Very cool to see this Gamester, thanks for posting it! I had never heard of this before, crazy little joystick on the controller. I was watching it saying to myself.. Wow the ports are facing away from you, AND the length of that cord looks like 2 feet. Sega made some crazy choices back then didnt they? Nice little console tho :)
The game you referred to as Galaga was actually called "Star Jacker" and it was an awesome game on the system. I played the heck out of it back in the day on my SC-3000.
The SG 1000 was released here in New Zealand under license by Grandstand, but not the SG 1000 II. From memory, New Zealand was the only country besides Japan to actually get the original SG-1000.
It's easy to take for granted the expense and time you put into these system reviews so I'd just like to thank you for educating and entertaining us over so many systems. I want to get a SG-1000 II someday, you could say there is a small degree of ease importing it because of the limited number of countries where it was released. :)
I love this channel Gamester81 show you consoles that you did not even know came out. No need for G4TV when you have RU-vid and Gamester81, Happy Console Gamer, theemureview, petedorr
Great under rated console here John, thanks for showing this and some game play for it as well. If I can find one of these I will definatley get this. = )
@wrestletube1 Sega's first home console was called the Sg-1000, the video shows the SG-1000 Mark II. They are fully compatible as far as games go. Later, Sega released the SG-1000 Mark III (in Japan) which was backwards compatible with these two, it used the same shape for its cartridges.
great video Gamerster - nice to see an old system review again - I love these, my fave bit of what you do. Also, congrats on the new presentation - got some new software? It looks good anyway :)
I used to own a relatively large collection consisting of a SG-1000 Mark II, and around 30 MyCard and Cart games, including many favorites such as Pitfall II, Drol and Wonder Boy. The system's library really grew on me, and there were still about 15-20 games that I wish I bought. Even though I do not have my collection anymore, the SG-1000 is one of my favorite systems. :)
Great review as usual. There are so many sg-1000 games that coleco fans may want to see ported as soon as possible... I'm not into ports, I'm programming my own stuff, but there are other coleco programmers working on some conversions.
Nice review, John! That's interesting how it has to be on channel 96 in order to see the video. The controller cords being very short sounds about right for Japan. From what I understand the apartments over there are very small and limited in space.
You know....I honestly believed the Sega Genesis was the first entry from Sega in the home console market. I seriously first found out about Sega's prior systems by playing Phantasy Star Online. You can raise these little creatures called MAGs and they evolve, sometimes into special MAGs that resemble consoles, characters, and a burger (lol). When I first saw the Mark III MAG, I was like "Wait, what?"
Two original SG-1000 consoles actually got sold on ebay this week. I managed to get one. Cost me $430 but i think it's still worth it considering how hard it is to track them down.
I came back to this video to find the channel number for the system. On a modern TV, it will show up on channel 10, 16, 32, 64 and 65(?). Some may work better than others.
I have been a long term Sega fan and have seen (and owned) many many old school Sega products but... I have never seen the controller for this system before! Wow! So so dicky! Thanks for sharing (many years ago now!).
@alphadelta227529KITT No it's not region free. Japanese systems will work on North American TV's and outlets (though not recommend to leave them plugged in too long do to voltages. The game is just in English which is cool.
The original SG1000 was tested in 1981 and officially released July 15, 1983 -- on the same day as the Nintendo FamiCom (N.E.S. to us). The original SG1000 has the distinction of having two hardwired joysticks that didn't always work.
nice review gamster81 =) i saw luke morse once made a video where he was playing some games on this system too, but i guess he aint got a boxed one, wich is pretty impressive O_O
Great vid John, I enjoyed it! I was wondering about the saving functions on the system though. Obviously the F1 game had a level editor, Would I be right in assuming the game (or system?) had some sort of battery backup feature so you could save your custom tracks?
Nice find there John, I've never heard of this one, would love one of these :o) Controller looks like an early cross between a joystick and a joypad, I wish they would bring joysticks back by the way :o) Wow, rather impressed with the graphics for the age :o)
you're good at filming with one hand, but that's why the tv connection cords where long the controller cord is short so it can easily clip on, but mainly because since the pause buttons on the console the idea is it's within arms reach.
The SG-1000 1 came out before the Master System. Never saw the SG-1000 in person, my god brotherss were the only two people that I ever saw with a Master System, I only remember them having the arcade version of Double Dragon.
GP World: The track editor is very similar to World Grand Prix for the Master System/Mark III. In fact the SMS game is clearly an enhanced version of this game.
I just got my SG-1000 II on November 4, 2011 so I'm going to hold off on getting the Mark I for a while... I'm 19 so that console's quite a bit older than me lol December 13, 2011 2:11 am
Great review! This is the first time I see this system in action. Those controllers really do look hard to manage... are they smaller than the master system's?
I wish you had a first one, they are exceedingly rare though, I can never find one. I love them because it's the only 3rd gen console to have a joystick.
No compilation that I know of, but the Kega Fusion emulator will play SG-1000 games as well as games for most other Sega consoles. Meka will also play SG-1000 games, as well as Master System, Colecovision and some others. I prefer Kega myself. Meka has a strange interface. For SG-1000 games, go to theisozone (add com to the end), click on Downloads, go down to Misc. and click on Full Rom Sets. SG-1000 is on page 2.
Am glad i now own the sg1000 matk2 as well, it looks waaay cooler then the western mastersystem from a design standpoint, Only sad thing about it is it’s rare and limited amount of games,not only that but those games are also very pricy on ebay and am not even talking about those pricy shipment costs wich altogether is just rediculous.
got one on the way... finally my first japanese gaming system, also comes with 7 games and the hu card. payed 100 euro's so that's like 120 bucks. fair price i think, but about the console being released in europe, it was not only in Spain, Italy and France but not even under sega's name as far as i know
I got a good thing to think about. If the first home system was called the Mark 2/SG-1000 then what the hell was the Mark 1? The classic SEGA arcade? The 8-bit computer?
Am I just imagining things or was there another old sega system that had a couple of built in games and had all of there other games came on cassette tapes
@alphadelta227529KITT He said you put your TV on like channel 97 or something so if your TV goes that high it will work. Japan and North America are NTSC.
