"SEGA......"  Even today I can't here the boot screen of the Sega Mega Drive (Genesis - more later) without a sense of anticipation of the gaming joy to come.  It's a Pavlovian response, one that I have for a few (not all - the PS3 and 4 are a bit cold...) console start up screens.

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For me the Mega Drive was a game changer, I had a Commodore Amiga - but it was unwieldy in a small kids bedroom, the Mega Drive was on the big TV and looked epic!

So, why does it have two names?  There are a number of stories, the two most likely are probably an amalgam of the truth.  Having launched the Mega Drive in 1988 in it's home country Sega were looking for a North America release ahead of the wider Europe/Rest of the world roll out.  The Mega Drive name was already copyrighted in the US and would have no doubt required negotiation/lawyers/compensation to secure  - but US execs weren't that keen on the name anyway and wanted something more inspiring for the North America market, and that's probably the Genesis of the Genesis ;).  The console released across Europe and the Rest of  the World  as Mega Drive and was a blockbuster success.

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The overall level of success was hoped for but probably not expected, the Sega Master System had played second fiddle to the Nintendo Entertainment System and Nintendo owned the US home console market at that time.  Getting a head start on Nintendo in the 16 bit stakes gave them a lead that in all honesty the SNES never got close to catching.  With Sonic as the figurehead of this new console the Plumber took some time to recover.

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The Genesis/Mega Drive mini was a bit of a disappointment, although convenient it lacked some important titles (which could be added through modding) and to my mind emulation gives you much more control and content.  I've chosen to use the standalone KEGA Fusion emulator, but this and other cores exist in Retro-Arch so this is not by any means the only way - but I think its the best!

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KEGA Fusion will emulate nearly all Sega's predecessor consoles (Master System and SG1000) as well as all the add on flavours to the Mega Drive, so the 32X and the Sega CD.  This is not difficult to do but for Sega CD you will require a Bios - these are easily obtainable, as are the games, and also your Sega CD Games will need to be in the Bin and Cue format not CHD.  All the other machines require no BIOS and are loaded via zip files.

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I hope the video guide below is useful, if you do have any questions or comments please, please leave them under the video - I really want to provide guides that help, I have tries to solve some of the issues I experienced when I started emulation and I do this to pass on that knowledge.

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Until the next video - Go Well!

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