Sega SG-1000
- For emulators, see SG-1000 emulators, and for system information, see SG-1000.
The SG-1000 was Sega's first attempt at a video game console. It was a decent machine for its day (almost identical to still recent ColecoVision and MSX), but it came out the exact same day as the Famicom. Now, it actually sold very well and had more games at first. But this was not to last: not only Nintendo had the more powerful machine, they courted third-parties very aggressively, soon building up a vast library to take over the console market. Because of this, the SG-1000's popularity soon waned, and its game library remained quite small. The terrible hardwired controller didn't help either.
This system had a rather limited release: Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, and Spain. Unnoficial clone Dina, also compatible with ColecoVision games, was released in Taiwan and the US.
There was a home computer version of the SG-1000, the SC-3000. It ran the same games.
As the SG-1000 tanked, Sega was quick to work in a successor. The first was just the redesigned SG-1000 II; but soon they came up with a greatly improved machine, the Mark III aka Master System.
Due to the similar hardware, there were several unofficial ports of MSX games in Taiwan. And it was possible to run SG-1000 games on MSX computers by using special loaders and add-ons.
Games
[edit | edit source]| Cover | Title | Genre | Description | Screenshot |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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Borderline | Shoot'em Up | Tank shmup, you go around and blow stuff while making your way through the terrain. Some stages have cores which you must take down before proceeding. |  |
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Doki Doki Penguin Land | Puzzle | A game about a penguin who must take it's egg to the bottom of the stage where his wife awaits, while navigating the platforms, avoiding bears and trying not to break the damn thing. Got a sequel on the Master System. |  |
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Dragon Wang | Beat'em Up | Nice little Game of Death style Beat'em Up, where you wander around a dark tower and kick the crap out of many badguys. It's similar to Irem's Kung-Fu, but less linear.
Had a sequel on the Master System called Kung Fu Kid. |
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Gulkave | Shoot'em Up | Take off and blast the evil |
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Sindbad Mystery | Maze | Navigate through a maze, where Sindbad (no it's not a typo) must collect pieces of a map to find a treasure while avoiding pirates. Unique in that each maze has two tiers separated by stairs. It also got an Arcade release which is hard as balls. |  |
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Star Jacker | Shoot'em Up | Good arcade conversion, in this game you control four ships at the same time to take down those stinking aliens! |  |
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The Black Onyx | RPG | A port of one of the first JRPG games ever created. Create your party and go dungeon-crawling, simple as that!
English translation patch here, includes fixes to some minor annoying things. |
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Videos
[edit | edit source]| Second Generation | ||
| Consoles | Emerson Arcadia 2001 - Atari 2600 - Atari 5200 - Epoch Cassette Vision - ColecoVision - Fairchild Channel F - Mattel Intellivision - Magnavox Odyssey² - Bally Professional Arcade - Sega SG-1000 - RCA Studio II - Interton VC 4000 - Milton Bradley Vectrex | |
| Handhelds | Entex Adventure Vision - Nintendo Game & Watch - Milton Bradley Microvision | |
| Computers | Apple I - Apple II - Apple III - Atari 8-bit - Acorn BBC Micro - Commodore PET - Tandy TRS-80 - Tandy TRS-80 CoCo | |