ValuGamer

In the last post I mentioned how Sega won the holidays of 1995 without any specific references. I aim to keep things professional on this website so I felt I should cite my sources. Today we are looking at Sega’s “Holiday Buffet” checklist from 1995. Sega believed — or wanted you to believe — that their multi-platform madness presented a variety of options to the consumer. This was very true although I honestly wouldn’t know what to pick from this lot. “Choose what you like” the cover pleads. Genesis was probably the safest bet as it had been around the longest and had the most games. Heck, it got placed ahead of both the Sega CD and 32X in the catalog. This shows you just how much faith the company had in its technically* superior games and systems, but I digress, let’s take a gander at what is available. Click on an image to see it in high resolution.

*Yes, technically. Not really.

This has to be one of the most honest and self-aware advertisements ever made. Sega really did appear to be sleazy sandwich board salesmen. Go marketing!

First up is the Saturn, Sega’s prematurely-released 32-bit console. I like to think of Saturn as Sega’s “Let It Be” and the Dreamcast as their “Abbey Road”. Chew on that for a bit.

Lots of quality titles listed here. X-Men 2, Sonic 3, and Sonic and Knuckles could have easily defended the Genesis lineup by themselves but it’s nice to have some backup.

Ehh… if your 32X actually worked then there were at least a couple of decent games to play. In fact, this list contains a good portion of the entire library of the system. Yikes. To be fair, Sega had their heart in the right place with the 32X. Unfortunately it was in a shoe.

Whoa, Sega CD is still hangin’ in there!

The Game Gear (aka Master System Portable) had a few decent games. Castle of Illusion was a competent platformer and most of the Sonic games were at least passable. The damn thing sucked batteries faster than an electric car.

Extra Fun Fact: the Master System was supported until 1997 by Tec Toy in Brazil.