, we jumped at it. And, they worked!

Had quite a bit of fun with the library we had after that.

A shame the machines are so expensive now!

It wasn't. I grew up with Ni****do, from the NES to GameCube. It was only as an adult when I started to collect that I delved into Sega and Atari and all the others. Looking back, I wonder how come the Game Gear didn't fare better. I mean, it had color several years before Ni****do bothered to care. I also have a Master System, but it's in the garage and I hardly ever use it. I still collect for both Game Boy and Game Gear, but with about 115 Game Gear games, it's getting kind of hard to get games that are new to me and that I'd actually want to play. That's why I decided to make my own.

Age 4 my mum bought a Commodore 64 for work but never really ended up using it. As a single child I got bored easily and to keep me out of her hair she enticed me with the C64 and some programming books which kept me entertained for many years.

We had a new neighbour move in to the house next door and we quickly made friends, he invited me around one day and I saw him playing Alex Kidd in Miracle World. It blew me away and had me hooked, so I pestered my parents until they bought me a SMS 2 for christmas.

I absolutely loved it and played it everyday, we weren't rich so I owned Sonic 2, Populous and Alex Kidd (built in) and played them exclusively. The local Blockbuster video also had SMS games for hire so every few weeks I'd rent out a new game to try.

I was also an avid collector of Hyper magazine (an Australian games mag) that often had lots of Sega games and consoles featured. I used to have every issue but regrettably under pressure from my mum to get rid of my junk I threw them out.

Somewhere in all this my other neighbour had a NES with all the Super Mario games so we would often trade time with each others console.

We were often travelling so when the Game Gear came out I decided I must have one. As GG titles were more expensive than SMS titles at the time I didn't own any GG games other than the columns it came with, I almost exclusively used it with a MasterGear converter, I also had the TV tuner.

I was the only kid at school with a GG, everybody else had a Gameboy which meant I didn't get much opportunity to play vs anybody. The only one time I found someone with another GG the only title we both owned was Columns but it was still an awesome experience.

It has stayed in my heart ever since, and I am forever grateful to Bock & Maxim for this site and keeping the flame alive in a world that's mostly forgotten Sega made hardware.

Gamegearguy wrote

It wasn't. I grew up with Ni****do, from the NES to GameCube. It was only as an adult when I started to collect that I delved into Sega and Atari and all the others. Looking back, I wonder how come the Game Gear didn't fare better. I mean, it had color several years before Ni****do bothered to care. I also have a Master System, but it's in the garage and I hardly ever use it. I still collect for both Game Boy and Game Gear, but with about 115 Game Gear games, it's getting kind of hard to get games that are new to me and that I'd actually want to play. That's why I decided to make my own.

The problem with the Game Gear (beside imho the well known quiet low capacitors lifetime, I've never seen eletronic devices that fails to work so soon after some years), thinking back, was that the much better specifications wasn't enough. GB was cheaper, still had many titles, battery life wasn't even comparable, it case size/weight was just right and even more important its screen was obviously visible at direct sunlight.
So imho basically the GG was more a portable console to use at house, the GB outside.

djbass wrote

It has stayed in my heart ever since, and I am forever grateful to Bock & Maxim for this site and keeping the flame alive in a world that's mostly forgotten Sega made hardware.

Thank for your story! Just like you I also didn't know many that had the GG console, probably only three friends but still was enought to play some more titles like Mortal Kombat or Ecco the Dolphin or Master of Darkness. I remember the time I played Mortal Kombat on the low saturated colors screen of the GG it looked even more realistic than it was and it was unbeleivable! I always thought the "low quality" GG screen often ended up improving most games.

Ok, my turn to share.

I didn't grow up with any videogame console. When I was about 10, many of the friends of mine had home computers... of different kinds. Some had a Commodore 64, a few the Sinclair Spectrum, one an MSX, one a Commodore 16 and another fellow a Commodore Plus4, and I would go to their homes to play videogames with them, after school.

Soon after that, I discovered the BASIC. You could actually program that thing to make what you desired - so I started pestering my parents for an home computer - I didn't care which one, as long as I had something to program. I was still a kid and already found my big love for coding.

A few years passed... my parents didn't want to buy me any computer as they feared it would somehow be bad for me. But anyway I was learning a lot from books, and started coding games on paper, which I would then type on my friend's computers when at their house. (I remember the MSX had plenty of BASIC graphics commands whereas the Commodore 64 had none...and to this day I remember I wrote a game based on the "Knight rider" TV programme...). Each system had his method for handling the sprites and I learnt them all.

Anyway, I finally was in high school and I had saved enough for buying a computer... which was much more expensive than expected since we were already in 1989 and I already started using PCs (8086/8088) at school, and learning Pascal too.

Two years later IIRC my younger brother convinced our parents to buy us a Master System. I thought it was some kind of kid's game so I didn't care too much about that. The next year a Game Gear came... well, I admit I played a bit that Columns game, but I had no idea that I could actually code that... again, it was a console - not a computer.

