Borderline / Safari Hunting / N-Sub retrospective: Opening salvo | Segaiden #004

Our first dive into the SG-1000 catalog covers the three games that the internet seems convinced comprised the console's day-one releases. It's difficult to say when SG-1000 titles actually debuted, as Sega hasn't been especially granular with its published historic information. But these three carts are the first three items in the SG-1000 catalog (Borderline, Safari Hunting, and N-Sub are G-1001, G-1002, and G-1003, respectively), so that seems like a good basis for an argument here. These games share a few details in common. They're all three conversions from the VIC-Dual arcade hardware Sega and Gremlin designed in the late ’70s, which was very similar in terms of components and capabilities to the SG-1000; and they all three appear to have been developed by a newly formed studio called "Compile." I don't know, maybe you've heard of them? Special thanks for this series go to Omar Cornut, segaretro.org, and Analogue Co. Video Works is funded via Patreon (http://www.patreon.com/gamespite) — support the show and get access to every episode up to two weeks in advance of its YouTube debut! And be sure to check out the Retronauts podcast (http://www.retronauts.com), where I (and many others!) tackle a much wider array of classic gaming topics each week.