Sega Mark III & Master System

1985 - 3rd generation system

The Sega Mark III and Master System are home video game consoles developed and manufactured by Sega. The Mark III was released in Japan in 1985 and the Master System was released in North America and Europe in 1986. The Mark III and Master System were Sega's third generation of home consoles, and they were designed to compete with the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). They featured improved hardware over the previous Sega consoles and were capable of displaying more colors and more detailed graphics. The Mark III and Master System featured a 8-bit Zilog Z80 CPU, and it came with 8KB of RAM, expandable to 64KB. The Mark III and Master System also featured a built-in keyboard, a composite video output and a cartridge slot for games. The Mark III and Master System had a resolution of 256x192 pixels and could display 64 colors. The Mark III and Master System had a relatively large library of games available, it had a mix of original games and ports of popular arcade games like Space Harrier, Out Run and Phantasy Star. The Mark III and Master System were also compatible with a number of other accessories, such as a light gun and a 3D glasses. The Master System was more successful than the Mark III and it sold over 13 million units worldwide. The Master System was succeeded by the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive in 1989. The Mark III was only released in Japan and it did not achieve the same level of success as the Master System.