More than 20 years after that, I found the SMS and the GG somewhere at my parent's house and... I joined this community :)

386DX wrote

Gamegearguy wrote

It wasn't. I grew up with Ni****do, from the NES to GameCube. It was only as an adult when I started to collect that I delved into Sega and Atari and all the others. Looking back, I wonder how come the Game Gear didn't fare better. I mean, it had color several years before Ni****do bothered to care. I also have a Master System, but it's in the garage and I hardly ever use it. I still collect for both Game Boy and Game Gear, but with about 115 Game Gear games, it's getting kind of hard to get games that are new to me and that I'd actually want to play. That's why I decided to make my own.

The problem with the Game Gear (beside imho the well known quiet low capacitors lifetime, I've never seen eletronic devices that fails to work so soon after some years), thinking back, was that the much better specifications wasn't enough. GB was cheaper, still had many titles, battery life wasn't even comparable, it case size/weight was just right and even more important its screen was obviously visible at direct sunlight.
So imho basically the GG was more a portable console to use at house, the GB outside.

Third party support was probably the big one, next to battery life. Ni****do had already attracted most of the major third-party console developers to them. Even in Japan where the license monopoly of the US (reportedly) wasn't a cause, they must've attracted a userbase in that time that even the third-parties that produced games for both consoles made fewer games on GG. (thinking companies like Namco and Taito) Maybe even comparable to WonderSwan (which probably only gained western attention due to Square being the one third-party to not call it quits after like two or three games.)

KingMike wrote

Third party support was probably the big one, next to battery life. Ni****do had already attracted most of the major third-party console developers to them. Even in Japan where the license monopoly of the US (reportedly) wasn't a cause, they must've attracted a userbase in that time that even the third-parties that produced games for both consoles made fewer games on GG. (thinking companies like Namco and Taito) Maybe even comparable to WonderSwan (which probably only gained western attention due to Square being the one third-party to not call it quits after like two or three games.)

I didn't know this. I imagined that the numbers of titles available of GB were much higher anyway.
But on the techside I think that the GG could have been better. Size of the case maybe could have been reduced a bit with sharper angles, I ask if the tube light could have been someway replaced with some other technology of that time not led ok maybe a darker and thinner tube improving battery life? also some power saving logic connected to it, Dpad imho could have been much better; there was probably space for a newer GG version imho once the VA1 one asic chip was available. A "GG Pocket" could have been great.

With the various ASIC improvements you might think the size could have shrunk. The screen was hard to improve at the time.

It was relatively easy for companies to make games for both Game Boy and Game Gear - if only because they have identical screen resolutions and almost identical CPUs. The reason not to would be Sega's weird release restrictions (although Ni****do had them too), and the smaller potential sales.

Maxim wrote

With the various ASIC improvements you might think the size could have shrunk. The screen was hard to improve at the time.

It was relatively easy for companies to make games for both Game Boy and Game Gear - if only because they have identical screen resolutions and almost identical CPUs. The reason not to would be Sega's weird release restrictions (although Ni****do had them too), and the smaller potential sales.

Can you imagine, with all the titles available, a newer GG with the already free capability to use the Master System games but without an adapter (something like a Nomad) and a better screen for its resolution.
Back than I didn't even know about the Master Gear adapter at all and never seen it around. But also on the marketing side I don't remember anywhere, and I imagine it would have worked saying: "the only portable capable of playing home console games natively".
But maybe this can be added to the strange marketing choices like the 32X while the SVP was a perfect and powerful solution.

sverx wrote

Ok, my turn to share.

I didn't grow up with any videogame console. When I was about 10, many of the friends of mine had home computers... of different kinds. Some had a Commodore 64, a few the Sinclair Spectrum, one an MSX, one a Commodore 16 and another fellow a Commodore Plus4, and I would go to their homes to play videogames with them, after school.

Soon after that, I discovered the BASIC. You could actually program that thing to make what you desired - so I started pestering my parents for an home computer - I didn't care which one, as long as I had something to program. I was still a kid and already found my big love for coding.

A few years passed... my parents didn't want to buy me any computer as they feared it would somehow be bad for me. But anyway I was learning a lot from books, and started coding games on paper, which I would then type on my friend's computers when at their house. (I remember the MSX had plenty of BASIC graphics commands whereas the Commodore 64 had none...and to this day I remember I wrote a game based on the "Knight rider" TV programme...). Each system had his method for handling the sprites and I learnt them all.

Anyway, I finally was in high school and I had saved enough for buying a computer... which was much more expensive than expected since we were already in 1989 and I already started using PCs (8086/8088) at school, and learning Pascal too.

Two years later IIRC my younger brother convinced our parents to buy us a Master System. I thought it was some kind of kid's game so I didn't care too much about that. The next year a Game Gear came... well, I admit I played a bit that Columns game, but I had no idea that I could actually code that... again, it was a console - not a computer.

