Sega Genesis
Sega sold 30.75 million Genesis units worldwide. Of these, 3.58 million were sold in Japan, and sales in Europe and the U.S. are roughly estimated at 8 million and 18–18.5 million as of June 1997 (at which time Sega was no longer manufacturing the system) respectively. In 1998, Sega licensed the Genesis to Majesco Entertainment in North America so it could re-release the console. Majesco began reselling millions of formerly unsold cartridges at a budget price, together with 150,000 units of the second model of the Genesis. It released the Sega Genesis 3, projecting to sell 1.5 million units of the console by the end of 1998. An estimated 3 million Genesis units were sold by Tec Toy in Brazil.
Genesis Nomad
The Sega Genesis represents Sega's entry into the 16-bit era of video game consoles. In Japan, Sega released the Mega Jet, a portable version of the Mega Drive designed for use on Japan Airlines flights. As a condensed version, the Mega Jet requires a connection to a television screen and a power source, and so outside of airline flights it is only useful in cars equipped with a television set and cigarette lighter receptacle. On planes, the Mega Jet was connected into armrest monitors. Despite the limited use of the Mega Jet, it did see a consumer release in 1994 into Japanese department stores, but did not see success.
Planning to release a new handheld console as a successor to the Game Gear, Sega originally intended to produce a system with a touchscreen interface, two years before the Game.com handheld by Tiger Electronics. However, such technology was very expensive at the time, and the handheld itself was estimated to have a high cost. Sega chose to suspend the idea and instead release the Genesis Nomad, a handheld version of the Genesis. The codename used during development was "Project Venus". Sega's decision to base the Genesis Nomad around the hardware of the Sega Genesis was to capitalize on the home console's popularity in North America. Because the Genesis Nomad was capable of connecting to a television for play, it was the only handheld console capable of doing so at the time.