SMS Euro and USA (and Jap too actually!)

[Cauterize]

I was goin through my sms collection at the weekend, i relaised a few of my games have a glossy cover manual and just english on the back of the box...

Am i right in thinkin this is a USA Cart?

How can you tell USA apart from Euro?

Also what are Jap releases like as ive never seen one!

[ApolloBoy]

Yes, you do have a US game there. US carts are pretty much the same, but the box will have only English on it and the manual will be different.

Japanese games are totally different, they won't even fit into the SMS without making an adapter.

[anagrama]

A few of the RPGs (of the top of my head, Phantasy Star, SpellCaster, Miracle Warriors, Y's and Ultima) will have an all-English (vertical) manual even in the European release, but otherwise that indicates a US game.
(Some of these RPGs might have also been released in other European countries with a localized manual - I know Ultima was.)

There's a couple of small differences between US and EU boxes - US games have the part number on the back of the box (if at all), while it's on the spine for Euro games. US games also have the 'Sega of America...' small-print on the back of the box. I'm not sure if there's any exceptions to this (I've only got a handful of US games).
You could check the scans section at SMSpower (www.smspower.org) to be absolutely sure in just about every case.

A lot of US games were imported into the UK after it had an early Stateside death, which is why they appear on eBay UK and on shop shelves here relatively often.


In Japan, the Master System equivalent is the Sega Mark III, which is beige coloured and a different shape to the Western SMS.
Confusingly, the Mark III was re-released in Japan in an upgraded form with built-in FM sound and rapid-fire unit in a shell which looked like the Western SMS, and was called the Master System.
Japanese Mark III/SMS carts are a different shape to the Western ones, slighly larger than an Atari 2600 cart (and also beige coloured). They aren't directly compatible with a US or Euro machine, but tototek.com sell a convertor that will play them (aswell as normal SMS games) on a Megadrive or Genesis.
The Mark III/SMS faired even worse in Japan than in the US, so there's only a small number of games that didn't get a Western release.

And when talking SMS imports, you can't stop at the US & Japan - there's a whole bunch of Brazilian-exclusive games and hardware, where the machine was still on shop shelves until at least the late 90's. Not to mention the new untold frontier of Korean games... ;)

[Cauterize]

thank you very much!

Turns out that i only have 1 US Game now :-P :)
Poseiden Wars 3D

cheers anagrama u sega boffin, i bow down to you! you are my idol!

[Cauterize]

And when talking SMS imports, you can't stop at the US & Japan - there's a whole bunch of Brazilian-exclusive games and hardware, where the machine was still on shop shelves until at least the late 90's. Not to mention the new untold frontier of Korean games... ;)

You reminded me there too... TecToy Releases look so nice! do you own any? i see them on ebay a lot, recently saw Street Fighter for SMS!

[anagrama]

Aw, shucks :) As it happens, I'm currently awaiting my first bundle of TecToy games in the post - I've put off buying any in the past while I've concentrated on the Euro releases, but now I'm closing in on the last few of them there's less chance to buy any so I figured I'd cast the net a bit wider.
I'm also waiting for a Mark III and a few Japanese games to arrive from DP's 'true' SMS guru, Raccoon Lad :)

[Cauterize]

hehee nice, do you wanna give me your need list (euro games) see if i can help you out there?