More than 20 years after that, I found the SMS and the GG somewhere at my parent's house and... I joined this community :)

Thank for your story too. I discovered computer later but still I usually played the GG and the SMS. My first PC was a second hand 386SX @ 20Mhz and after using it to play dos games, I ended up using console less and less. The computer as a game platform was interesting and looking at some games like Stunts in real 3D was amazing.. but this was probably in '94-'95. I never had the Mega Drive or later console until the GBA and the Xbox 360. Nowdays I'm collecting these one, today I receive the Power Base Converter to mod for the Mega Drive II. :)

The era for this story is somewhere around 1987/1988 :)

I grew up with a c64, then my brother and I had a NES. On the NES the games were mostly slow adventure-type games, at least thats what my brother kept getting. One day I visited a cousin and he had a huge box in his room with a Master System and like 15-20 carts that his buddy got at a garage sale for a few $$'s. I offered to set it up as long as I could try it out, and every single game I shoved in the machine was the perfect game for me. It's kinda hard to explain, but with the NES I would go through stacks of games trying to find one that I'd like.. then I'd get bored. It was the complete opposite with the SMS. I had to have one!
About 6 months later I came across a SMSII w/Alex Kidd in Miracle World @ a toystore, it was on sale for like $44USD. I got it and Thunder Blade and was in heaven. Next week I took my lawn cutting savings and went back to that store and got Bomber Raid. Then, the same day, went to a flea market and got Out Run for a couple $'s. Back then In the arcades Out Run and Sky Shark were my current favorite games, so the SMS counterparts were the perfect match for me @ home. Now ~30 years later, I still enjoy everything about the SMS.

best regards,
- dink

Reposting my story, originally posted in this thread:

It was in 1987 when my mom and dad bought me a Master System as a Christmas present instead of the Atari 2600 that was actually on my wishlist. To this day I can't thank them enough for that.

The pack-in game was Hang-On and me and my friends were blown away by the quality of the graphics, especially since they only had the likes of Super Cycle to play on their C64s, and while that's actually quite a good game it looked downright poor in comparison.

The downside was that my friends had access to a huge number of (pirated) games, while I had to save my pocket money for quite some time before I could get any new stuff.
I had some good luck picking my next purchases, though. I bought Astro Warrior / Pit Pot next, then Alex Kidd in Miracle World and after that Wonderboy in Monsterland.

Now, almost 30 years later, my Master System is still the very same console from back then, even though it has been modded to run at 60Hz and an FM expansion has been built in in the meantime.

Ummmmm... My first computer were a msx1. Big enternainment with those expensive cartridges from konami, and other european games. Always liked the better and colorful graphics on a Friend's msx2.

Then i switch to the 8 bits dark side, returned to Génesis and other time to 16bits dark side.

But this is not my story. It is from a Friend Who have parents which did not bough him a console. In fact, they did not let him to do nothing related to video Games!

Then he though he could buy a gamegear and maintain It hidden somewhere in his bedroom, playing only at nights. Of course he did It. And were playing all nights many years and about 50 sms and gg games, which i also could Play.

Remember playing golvellius, both gg shinobis, and comparing my Génesis games with his sms/gg counterparts (sonics, Mickey Mouse games, streets of rage, sagaia...)...

Finally he sold the gg and bought a gb avance, but that is other story!!!

(Pd. My doubt even now is if their parents know his secret, although have to say he maintained hidden, some years later, badges of marihuana in a chest inside a lego pirate ship which he had in his bedroom... And never had a trouble!!!)

When I was like ... 6-7 years old I knew about computers and videogames. My father came home with an Spectrum and a Zx81 from the electronics store, but he returned the Spectrum (and the store gave him the Zx81... which never worked and now it is in a computer museum).

A bit later, I was 11, and I was one saturday at School due to punishment for talking at class. My punishment was to stay 4 hours at class with other guy who was also punished. He was reading a magazine (Micromania) about videogames, and after he finished reading it told to me "Ramon, do you want to read it?". My answer was "Why not, I have nothing to do". So I read it, and my mind was filled with dreams of videogames (was the consoles special of the 36th number of this magazine).

This same summer, I spent some days in Betxi with the son of a work partner of my father, and in some moment he told me about videogames. We ended playing After the War on CPC 464, and was like "omg, this is magic".

And... Hobby Consolas appeared. And I decided that I wanted ... a Game Boy (Nemesis! Chase HQ! Super Mario Land! TMNT!) for Christmas. I asked my grandma, and she said "ok, but you have to come with me to help me to buy it". And I went with her. I picked the Game Boy, I gave it to her, and we went to the cue. The cue was pretty large, and while moving we passed through two spots. The first was the game boy spot, with Tetris. I played it, as I was going to have it on my console. And the feeling was "it's ok", but nothing more. The second spot was ... a Game Gear with Columns. OMG. OH MY GOD. After playing it, I went to my grandma and I asked her "Grandma, can I change the console? This one is a bit more expensive". She told me that it was ok, and that's it.

But the moment I discovered myself as a Sega believer was... with Fantasy Zone. OMG. Who is so crazy to create these things. And it is strange, because Sega still is making crazy things, like Yakuza saga...

I had a c64 as a kid and enjoyed the games although they looked nothing like their arcade counter parts.Played shinobi in the arcades and loved it"I was a kid into ninja movies ect.."I seen the master system games black belt and shinobi and instantly wanted the system,I received the master system + shinobi for christmas that year.

djbass wrote

I was also an avid collector of Hyper magazine (an Australian games mag) that often had lots of Sega games and consoles featured. I used to have every issue but regrettably under pressure from my mum to get rid of my junk I threw them out.

Yes! I remember the Hyper magazine!

