Welcome to Stiq Figures, where the sales data is after the break and the posts don't matter. Every week, we take a look at, uh, something - meanwhile, the previous week's Japanese hardware sales figures are posted after the jump, and a discussion of said figures takes place in our comments. It may not be conventional, but it's a time-honored Joystiq tradition.
For most of us who've grown up outside of Asia, Sega's history as a gaming hardware manufacturer begins with the Sega Master System, released on North American shores in June of 1986 to the tune of $200. In truth, the Sega Master System was actually the Sega Mark III, which itself was the third iteration of Sega's real first foray into hardware design, the SG-1000.

The SG-1000 (an acronym of "Sega Game" 1000) was released in Japan on July 15, 1983 for ¥15,000, which at the time amounted to $62.48 USD, assuming an average exchange rate of ¥240.06 to the dollar. (Coincidentally, this was the also the day that Nintendo launched the Famicom.) Armed with a blistering 3.5 MHz CPU and two whole entire kilobytes of RAM, the SG-1000 was only mildly successful in Japan, Australia and New Zealand, but curiously saw much greater success in the piracy-infected Taiwanese market.

North America, however, never saw an official SG-1000 release, although the Telegames Personal Arcade was released stateside and was capable of playing SG-1000 carts, had they somehow managed to make the trip across the Pacific. The SG-1000 Mark II was released a year later in 1984, sporting a redesigned case and identical components (sound familiar?). Nowadays, Mark I versions of the SG-1000 can go on eBay for as much as $1,500 - a good bit more than the 63 bucks it would have run you back in 1983.Continue reading Stiq Figures, April 30 - May 6: SG-1000 edition
Stiq Figures, April 30 - May 6: SG-1000 edition originally appeared on Joystiq on Sun, 13 May 2012 23:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments