Sega SG-1000 - Sega's FIRST console

Sega SG-1000 II. Picture was taken by me, is from Wikipedia, and is public domain.

AUDIO FEATURE HERE

Background/History:
Many people think that the Sega Genesis, released in 1989, was Sega's first console, but it was actually Sega's first successful console in the USA. The Master System dates back to 1986, and was Sega's first console to be sold worldwide. The first console to ever be released by Sega dates all the way back to 1983.
Before 1983, Sega had made itself known as an arcade powerhouse. Games like Star Trek, Zaxxon, Frogger, and Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom had won the acclaim of players worldwide. By 1982, Sega had revenues of $215 million. This dropped to $136 million the next year due to a crash in the arcade industry, and Sega decided to enter the home console market.
The Sega SG-1000 was released in Japan on July 15, 1983, with later releases in Australia and parts of Europe. A cosmetic redesign called the SG-1000 II was released in July 1984, this time a Japan exclusive. It had some new features, such as detachable controllers and the ability to play Sega My Card games.
The system saw a (very belated) release in the USA in 1988, with the release of the Telegames Personal Arcade. However, the Personal Arcade was marketed as a ColecoVision replacement, and the SG-1000 functionality was unexplained. Also, SG-1000 games were never released to the USA market.
The system's hardware was very similar to the ColecoVision, which had been released in 1982.
97 games - 68 cartridge and 29 My Card games - were released.
Several peripherals were released, and a majority of the games require one to be played. 42 of the cartridge games can be played without a peripheral. The remaining 26 cartridge games require a keyboard, called the SK-1100. The 29 My Card games require a peripheral called the Card Catcher. A steering wheel controller was available for racing games, such as Safari Race.


What Makes It Obscure?
Aside from the system's release only in limited regions of the world, the SG-1000 was unsuccessful in its home market of Japan. The system was released on the same day as the Nintendo Famicom (NES), which quickly dominated the market. The Famicom had far more advanced technical specs than the SG-1000, making the SG-1000 outdated upon release. Sega was relegated to a very distant second place. Changes were made for the SG-1000 II, including a sleeker case and standard joypad controllers (replacing the joystick on the original SG-1000), but the efforts were too little, too late. The system was discontinued in October 1985, after only two years on the market. It was replaced by the Sega Mark III, which was developed from the SG-1000 technology and was more powerful than the Famicom. A cosmetic redesign of the Mark III became the Master System, which found success in some parts of the world.