Like other Aussies here I only had Sega stuff growing up. Me and my brothers had a pact that Nintendon't were crappy and I always thought NES graphics weren't as good as the SMS.

It was Christmas and I was 5 and my brother was 7. For his birthday he was gifted a Sega Master System. I have vivid memories of playing Alex Kidd IMW on a 34cm AWA CRT television. We used to take the SMS away with us on Christmas Holidays and it was always a bundle of fun re-tuning hotel TVs to get it to work. I remember being real bummed when we couldn't get the SMS to work. Anyway a few years later we saw a Megadrive ad for the triple pack with the Sonic cartridge. We begged, begged, and begged some more to Mum and Dad and my brothers will all our 'pocket money' (written in a book) we bought a Megadrive! I remember that we could wake up before school and play it until 7:00am which was our cutoff. Sonic 2 Chemical Plant Zone was all that I could manage in that time.

Fond memories for sure!

In the late 80's:
Everyone has the NES, I was tired of it. I spent most of my time in the arcades - in the 80s I had a near $20/day arcade habit, in my single digit years, even! Me and my good friend of the time would do odd jobs all day to make money (mostly lawn cuttings) then spend the afternoon in the arcade. So it made sense to have something different at home, and since the SMS had somewhat more arcade-friendly titles, I really loved it for that. At one time my favorite game in the arcade was Sky Shark, so Bomber Raid was right up my alley :)

that's all :)

I don't own any of the systems (I own GENESIS, but this site ain't about that), but I plan to own the SEGA Master System.

I say SMS because I used to play games of SMS games on an emulator when I was little; I also like the idea that I can play SMS games on the big screen. lol

I would also like to mention that I plan to make games for the SMS (as well as test out my SN76489 chiptunes on it), but I need to learn how to code before I can do that.

Well I couldn't afford much else and everyone I knew at the time also had a Sega Master System in the same boat as me also being in the UK the Master System was very popular and a respected console.
It was better than the 8bit micro computers in that the graphics were better and the instant loading times exactly like the Arcade.
Plus the controller was easier to use than the computer joystick

The Ni****do NES was coveted and everyone thought it was the best however.
I was introduced to the Master System at my friends house and I really enjoyed Shinobi I thought it was exactly like the Arcade version that I used to play at the local chippy.

I loved that it had Arcade ports I used to look at the promotional flyer that came with every game and I liked the graphics I thought at the time they were exactly like the Arcade.
Games like Shinobi and Ghouls N Ghosts looked exactly the same to my 8 year old self.

To me it was a chance to play the Arcade at home without paying 10p a go. The console that introduced me to the concept of Arcade in the home.

The Megadrive was advertised in every SMS 2 Flyer I saw and it was the hot new system I knew it was better but I kept routing for the SMS and bought SMS versions of the games since it was the console I had.
I remember when I bought Sonic on the Master System and it was the hot new game all of my friends came around to see how it played.

Author	Message
386DX Joined: 13 Jun 2017 Posts: 96	Why was the SMS/GG console your choice? Posted: Wed Nov 08, 2017 3:04 pm
386DX Joined: 13 Jun 2017 Posts: 96	Hi, I was thinking back in its times did you choose the Sega SMS and/or GG console for one specific reason/choice or you just received it? When I think back I clearly remember those far times, the Master System console (the pal version with Hang On and Safari Hunt) wasn't my choice but my brother had it when people usually had the Commodore 64 or the N E S console, but the SMS graphic was amazing. :D I usually played electronic monochrome lcd single-game-portables and some C64 tape games and its never ending loading times. I was impressed by the Night City level backgrounds of Hang On or the moon sprite parallax effect in Zillion and its unforgettable soundtrack. My personal own console was some years later a brand new GG with Columns and later Ax Battler; I went for this console for the same reason where the GB graphic wasn't comparable, not to mention the backlight even if I still remember taking the power supply around everywhere lol. I always preferred the alternative consoles/hardware generally. All the people I knew had the N consoles, only some had the GG even less the SMS. What about your story with these console? Thank

Flygon Joined: 30 Jun 2016 Posts: 196 Location: Melbourne, Australia	Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2017 1:29 am Last edited by Flygon on Thu Nov 09, 2017 10:17 am; edited 1 time in total
	Being born in the early 90s, my story's a tad different to tell here. As a kid, I practically grew up on the Mega Drive, the family PC, and I daresay - sorry! - my Game Boy Color. Over time, my Father showed me a box in the garage. It was the Master System! We tried to get it to run, but it wouldn't. He said this was the reason they boxed it. So, we checked the Trading Post, and saw a guy local to us was selling two Master Systems for $5AUD! Naturally, we jumped at it. And, they worked! Had quite a bit of fun with the library we had after that. A shame the machines are so expensive now!

