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.
Madden NFL
EA reverse engineered the console to sell the game without paying the standard $8 to $10 license fee per cartridge to Sega, then proposed a compromise of $2 per cartridge and a $2 million cap on the fee. The console maker agreed, afraid that EA would sell its reverse-engineered knowledge to other companies; the agreement saved EA $35 million over the next three years. As its own Joe Montana-endorsed football game would miss the 1990 Christmas shopping season, Sega asked EA to let it sell "Madden" with the Montana name. EA refused, but offered an inferior alternative that lacked "Madden"'s 3D graphics and most of its 113 plays. "Joe Montana Football" sold well despite shipping after Christmas 1990, and remained popular after BlueSky Software took over development. "John Madden Football" for the Genesis, however, became both the first hugely successful "Madden" game—selling 400,000 copies when the company expected 75,000—and the first killer app for EA and Sega, helping the console gain market share against the Super NES. From 1992 to 1994, "Mega" placed the game at #1 in their monthly Top 100 Mega Drive Games of All Time.