I've learned over the years that there is precious little on the SMS in the United States. It just never took off. Some reports have it penetrating less than 10% of the video game market (basically the NES) at the time in the USA.
It's much different in the UK (and Brazil).
The system sold well! And had a bunch more games. If you are collecting you'll find that almost all the activity in this corner of the "retro" collection market comes via the UK.
A book named "A Compendium of Sega Master System Games" by Kieren Hawken is a marvelous thing that exists. 174 pages of reviews and a handful of interviews of people who worked on some of the games. What an incredible guide to go with my little collecting journey with the SMS (which is expanding to the Genesis, er, Mega Drive - same thing with the US and Europe).
I do have a story about the SMS and why I preferred it. A childhood friend of mine had an older brother who was very creative. Like, off the charts, creative. At the time he would have been around middle school age. He was cool, he had an SMS. So when it came time for me to pick a video game console for Christmas? It had to be Sega.
This creative older brother of a friend ended up going to Cal Arts and became one of the earliest Pixar employees. His first job there was sketching the slinky dog in the first Toy Story. He's still there, working on the "good" side of the company. Toy Story(s), Up, Coco, Luca, Elemental.
Back to the book - The interviews are interesting and highlight how developing games back then was somewhat chaotic. This person working on this, and another on that. A fascinating read.
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Questions, comments? Email me: ljbaby654@gmail.com
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