Asian vs. Japanese Mega Drive systems

I was wondering - how can one tell whether a Mega Drive system is the general Asian one or the Japanese version? I would imagine there is an NTSC-J sticker somewhere on the system, but besides that are there any obvious differences in the packaging or design of the system? Are the instructions included with the Asian version also in Japanese or are they in other languages?

I referring to the Model 1 Mega Drive which is larger and has a volume knob amoung other things.

 

The boxes are quite different, Asian ones will say something like "for use in Asia". The actual consoles do have different stickers on the bottom but I don't have an Asian MD anymore to take a picture. Other than that there are really no other discernible differences except that some Asian MDs will also be factory set to 50Hz which is quite noticeable if you're in NTSC territory.

 

If it says "For Sale and Use Only In Japan, Taiwan and The Philippines," would you think that it's a Japanese or an Asian system?

 

I *think* Asian.

 

Can anybody verify that? I'm looking at you, Yakumo.

 

I posted about this ages ago with full box scans etc. Take a look at my site under the harware section and all your questions will be answered.

http://www.segagagadomain.com

or for those to lazy to clicka few links here are two pictures.

Japanese ONLY Mega Drive


Asian Mega Drive


Yakumo

 

The asian version doesnt say AV intelligent terminal in pink on the red ring.

 

Ah, well spotted. Also one of them has bright red ABC letters on the controller buttons. I can't remember which now without checking on my site.

Yakumo

 

They are both Japanese machines, it's just the top one was the original one sold only in Japan for about the first 2 years. If you go to any second game shop in Japan that sells old machines you will generally see both boxes. You might notice the sneaky Katakana on the lower box.

 

Now thats a kickass box art:nod:

US ones also had red ABC letters on the old 3-buttons controller...

 

I once saw a few Megadrive units for sale in Stage 2 (Goodmans catalogue oulet warehouse store thing) in the UK with purple trim on the front of the casing. Was a purple version ever officially released in the UK? It was packaged with the MegaCD1 unit too.

 

Japanese Mega Drives also use the "Asian" box, look at the ones with pack-in Sonic. (Or is that really an "Asian" model?)

 

No, the UK PAL systems all had the small 16-bit text and a white strip. maybe they were selling Hong Kong versions?

There seems to be some confusion between the term Japanese MD and Asia MD. By saying Japanese Mega Drive people mean it was a system sold ONLY in Japan making it Japanese only. Later on the system was sold in many Asian areas which is what's meant by Asian Mega Drive. This system in NTSC-J like the Japanese only one but sold all over Asia including Japan.

Maybe a better way to look at it is the Original release and the later release?

Yakumo

 

Actually, I own a MD2 and MD1 asian Mega Drive. I don't have the MD1 box anymore (I made scrap of it when I was 3 years old), but, I have my MD2 asia NIB.

The Asian consoles are different in many subjects. The most easy to see which one is which is the model 1.

It does have English writting on the box.

It does say PAL-B ASIAN SPECIFICATION, SEGA ORININAL in a sticker on the front of the box (or directly printed on the box).

The actual console front case, it doesn't have the AV INTELLIGENT TERMINAL, STUPID THING at the right and left of the magenta LED thing.

On the back, the sticker does say Mega Drive PAL-B(VE).

The manual is in English, Mandarin, Hindi and some strange thing.

Let me some minutes and I will post some pictures of the Mega Drive 2 asia.

 

Okay, here are some pics:

The console itself is like a Japanese unit. The only way to see the diferences are on the stickers on the bottom and the console PCB.



The carts are Japanese sized but English language.



The manual is in English, Mandarin, Hindi and some strange languages (thai? elfic? make your own choice).



The multiregion but language cheking games appear as English. Here, SOR shows like SOR, not like Bare Knuckle. Notice the black bars on the top and bottom, tipical of a 50 Hz system of that time.



Now let's go to the box. It does have a big circle that says PAL ASIA SPECIFICATION, SEGA ORIGINAL on the top left corner.



The information text is in Mandarin and English.



Well, I think that's it. The box is the same as the Japanese one just exepting this things. But, there is one more thing. It doesn't have Japanese lettering. Since, it doesn't have a single Katakana or Hiragana.

Cheers.

 

That's the Asian PAL console. The other that I pictured is for Japan, Taiwan and The Philippines since they all use NTSC.

There's also another variation of the Asian Mega Drive where the carts have Gold angled Mega Drive text sort of like the Mega CD logo. I had a few games like that such as Bare Knuckle 2. They came with 2 instruction books as well. One being fully in English while the other looked like it was Chinese.

Yakumo

 

I had a Asian PAL MD2 and nowhere on the console did it say it was Asian or PAL or did it give any indications (except for a sticker tacked on the box) It was official too, not a mod. The language jumper set was Japanese. It came from Canada which makes me think it originally came from Hong Kong. It would be pretty cool if a MD collector could buy up all the consoles and take pictures of them

aha, found an old picture of it!:
http://calpis.s5.com/FS/md2.jpg

 

Could be, but you'd expect Goodmans to only sell official UK stuff. I did find it strange back in the day.

 

Hello,

I'm sorry to bump this topic but I thought it is better than creating a new one.

Here is my problem: I'm going to buy a Mega Drive from eBay but I don't know if it is an asian or a japanese one.
The box looks just like this.
It looks exactly like the asian box but there is the red text near the power light like on the japanese Mega Drive on it and the buttons on the controller are red.
The model is "HAA-2510".

Can anyone tell me if this is a asian or a japanese system? and is it PAL or NTSC?

Thanks in advance.

 

Wikipedia got the serial-numbers of all possible MD variations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variations_of_the_Sega_Mega_Drive

I looked up my MD with the given numbers (they are the same as yours), and then I was sure it was Japanese.