Before Sega Genesis, Sega tried to compete with Nintendo in the home console market with the SG-1000 and Sega Master System (Mark 3). However, the SG-1000 was completely destroyed by the Famicom, which was released around the same time. The Sega Master System was completely defeated by the release of Super Mario Bros. 3.
Sega tried to come up with its own mascot to rival Mario, and Kotaro Hayashida came up with Alex Kidd. Alex Kidd continued to do quite well at Sega, but fell short of Super Mario Bros. Luckily, however, Genesis had a certain blue blur in the work of Naoto Oshima and Yuji Naka.
Host Dave Klein discusses this story and how it combines with Sega of America’s smart marketing to help Sonic achieve “SAVE Sega.”
