This page was constucted entirely on Amiga
The Sega Master System was first introduced in the USA in 1985 as a competetor to the Nintendo NES in the USA. It is derived from the Sega Mark III console introduced in Japan, and many early games were direct ports from this console. The NES had a few months headstart on the Master System, and Nintendo had also signed many developers onto contracts that prevented them from developing for rival systems. This meant that the Master System was never very successful in the USA against the mighty NES, although technically superior.
In the UK, the Master System was almost single handedly responisble for reviving the console market when released in 1987. The NES recieved very poor marketing, and suffered from a lack of quality games, and looked very poor compared to Amiga and Atari ST games of the same time period. The Master System however was marketed as a home arcade system, or as MasterTronic (The distributers) put it, "The Ultimate Home Video Arcade System". It retailed at £99 with 2 controllers and a Hang On card, compared to the more expensive NES at £140. Hang On looked superior to any NES game, and the promise of more popular Sega arcade conversions was another arrow in it's quiver.
The Master System was also more attractive to the customer, it looked sleek and high-tech whereas the NES was decidedly dull. It also had better peripherals, the 3D glasses and light phaser were better than Nintendo's Zapper and R.O.B. (although he was cute :)
As well as Sega producing quality arcade conversions such as Space Harrier and Outrun, they also produced a "budget" range of games, always popular with the British, retailing at £9.99. Compared to the NES's cheapest games at £29.99 (Donkey Kong Classics), it is easy to see why the Master System was triumphant.
In 1991, Sega released the Master System II, a cosmetic redesign. The casing was made smaller and more rounded, the reset button, card slot and expansion connector were omitted and the PCB shrunk. The redesign enabled the system to be sold at a cheaper price, £59.99 with Alex Kidd in Miracle World. Some would say, however, that it did not look nearly as good as the original, seemingly being designed for the younger player at mind now that the UK Megadrive had been officially released.