???? – 1984retired
Arcadia 2001
“35 games, 18 months, endless clones — the Arcadia lived on in everyone else's living room.”
“Sega's first swing, and every game it loved still runs on its children.”
The SG-1000 was Sega's very first entry into home video game hardware, born on the advice of Hayao Nakayama as arcades faltered in 1982. It launched on July 15, 1983 — the very same day Nintendo released the Family Computer in Japan, a debut nobody forgets. With 51 ROM cartridge games and 29 Sega My Card titles, it quietly built a library worth keeping.
It retired in 1984 after a redesign (the SG-1000 II) and a limited run in Australia and New Zealand, but it hardly left the stage. Its line continued through the SC-3000 computer and the 1985 Mark III, which became the basis for the 1986 Master System, Sega's first international console. Best of all, every SG-1000 game remained fully compatible with what followed — a retirement where nothing was lost.
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“35 games, 18 months, endless clones — the Arcadia lived on in everyone else's living room.”
“Four knobs, two buttons, one nation hooked before Nintendo showed up.”
“First family of home gaming, bowing out with dignity while the party crashed around it.”