Gamegearguy Joined: 06 Sep 2015 Posts: 268 Location: United States	Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2017 2:44 am
	It wasn't. I grew up with Ni**do, from the NES to GameCube. It was only as an adult when I started to collect that I delved into Sega and Atari and all the others. Looking back, I wonder how come the Game Gear didn't fare better. I mean, it had color several years before Ni**do bothered to care. I also have a Master System, but it's in the garage and I hardly ever use it. I still collect for both Game Boy and Game Gear, but with about 115 Game Gear games, it's getting kind of hard to get games that are new to me and that I'd actually want to play. That's why I decided to make my own.

thatawesomeguy Joined: 25 Jul 2007 Posts: 730 Location: Melbourne, Australia	Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2017 9:54 am
	Age 4 my mum bought a Commodore 64 for work but never really ended up using it. As a single child I got bored easily and to keep me out of her hair she enticed me with the C64 and some programming books which kept me entertained for many years. We had a new neighbour move in to the house next door and we quickly made friends, he invited me around one day and I saw him playing Alex Kidd in Miracle World. It blew me away and had me hooked, so I pestered my parents until they bought me a SMS 2 for christmas. I absolutely loved it and played it everyday, we weren't rich so I owned Sonic 2, Populous and Alex Kidd (built in) and played them exclusively. The local Blockbuster video also had SMS games for hire so every few weeks I'd rent out a new game to try. I was also an avid collector of Hyper magazine (an Australian games mag) that often had lots of Sega games and consoles featured. I used to have every issue but regrettably under pressure from my mum to get rid of my junk I threw them out. Somewhere in all this my other neighbour had a NES with all the Super Mario games so we would often trade time with each others console. We were often travelling so when the Game Gear came out I decided I must have one. As GG titles were more expensive than SMS titles at the time I didn't own any GG games other than the columns it came with, I almost exclusively used it with a MasterGear converter, I also had the TV tuner. I was the only kid at school with a GG, everybody else had a Gameboy which meant I didn't get much opportunity to play vs anybody. The only one time I found someone with another GG the only title we both owned was Columns but it was still an awesome experience. It has stayed in my heart ever since, and I am forever grateful to Bock & Maxim for this site and keeping the flame alive in a world that's mostly forgotten Sega made hardware.

386DX Joined: 13 Jun 2017 Posts: 96	Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2017 11:54 am
386DX Joined: 13 Jun 2017 Posts: 96	Gamegearguy wrote It wasn't. I grew up with Ni**do, from the NES to GameCube. It was only as an adult when I started to collect that I delved into Sega and Atari and all the others. Looking back, I wonder how come the Game Gear didn't fare better. I mean, it had color several years before Ni**do bothered to care. I also have a Master System, but it's in the garage and I hardly ever use it. I still collect for both Game Boy and Game Gear, but with about 115 Game Gear games, it's getting kind of hard to get games that are new to me and that I'd actually want to play. That's why I decided to make my own. The problem with the Game Gear (beside imho the well known quiet low capacitors lifetime, I've never seen eletronic devices that fails to work so soon after some years), thinking back, was that the much better specifications wasn't enough. GB was cheaper, still had many titles, battery life wasn't even comparable, it case size/weight was just right and even more important its screen was obviously visible at direct sunlight. So imho basically the GG was more a portable console to use at house, the GB outside.

386DX Joined: 13 Jun 2017 Posts: 96	Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2017 12:11 pm
386DX Joined: 13 Jun 2017 Posts: 96	djbass wrote It has stayed in my heart ever since, and I am forever grateful to Bock & Maxim for this site and keeping the flame alive in a world that's mostly forgotten Sega made hardware. Thank for your story! Just like you I also didn't know many that had the GG console, probably only three friends but still was enought to play some more titles like Mortal Kombat or Ecco the Dolphin or Master of Darkness. I remember the time I played Mortal Kombat on the low saturated colors screen of the GG it looked even more realistic than it was and it was unbeleivable! I always thought the "low quality" GG screen often ended up improving most games.

sverx Joined: 05 Sep 2013 Posts: 3827 Location: Stockholm, Sweden	Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2017 4:20 pm
	Ok, my turn to share. I didn't grow up with any videogame console. When I was about 10, many of the friends of mine had home computers... of different kinds. Some had a Commodore 64, a few the Sinclair Spectrum, one an MSX, one a Commodore 16 and another fellow a Commodore Plus4, and I would go to their homes to play videogames with them, after school. Soon after that, I discovered the BASIC. You could actually program that thing to make what you desired - so I started pestering my parents for an home computer - I didn't care which one, as long as I had something to program. I was still a kid and already found my big love for coding. A few years passed... my parents didn't want to buy me any computer as they feared it would somehow be bad for me. But anyway I was learning a lot from books, and started coding games on paper, which I would then type on my friend's computers when at their house. (I remember the MSX had plenty of BASIC graphics commands whereas the Commodore 64 had none...and to this day I remember I wrote a game based on the "Knight rider" TV programme...). Each system had his method for handling the sprites and I learnt them all. Anyway, I finally was in high school and I had saved enough for buying a computer... which was much more expensive than expected since we were already in 1989 and I already started using PCs (8086/8088) at school, and learning Pascal too. Two years later IIRC my younger brother convinced our parents to buy us a Master System. I thought it was some kind of kid's game so I didn't care too much about that. The next year a Game Gear came... well, I admit I played a bit that Columns game, but I had no idea that I could actually code that... again, it was a console - not a computer. More than 20 years after that, I found the SMS and the GG somewhere at my parent's house and... I joined this community :)

