The Mega Drive (メガドライブ, Mega Doraibu) is a fourth-generation video game console released by Sega in Japan in 1988 and Europe, Australia and other PAL regions in 1990. The console was released in North America in 1989 under the name Sega Genesis, as Sega was unable to secure legal rights to the Mega Drive name in that region.[4] The Mega Drive was Sega's fifth home console and the successor to the Sega Master System, with which it is electronically compatible.
The Mega Drive was the first of its generation to achieve notable market share in Europe and North America. While it was originally launched to compete with the Nintendo Entertainment System and NEC's TurboGrafx-16, its more direct competition with the SNES, which was released two years after the Mega Drive, would dominate the 16-bit era of video gaming. The Mega Drive began production in Japan in 1988 and ended with the last new licensed game being released in 2002 in Brazil.
The Mega Drive is Sega's most successful console, though there is disparity in the number of units sold worldwide.[cn 1] The console and its games continue to be popular among fans, collectors, retro gamers, emulation enthusiasts and the fan translation scene.[11] There are also several indie game developers continuing to produce games for the console. Many games have been re-released in compilations for newer consoles and/or offered for download on various online services, such as Wii Virtual Console, Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network and Steam.
In 2009, IGN named the console the fifth greatest video game console, out of a field of 25.
The Mega-CD (メガCD, Mega Shī Jī) is an add-on device for the Mega Drive video game console, designed and produced by Sega and released in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and North America. In North America, it was renamed Sega CD, as the name Mega-CD bore no obvious associative meaning in that market where the console was named "Genesis" instead of "Mega Drive". The device adds a CD-ROM drive to the Mega Drive, allowing the user to play CD-based games and providing additional hardware functionality. In addition, the add-on can also play audio CDs and CD+G discs.
The development of the Mega-CD was confidential; game developers were not made aware of what exactly they were working on until the add-on was finally revealed at the Tokyo Toy Show in Japan. The Mega-CD was designed to compete with the PC Engine CD (TurboGrafx-16 CD) in Japan, which had a separate CD-ROM drive.
The first version of the Mega-CD sits underneath the Mega Drive console and loads CDs via a motorized tray. A second version places a top-loading CD-ROM drive to the right of the console, and is intended primarily for use with the redesigned Sega Mega Drive 2. Both versions of the Mega-CD are compatible with the initial two versions of the Mega Drive console, but not with the Mega Drive 3 or Genesis 3.
