Sega Master System

An underrated 8-bit powerhouse that conquered Europe and Brazil while struggling against Nintendo at home.

Sega's most ambitious challenge to Nintendo's third-generation dominance. Originally released in Japan as the Sega Mark III in 1985, it was rebranded for Western markets with hardware that outclassed the NES — four times the system RAM and eight times the video RAM — alongside genuinely novel accessories like the SegaScope 3-D Glasses and Light Phaser. Nintendo's restrictive licensing strangled its third-party library in Japan and North America, but the Master System became a cult juggernaut in Europe, the UK, Australia, South Korea, and especially Brazil, where Tectoy variants are still being produced today.