KingMike Joined: 14 Oct 2008 Posts: 510	Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2017 6:13 pm
KingMike Joined: 14 Oct 2008 Posts: 510	386DX wrote Gamegearguy wrote It wasn't. I grew up with Ni**do, from the NES to GameCube. It was only as an adult when I started to collect that I delved into Sega and Atari and all the others. Looking back, I wonder how come the Game Gear didn't fare better. I mean, it had color several years before Nido bothered to care. I also have a Master System, but it's in the garage and I hardly ever use it. I still collect for both Game Boy and Game Gear, but with about 115 Game Gear games, it's getting kind of hard to get games that are new to me and that I'd actually want to play. That's why I decided to make my own. The problem with the Game Gear (beside imho the well known quiet low capacitors lifetime, I've never seen eletronic devices that fails to work so soon after some years), thinking back, was that the much better specifications wasn't enough. GB was cheaper, still had many titles, battery life wasn't even comparable, it case size/weight was just right and even more important its screen was obviously visible at direct sunlight. So imho basically the GG was more a portable console to use at house, the GB outside. Third party support was probably the big one, next to battery life. Ni**do had already attracted most of the major third-party console developers to them. Even in Japan where the license monopoly of the US (reportedly) wasn't a cause, they must've attracted a userbase in that time that even the third-parties that produced games for both consoles made fewer games on GG. (thinking companies like Namco and Taito) Maybe even comparable to WonderSwan (which probably only gained western attention due to Square being the one third-party to not call it quits after like two or three games.)

386DX Joined: 13 Jun 2017 Posts: 96	Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2017 7:35 pm
386DX Joined: 13 Jun 2017 Posts: 96	KingMike wrote Third party support was probably the big one, next to battery life. Ni****do had already attracted most of the major third-party console developers to them. Even in Japan where the license monopoly of the US (reportedly) wasn't a cause, they must've attracted a userbase in that time that even the third-parties that produced games for both consoles made fewer games on GG. (thinking companies like Namco and Taito) Maybe even comparable to WonderSwan (which probably only gained western attention due to Square being the one third-party to not call it quits after like two or three games.) I didn't know this. I imagined that the numbers of titles available of GB were much higher anyway. But on the techside I think that the GG could have been better. Size of the case maybe could have been reduced a bit with sharper angles, I ask if the tube light could have been someway replaced with some other technology of that time not led ok maybe a darker and thinner tube improving battery life? also some power saving logic connected to it, Dpad imho could have been much better; there was probably space for a newer GG version imho once the VA1 one asic chip was available. A "GG Pocket" could have been great.

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14740 Location: London	Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2017 8:32 pm
	With the various ASIC improvements you might think the size could have shrunk. The screen was hard to improve at the time. It was relatively easy for companies to make games for both Game Boy and Game Gear - if only because they have identical screen resolutions and almost identical CPUs. The reason not to would be Sega's weird release restrictions (although Ni****do had them too), and the smaller potential sales.

386DX Joined: 13 Jun 2017 Posts: 96	Posted: Fri Nov 10, 2017 7:39 am
386DX Joined: 13 Jun 2017 Posts: 96	Maxim wrote With the various ASIC improvements you might think the size could have shrunk. The screen was hard to improve at the time. It was relatively easy for companies to make games for both Game Boy and Game Gear - if only because they have identical screen resolutions and almost identical CPUs. The reason not to would be Sega's weird release restrictions (although Ni****do had them too), and the smaller potential sales. Can you imagine, with all the titles available, a newer GG with the already free capability to use the Master System games but without an adapter (something like a Nomad) and a better screen for its resolution. Back than I didn't even know about the Master Gear adapter at all and never seen it around. But also on the marketing side I don't remember anywhere, and I imagine it would have worked saying: "the only portable capable of playing home console games natively". But maybe this can be added to the strange marketing choices like the 32X while the SVP was a perfect and powerful solution.

386DX Joined: 13 Jun 2017 Posts: 96	Posted: Fri Nov 10, 2017 9:11 am
386DX Joined: 13 Jun 2017 Posts: 96	sverx wrote Ok, my turn to share. I didn't grow up with any videogame console. When I was about 10, many of the friends of mine had home computers... of different kinds. Some had a Commodore 64, a few the Sinclair Spectrum, one an MSX, one a Commodore 16 and another fellow a Commodore Plus4, and I would go to their homes to play videogames with them, after school. Soon after that, I discovered the BASIC. You could actually program that thing to make what you desired - so I started pestering my parents for an home computer - I didn't care which one, as long as I had something to program. I was still a kid and already found my big love for coding. A few years passed... my parents didn't want to buy me any computer as they feared it would somehow be bad for me. But anyway I was learning a lot from books, and started coding games on paper, which I would then type on my friend's computers when at their house. (I remember the MSX had plenty of BASIC graphics commands whereas the Commodore 64 had none...and to this day I remember I wrote a game based on the "Knight rider" TV programme...). Each system had his method for handling the sprites and I learnt them all. Anyway, I finally was in high school and I had saved enough for buying a computer... which was much more expensive than expected since we were already in 1989 and I already started using PCs (8086/8088) at school, and learning Pascal too. Two years later IIRC my younger brother convinced our parents to buy us a Master System. I thought it was some kind of kid's game so I didn't care too much about that. The next year a Game Gear came... well, I admit I played a bit that Columns game, but I had no idea that I could actually code that... again, it was a console - not a computer. More than 20 years after that, I found the SMS and the GG somewhere at my parent's house and... I joined this community :) Thank for your story too. I discovered computer later but still I usually played the GG and the SMS. My first PC was a second hand 386SX @ 20Mhz and after using it to play dos games, I ended up using console less and less. The computer as a game platform was interesting and looking at some games like Stunts in real 3D was amazing.. but this was probably in '94-'95. I never had the Mega Drive or later console until the GBA and the Xbox 360. Nowdays I'm collecting these one, today I receive the Power Base Converter to mod for the Mega Drive II. :)

