Among the most influential and greatest of all consoles in history is Sega’s second outing in the gaming console market, the Mega Drive (known as the Genesis in North America). It was the console that first challenged Nintendo, led to some beloved franchises such as Sonic, and was so influential for a while that the name “Sega” was synonymous with video games.
Sega would go on to squander their lead, and the Super Nintendo would beat them by the end; Sega themselves would never recover from their mismanagement, and less than a decade after the Genesis was discontinued, would go third party. But none of that changes how great the Genesis itself was. And today, it is 30 years old—counting from its original release in Japan, which was on October 29, 2018.
Sega posted a quiet tweet to commemorate the occasion on their Twitter account, but there wasn’t much else. Hopefully, the Genesis Classic, which is due to come next year, will be the proper celebration that a console as iconic as this deserves.