In May 1991, Sega launched its Game Gear portable gaming handheld.

However, the Game Gear was backed up by significantly more popular titles and consequently the market became dominated by Nintendo followed by Sega in a distant second and the Lynx in third.

Ports of the game were released for the Commodore 64, Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Amiga, Atari ST, MSX, Amstrad CPC, Sharp X68000, PC ( MS-DOS, 1989 and 1996 ), Apple II, FM Towns Marty, Sega Master System, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, PlayStation, Sega Saturn, Nintendo Entertainment System, Famicom Disk System, Sega Game Gear, mobile phone ( Sprint PCS ), Texas Instruments TI-8x series of calculators and UltraCade's Taito Arcade Classics.

Doom became a " killer app " that all capable consoles and operating systems were expected to have, and versions of Doom have subsequently been released for the following systems: DOS, Microsoft Windows, Linux, Apple Macintosh, Super NES, Sega 32X, Sony PlayStation, Game Boy Advance, iOS, Symbian OS, RISC OS, Atari Jaguar, Sega Saturn, Nintendo 64, Tapwave Zodiac, 3DO, Xbox, and Xbox Live Arcade.

Sega also made video games based on Garfield for the Genesis ( Garfield Caught in the Act ) and Windows 3. 1 computers, as well as other companies made games, such as A Tale of Two Kitties for the DS, published by Game Factory, Garfield's Nightmare for DS, Garfield's Funfest for DS, and Garfield Labyrinth for Game Boy.

* Resolution: 160 x 144 pixels ( same as the original Game Boy and the Sega Game Gear )

* Project Mercury, a codename for handheld game console Sega Game Gear

Also during this phase, United Game Artists ( formerly Sega AM9 ) merged with Sonic Team Japan in 2003 to start the Sonic Riders series.

In 2000, Sega-AM9 ( as they were later called ) became United Game Artists or ( UGA ) when Sega reorganized its studios to become second-party developer.

Sega dropped support for the Game Gear on April 30, 1997.

The Game Gear was invented by Makoto Ohara of Sega Enterprises Ltd. as a portable version of the Master System ( SMS ).

Matching Nintendo's Game Boy, Sega chose not to use regional lockout on Game Gear cartridges, meaning that any system could play any games regardless of the country they were released in.

Several accessories for the Game Gear were also produced by Sega:

* An adapter called the MasterGear Converter allowed for Sega Master System cartridges to be plugged in and played on the Game Gear, with a somewhat reduced image resolution.

Several Sega Master System games have been added to the Wii's Virtual Console, many of which are games that had also been released on the Game Gear.

Sega Game Gear US Patent application form: http :// www. google. com / patents / USRE35786? dq = Sega + enterprises + Patents + television & ei = gUsMT9efDIHmggeY-_i-Bw

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In January 1986, the 7800 was again released and would compete that year with the Nintendo Entertainment System and the Sega Master System.

Sega converted Bubble Bobble for the Master System ( although this version was not released in North America ).

Duke Nukem 3D ( Sega Saturn ) was ported by Lobotomy Software and published by Sega.

It was the final game branded by Sega of America under the Deep Water label, employed for games featuring adult content such as this and Eternal Champions: Challenge from the Dark Side.

Duke Nukem 3D ( Sega Genesis ) was released in 1998 by Tec Toy.

Hexen was also released for the Sega Saturn, PlayStation and Nintendo 64, all released by GT Interactive during the first half of 1997.

The earliest known electronic game joystick with a fire button was released by Sega as part of their 1969 arcade game Missile, a shooter simulation game that used it as part of an early dual-control scheme, where two directional buttons are used to move a motorized tank and a two-way joystick is used to shoot and steer the missile onto oncoming planes displayed on the screen ; when a plane is hit, an explosion is animated on screen along with an explosion sound.

It also was used as a sound controller in the Sega Saturn game console, and as a controller for the HP JetDirect Ethernet controller boards for the mid-90s LaserJet printers.

A known side effect of this policy was the Sega Genesis version of Mortal Kombat selling over double the number of the Super NES version, mainly because Nintendo had forced publisher Acclaim to recolor the red blood to look like white sweat and replace some of the more gory graphics in its release of the game, making it non-violent.

By contrast, Sega allowed blood and gore to remain in the Genesis version ( though a code was required to unlock the gore ).

Following a successful fan campaign by nightsintodreams. com, Nights was integrated into Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing as the flagman, and Nights and Reala appear as playable characters in Sega Superstars Tennis.

By 1993 the 32-bit 3DO platform was released with much developer interest and Sega and Sony let it be known that the Sega Saturn and PlayStation would be ready for the Japanese marketplace in late 1994, and Bandai was also readying the release of their Playdia system.

Quake III Arena was released for the Dreamcast ( ported by Raster Productions and released by Sega ) in 2000 and featured 4 player online play versus Dreamcast and PC gamers.

In 1997, it was ported to Sega Saturn by Lobotomy.

In 1990, Sega asked to create a game with a character that was popular enough to rival Nintendo's Mario, resulting in the creation of Sonic the Hedgehog.

Following the completion of Sonic 3 and Knuckles, Yuji Naka was offered the role of producer at Sega of Japan.

All of the team members that worked at Sega Studio USA were Japanese, with the exception of Brad Wagner who was hired at the studio during the development of Shadow the Hedgehog.

Members of Sega Studio USA also supervised and designed the concept for Sonic Rivals and Sonic Rivals 2 on the PlayStation Portable although the actual development of the games was done by Backbone Entertainment.

Nights: Journey of Dreams, the sequel to Sega Saturn title Nights Into Dreams was released for the Wii in 2007.