dink Joined: 09 Dec 2013 Posts: 228 Location: detroit	Posted: Sun Nov 12, 2017 1:48 am
dink Joined: 09 Dec 2013 Posts: 228 Location: detroit	The era for this story is somewhere around 1987/1988 :) I grew up with a c64, then my brother and I had a NES. On the NES the games were mostly slow adventure-type games, at least thats what my brother kept getting. One day I visited a cousin and he had a huge box in his room with a Master System and like 15-20 carts that his buddy got at a garage sale for a few $$'s. I offered to set it up as long as I could try it out, and every single game I shoved in the machine was the perfect game for me. It's kinda hard to explain, but with the NES I would go through stacks of games trying to find one that I'd like.. then I'd get bored. It was the complete opposite with the SMS. I had to have one! About 6 months later I came across a SMSII w/Alex Kidd in Miracle World @ a toystore, it was on sale for like $44USD. I got it and Thunder Blade and was in heaven. Next week I took my lawn cutting savings and went back to that store and got Bomber Raid. Then, the same day, went to a flea market and got Out Run for a couple $'s. Back then In the arcades Out Run and Sky Shark were my current favorite games, so the SMS counterparts were the perfect match for me @ home. Now ~30 years later, I still enjoy everything about the SMS. best regards, - dink

Kagesan Joined: 01 Feb 2014 Posts: 877	Posted: Sun Nov 12, 2017 10:47 am
Kagesan Joined: 01 Feb 2014 Posts: 877	Reposting my story, originally posted in this thread: It was in 1987 when my mom and dad bought me a Master System as a Christmas present instead of the Atari 2600 that was actually on my wishlist. To this day I can't thank them enough for that. The pack-in game was Hang-On and me and my friends were blown away by the quality of the graphics, especially since they only had the likes of Super Cycle to play on their C64s, and while that's actually quite a good game it looked downright poor in comparison. The downside was that my friends had access to a huge number of (pirated) games, while I had to save my pocket money for quite some time before I could get any new stuff. I had some good luck picking my next purchases, though. I bought Astro Warrior / Pit Pot next, then Alex Kidd in Miracle World and after that Wonderboy in Monsterland. Now, almost 30 years later, my Master System is still the very same console from back then, even though it has been modded to run at 60Hz and an FM expansion has been built in in the meantime.

eruiz00 Joined: 28 Jan 2017 Posts: 556 Location: Málaga, Spain	Posted: Mon Nov 13, 2017 2:08 pm
	Ummmmm... My first computer were a msx1. Big enternainment with those expensive cartridges from konami, and other european games. Always liked the better and colorful graphics on a Friend's msx2. Then i switch to the 8 bits dark side, returned to Génesis and other time to 16bits dark side. But this is not my story. It is from a Friend Who have parents which did not bough him a console. In fact, they did not let him to do nothing related to video Games! Then he though he could buy a gamegear and maintain It hidden somewhere in his bedroom, playing only at nights. Of course he did It. And were playing all nights many years and about 50 sms and gg games, which i also could Play. Remember playing golvellius, both gg shinobis, and comparing my Génesis games with his sms/gg counterparts (sonics, Mickey Mouse games, streets of rage, sagaia...)... Finally he sold the gg and bought a gb avance, but that is other story!!! (Pd. My doubt even now is if their parents know his secret, although have to say he maintained hidden, some years later, badges of marihuana in a chest inside a lego pirate ship which he had in his bedroom... And never had a trouble!!!)

Nae Joined: 13 Feb 2015 Posts: 2 Location: Barcelona	Posted: Tue Jan 02, 2018 6:55 am
Nae Joined: 13 Feb 2015 Posts: 2 Location: Barcelona	When I was like ... 6-7 years old I knew about computers and videogames. My father came home with an Spectrum and a Zx81 from the electronics store, but he returned the Spectrum (and the store gave him the Zx81... which never worked and now it is in a computer museum). A bit later, I was 11, and I was one saturday at School due to punishment for talking at class. My punishment was to stay 4 hours at class with other guy who was also punished. He was reading a magazine (Micromania) about videogames, and after he finished reading it told to me "Ramon, do you want to read it?". My answer was "Why not, I have nothing to do". So I read it, and my mind was filled with dreams of videogames (was the consoles special of the 36th number of this magazine). This same summer, I spent some days in Betxi with the son of a work partner of my father, and in some moment he told me about videogames. We ended playing After the War on CPC 464, and was like "omg, this is magic". And... Hobby Consolas appeared. And I decided that I wanted ... a Game Boy (Nemesis! Chase HQ! Super Mario Land! TMNT!) for Christmas. I asked my grandma, and she said "ok, but you have to come with me to help me to buy it". And I went with her. I picked the Game Boy, I gave it to her, and we went to the cue. The cue was pretty large, and while moving we passed through two spots. The first was the game boy spot, with Tetris. I played it, as I was going to have it on my console. And the feeling was "it's ok", but nothing more. The second spot was ... a Game Gear with Columns. OMG. OH MY GOD. After playing it, I went to my grandma and I asked her "Grandma, can I change the console? This one is a bit more expensive". She told me that it was ok, and that's it. But the moment I discovered myself as a Sega believer was... with Fantasy Zone. OMG. Who is so crazy to create these things. And it is strange, because Sega still is making crazy things, like Yakuza saga...

