Foul pursuits. The SG-1000’s second Champion sports title introduces to the console one of the great inevitabilities of any American or Japanese game system: baseball. That Sega released…
Tainted love. Champion Tennis kicks off the Champion line, Sega’s official designation forsports titles released for SG-1000 and a precursor to the Master System’sGreat series. Sega published a…
Fun with a tranquilizer gun. If Congo Bongo’s half-baked monkey-chase made it SG-1000’s Donkey Kong analog, then Safari Hunting—a game about tramping through the bush to capture wildlife…
A front-loaded shooter. Japan’s gaming fandom loved Namco’s Xevious, and the SG-1000 couldn’t escape its influence. In fact, the decidedly Xevious-esque Star Jacker didn’t just ship alongside the console; it even appeared…
An unsinkable start. One of a surprising number of early SG-1000 releases to center on a martial theme, Yamato returns once again to the well-worn topic of military warfare but…
Even better than Chessmaster. Right alongside Mahjong, the SG-1000 delivered what would eventually become one of the other inevitabilities of a console launch in Japan: A shogi game. As with Sega’s Mahjong, Serizawa…
Double, double, tile and trouble. Mahjong represents a few notable firsts on SG-1000. As a launch title, this holds the distinction of being the first proper video game adaptation…
Your space in the ocean, invaded. The earliest titles in Sega’s SG-1000 lineup skew heavily toward military realism and violent themes, setting the console apart from the cartoonish…
Not Kong, not great. By all reasonable standards, Sega’s home adaptation of minor arcade hit Congo Bongo should have been the breakout title for SG-1000’s launch—the game that sold the…
The first Sega console When Japan’s video games industry officially recounts its own history, the story most often begins at one of two points: Either the 1978 debut…
The SG-1000, but in computer form. Although the SG-1000 is said to have emerged from Sega’s plan to produce a home computer, my work hasn’t gone into any…
SJ-200 Although the SG-1000 shipped with a controller wired permanently into its body, Sega’s system differed from Nintendo’s Famicom in that their console left a connector open for…
1983 July 1983 SG-1000 SC-3000 N-Sub Mahjong Serizawa Hachidan no Tsumeshogi Congo Bongo Yamato Star Jacker Aug. 1983 Safari Hunting Champion Tennis Oct. 1983 Champion Baseball Sega Flipper…