Sega Mega Drive

Type: Console
Publisher: Sega
Firstly released in: Japan
First release: 29 Oct 1988
Release and compatibility details: Named in Europe and Japan as Sega Mega Drive, in USA as Sega Genesis (released in US in August 1989 and in Europe November 1990). In 1995 was released Megadrive II (the same console, only different design) and Genesis III in 1998 (the same compatibility too, only smaller)

Success and unsuccess:

Most popular years: 1991-1994
Most popular countries: Japan, USA, West Europe
Amount of games in database: 1593 (list)
Amount of music records in database: 365 (list)
Amount of downloadable MOD tunes: 10 (list)
Amount of downloadable MIDI tunes: 156 (list)
Importance on the market in the most popular years: Very high

Characteristics:

First true 16-bit video game console ever, and it was much more successful than Sega's 8-bit Master System (especially in US). Probably it was most successful Sega's system ever, especially because of big "Sonic" hype.. :)

CPU: Motorola M68000, 16-bit, 7.67Mhz Sound CPU: Z80a, 3.58 MHz Sound chip: 6 channel Yamaha YM2612 and 4 channel
Colors: 512 possible, 64 simultaneous
Sprites: 80 possible (20 per line max)
Resolution: 320 x 224

More info: http://www.gamerland.com/systems/cgi-bin/showsystem.cgi?id=50

Games and music info:

Most common media for storing games: Cartridge
Average packed game size: 500 kB
Music formats: GYM

Emulation info:

Sega 16-bit consoles are very well emulated, the rate of playable games closes to 100% (it's around 98% in best emulators. Because of hardware similarity, best emulators emulate not only Mega Drive (Genesis), but also Sega CD with possibility to read game data directly from ISO/BIN images, and Sega 32X games.

Gens - High compatibility, good speed, Sega CD and 32X emulation too. I think best choice.
Kega - emulator for DirectX 8, supports also Sega CD, very good too, I think second place now, but it's progressing nicely.

This emulation info was written on 20.December 2002. (This time is very important, because emulation info very depends on the time it was written - emulators can improve a lot after this time..).