OmegaPrime Joined: 18 Dec 2014 Posts: 95 Location: Canada	Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 1:30 am
	I had a c64 as a kid and enjoyed the games although they looked nothing like their arcade counter parts.Played shinobi in the arcades and loved it"I was a kid into ninja movies ect.."I seen the master system games black belt and shinobi and instantly wanted the system,I received the master system + shinobi for christmas that year.

Jacko Joined: 01 Feb 2004 Posts: 1464 Location: Sunny ol Tamworth, New England NSW AU	Posted: Wed Jan 17, 2018 7:46 pm
	djbass wrote I was also an avid collector of Hyper magazine (an Australian games mag) that often had lots of Sega games and consoles featured. I used to have every issue but regrettably under pressure from my mum to get rid of my junk I threw them out. Yes! I remember the Hyper magazine! Like other Aussies here I only had Sega stuff growing up. Me and my brothers had a pact that Nintendon't were crappy and I always thought NES graphics weren't as good as the SMS. It was Christmas and I was 5 and my brother was 7. For his birthday he was gifted a Sega Master System. I have vivid memories of playing Alex Kidd IMW on a 34cm AWA CRT television. We used to take the SMS away with us on Christmas Holidays and it was always a bundle of fun re-tuning hotel TVs to get it to work. I remember being real bummed when we couldn't get the SMS to work. Anyway a few years later we saw a Megadrive ad for the triple pack with the Sonic cartridge. We begged, begged, and begged some more to Mum and Dad and my brothers will all our 'pocket money' (written in a book) we bought a Megadrive! I remember that we could wake up before school and play it until 7:00am which was our cutoff. Sonic 2 Chemical Plant Zone was all that I could manage in that time. Fond memories for sure!

dink Joined: 09 Dec 2013 Posts: 228 Location: detroit	Posted: Thu Jan 18, 2018 2:14 pm
dink Joined: 09 Dec 2013 Posts: 228 Location: detroit	In the late 80's: Everyone has the NES, I was tired of it. I spent most of my time in the arcades - in the 80s I had a near $20/day arcade habit, in my single digit years, even! Me and my good friend of the time would do odd jobs all day to make money (mostly lawn cuttings) then spend the afternoon in the arcade. So it made sense to have something different at home, and since the SMS had somewhat more arcade-friendly titles, I really loved it for that. At one time my favorite game in the arcade was Sky Shark, so Bomber Raid was right up my alley :) that's all :)

Tobikomi Joined: 19 Jan 2018 Posts: 13 Location: USA	Posted: Sun Jan 21, 2018 9:57 pm
Tobikomi Joined: 19 Jan 2018 Posts: 13 Location: USA	I don't own any of the systems (I own GENESIS, but this site ain't about that), but I plan to own the SEGA Master System. I say SMS because I used to play games of SMS games on an emulator when I was little; I also like the idea that I can play SMS games on the big screen. lol I would also like to mention that I plan to make games for the SMS (as well as test out my SN76489 chiptunes on it), but I need to learn how to code before I can do that.

msimplay Joined: 17 Feb 2018 Posts: 1	Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2018 6:29 am
msimplay Joined: 17 Feb 2018 Posts: 1	Well I couldn't afford much else and everyone I knew at the time also had a Sega Master System in the same boat as me also being in the UK the Master System was very popular and a respected console. It was better than the 8bit micro computers in that the graphics were better and the instant loading times exactly like the Arcade. Plus the controller was easier to use than the computer joystick The Ni****do NES was coveted and everyone thought it was the best however. I was introduced to the Master System at my friends house and I really enjoyed Shinobi I thought it was exactly like the Arcade version that I used to play at the local chippy. I loved that it had Arcade ports I used to look at the promotional flyer that came with every game and I liked the graphics I thought at the time they were exactly like the Arcade. Games like Shinobi and Ghouls N Ghosts looked exactly the same to my 8 year old self. To me it was a chance to play the Arcade at home without paying 10p a go. The console that introduced me to the concept of Arcade in the home. The Megadrive was advertised in every SMS 2 Flyer I saw and it was the hot new system I knew it was better but I kept routing for the SMS and bought SMS versions of the games since it was the console I had. I remember when I bought Sonic on the Master System and it was the hot new game all of my friends came around to see how it played.

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