It was however mildly popular in Europe, where the minimalist monochrome gridlines of the box art appealed to stoic West German children. However, as any child who has ever read the back of an 80s Argos catalogue knows, being a Sega owner meant being a second hand citizen, forced to marvel at all the wonderful Master System games (like Alex Kidd In Fantasy Place, or Alex Kidd In Redditch) crammed into the top corner of page 749 to make way for nine thousand identical Hornby Intercity train sets and that weird radio that looked like a Coke can. Master System vs NES was less of a console war and more like that time the US Marines invaded the West Bromwich branch of WHSmith. Turns out they had Terrorvision, not Terrorists. Anyway.

In short, being a Sega fan meant pain, humiliation, and isolation. Sure, the Master System (and later Master System II) was a vastly more capable machine, but Nintendo’s stranglehold on the market meant almost all third party publishers stayed away for fear of being force fed “super mushrooms”, and the Master System only had about four games for it. At least, while it was Sega flagship. This was hardship, kids. The fact your Xbox One’s magic voice control device that reads your thoughts made your console marginally more expensive at launch is hardly a point to lament. Nor can you weep that your parallelepipedal supercomputer that lets you play games you don’t own is devoid of up to some of the features promised at launch. You’re drunk, children, go home until you learn how to grow up in the past.

Then, however, Sega hit upon a plan. Rather than release games consoles to compete with Nintendo, it was going to release a console with no competition at all. The NES was 8-bit. SEGA would release a 16-bit console. It had more bits, therefore, it was better. There could be no argument. 16 is clearly a bigger number. Two times as big, to be exact. Yet another way in which the modern console war is stupid. 1080p isn’t twice as big as 900p. How can anyone tell which is better? The future we live in is an idiot.

Released in 1989 as the Sega Mega Drive, the gulf in power between it and the NES allowed it to capitalise on Sega’s once again thriving arcade business, offering quality conversions of coin-op titles. Some shoulder-padded gentleman was probably yelling the word “synergy” while snorting coke to celebrate. Third party publishers flocked to the new system, hoping to capitalise on the more mature focus of the Mega Drive and escape Nintendo’s restrictive licensing policies. Yet even this, at first, was not enough, and the Mega Drive bombed as hard as its predecessors in its native Japan, even after Sega introduced the Sega Mega Anser, an online banking peripheral that doubled as an answering machine. I wish I were making that up.

In North America, things were better, where the rebranding as Genesis gained favour with Phil Collins fans. In Europe, it was a smash hit, overtaking Nintendo comfortably and forcing Mario to cry into his meatballs. Dressing up as a racoon didn’t appeal to your average British kid in the same way as turning into a rage monster and beating up a bunch of ancient Greek demigods. My personal favourite was World Cup Italia ‘90, especially when it glitches and you can kick the goalie repeatedly in the bollocks until the ball rolls in the net and you celebrate in front of a monkey. Okay, so you could kick goalies in the balls in Nintendo World Cup, and that’s how I once beat Cameroon 78-0, but my point remains valid. I’ve forgotten my point. The Mega Drive was called ‘Super Aladdin Boy’ in South Korea. I don’t think that was my point either. Oh, hedgehogs, that was it.