Friends, in various Diary of An Arcade Employee podcasts I have discussed that back in the mid-’80s, my family was firmly entrenched on the side of Team Nintendo. Which of course meant that when the Sega Master System was released in ’86 – it was pointless in entertaining the notion of adding the home console to our collection – doubly so when three years later the Sega Genesis hit the market. Thankfully I had a best friend whose family was completely in the Team Sega camp – which meant on the weekends while visiting one another we could enjoy the games and consoles from the ‘rival’ companies. I realize that many of you of a certain age probably had a similar experience – the rivalry between Nintendo and Sega was quite real… and at times quite intense.
Now at the time the Sega Genesis was released, my best friend happened to have an after school job at the local pizza place – which naturally meant he was able to pick up the highly coveted new home console one night after work. We ended up staying up until the rooster crowed at the break of dawn – his parents had a small farm – the excitement of playing Sonic the Hedgehog, Altered Beast, Space Harrier II and Golden Axe kept us up all night.
I am assuming that we missed this coverage of the 1989 launch of the Sega Genesis as covered by Movie Time – because we were too busy playing on the Sega Master System or something. Which is a shame as attending the event was none other than the late and great Harry Anderson (Night Court, Stephen King’s It) – who you will see for yourself was something of a video game enthusiast.
In closing out this article, I will admit that I managed to get a Sega Genesis of my own – breaking that mindset of my family that it only had to be Nintendo. I received it thanks to winning the Phantom 2040 contest – which naturally included a copy of the awesome game based on the animated series.
What about you though – did you family also pick a side in the console war between Nintendo and Sega?
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