Am I tripping? Or was the Sega Master System very elusive when it was current?

[supershredder]

I had a discussion with my older brother the other day, and I was asking him if he remembers even anyone in our town having a sms console. I never saw one, nor knew of any local school kids/friends who had one. Our town is about 30,000 people, but never that Sega Master System. Surely we aren't the only ones who experienced this phenomenon. Just find it strange, and wonder how rare it was to see one in the wild during its hayday. Was it that rare, or were we just the anomaly?

 

[bigstinkie]

i was bourne in the wrong ultimatum (1995), but for what it is worth i have not seen a single sega master systemburger in my life - in spite of having quite a few older game consoles myself and knowing a few collectors of older game consoles

 

[RustySK]

Depends entirely on where in the world you live. I definitely knew plenty of people who had one.

Generally speaking if you lived in Europe or South America (especially Brazil) back in the day, where SEGA was most successful, chances are you'll have seen a Master System or later a Mega Drive/Genesis in the wild, while in the US, it'd be less likely.

Also, keep in mind that the overall gaming industry and the home console market in particular were FAR smaller back then than even during the PSX era, so sales figures were just way, way lower in general.

 

[qw90700]

The only person I knew who had an SMS was one of the kid in our school however he had it just because his father having business trips around the world and he bought it from somewhere and some games but in my country it was never known per se, instead Sega Genesis was wild fire. Even arcade places and NES despite they were usually fake ones wasn't that popular.

 

[Yousef]

That would really depend. The SMS was highly praised for its graphical quality and amazing line of RPGs, and also revolutionizing many gaming trends and whatnot. But it’s virtually unheard of it select regions.

 

[Rocket2049]

I honestly literally never heard of a master system until a couple years ago
literally thought sega's first console was megadrive/genesis

when i wanted to play the very first phantasy star as a ROM is when i found out.
and oh boy is that a terrible game, you can't even see more than one monster in a battle encounter, talking to NPCS always transititions to another "first person" view, and god the dungeons
i find it extremely hard to believe anyone actually beat this guide-less
oh AND A GAME BREAKING GLITCH THAT MADE ME RESTART ALL OVER AGAIN, very common one, at that!
recommend playing that game on PS2 remake (phantasy star generations)
or if you like the retro, on sega ages (switch) version, makes some enhancements, adds a map, and balanced the game to be overall less annoying/time consuming

 

[Boog111]

I saw one when it was contemporary when I visited one of my cousins' homes. Didn't get a chance to play it. Never seen one again.

 

[freebie#47]

No, it was definitely hard to find, and even you could find one, it was charged even more in certain locations.

 

[Badseed]

I am ancient enough to have lived during those old dark times and i can say with confidence that I have never met anyone who owned a SMS, nor have I ever actually seen a SMS in real life. Anyone that wasn't a ding-dong just bought a Nintendo.

 

[driftwood]

Wide distribution for things was slower back then. I never saw the Master System in the wild either, but i did see its revision. The Master System II was setting on the shelf next to a Genesis and an NES. The only games on the peg wall behind them was Genesis and Nintendo games. I remember thinking "who's going to buy this?".

 

[DanCalibur]

My cousin had one at the time and it was my first contact with a video game. Here in Brazil it's still in production.
https://www.kalunga.com.br/prod/vid...h7NM7OHi2y9eKc_24p8b0sqnbpCT3xHuO5i-HmG0b94Ew

 

[Frickinfrik]

It all depends on where you live. Here in the U.S, the Master System barely made an impact over here because Nintendo had a firm iron grip on the market at the time. But it thrived in Europe and Brazil. Brazil loves the Master System, so much so that it still is being sold in Brazil.

 

[Zemano37]

I had a discussion with my older brother the other day, and I was asking him if he remembers even anyone in our town having a sms console. I never saw one, nor knew of any local school kids/friends who had one. Our town is about 30,000 people, but never that Sega Master System. Surely we aren't the only ones who experienced this phenomenon. Just find it strange, and wonder how rare it was to see one in the wild during its hayday. Was it that rare, or were we just the anomaly?

I grew up in the north of England during the 80's and 90's. The Master System was one of the most popular consoles after the C64 ran its course. Everyone wanted a Mega Drive and most had to settle for a Master System, usually the MS II with Alex The Kid installed on the console. Eventually, the Mega Drive took over and they stayed long after the release of the PS1.

 

[DreamCuPS]

I am from Brazil, and I know it was quite popular here during its heyday. There’s an important point I’d like to clarify, though: like most of the things Sega released in Brazil, the Master System was a relatively expensive console here. I’ve seen pages out there painting Brazil as “the land of the Master System” and so on… but the truth is, Famiclones were also hugely popular here — and much cheaper, thanks to the informal market. Anyway…

As for the console itself, I think it had great hardware, but Sega could have made better use of it. I believe they made two key mistakes: first, they tried to carry the console almost entirely on their own; second, most of its library ended up being ports from the Mega Drive and the arcade.

Overall, though, I’d say it’s an OK console, it has some real hidden gems here and there.

 

[PhaseJump]

In Canada, I saw 2 or 3 people with SMS back then, and 1 Turbografx 16 before Sega Genesis took over.

Everybody had NES, or even the Atari.

 

[Sonicrain]

I had a discussion with my older brother the other day, and I was asking him if he remembers even anyone in our town having a sms console. I never saw one, nor knew of any local school kids/friends who had one. Our town is about 30,000 people, but never that Sega Master System. Surely we aren't the only ones who experienced this phenomenon. Just find it strange, and wonder how rare it was to see one in the wild during its hayday. Was it that rare, or were we just the anomaly?

old man reporting in.
I had my console on Christmas of 1986 and I beat it safari hunt that same night. SMS has been my favourite console ever, probably because it's been my first. Throughout it's life where im from (Canada). my local town had 2 rental stores and they both had SMS titles in them. Albeit much smaller than the NES, I could often find decent titles to rent. Sometimes, my dad would take me to the town over to rent from another store that had a much larger selection. From all my friends, I was the only one with an SMS because NES outsold it by several numbers.