The Sega Genesis was known everywhere outside of America as the Mega Drive. It was a cartridge based system with high-color graphics, offering a better picture and longer games than the NES. The sound chip, while sounding much better than the NES, was just a FM synthesizer which had an abrasive sound; it was possible, but costly in memory space, to implement fully digital wave audio. Read the SNES section for advantages of its SPC chip.

  The first controller was three buttons, A, B, and C, a D-pad, and Start. Later Sega released a six button controller to compete with the SNES controller, which had four face buttons and two triggers. There is no ready made controller to PC interface, but you can build one. I haven't bothered, since why interface a Genesis controller when you could interface the similar-but-better Saturn controller?

  Sega released a CD add-on called the Sega CD in the early 90s. The Sega CD saw a moderate success when it was first released, but its library of games eventually turned out to be SNES games with added FMV sequences. The FMV sequences were not interesting enough to purchase the Sega CD version of a game, so its list of titles dwindled until eventually the 32X came out.

  The 32X is known to older gamers as one of the biggest failures of console gaming history. The 32X was not developed in Japan, it was conceived by frustrated executives of Sega of America trying to compete with the SNES. They designed the 32X, which would plug into the cartridge slot of a Genesis and play 32-bit games. The problem was that this device never saw the light of day in Japan, where all of the talented game developers could be found. In Japan, the Saturn was already out, and the 32X eventually died in the wake of the Saturn release.

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