Sega Mega Drive logo (for international branding outside North America)
16-bit Mega Drive box.
Video game company Sega had released their 1988/1989 home console under the name Genesis in North American regions and as “Mega Drive” everywhere else. While Mega Drive media in Japan primarily used a logotype for “MEGA DRIVE” different than what is shown above until about 1993 or 1994 and changed to this one after, this version of the logo was in use outside of Japan for pretty much the life of the system and is currently the logo for all non-North American Sega Mega Drive Mini branding. This Mega Drive logo appears to be based on Corporate Image (1971), with a horizontal line struck through it, possibly to evoke imagery of a laser cutting through it.
With some exceptions, Mega Drive and Genesis games primarily had two styles of box art: one with the console logo in chrome at the top and the game title near the middle or bottom, and one with the console logo usually in one solid color along the side. The extra strikethrough is more obvious in the single color version of the logo.
It is unknown if Sega’s official vectors of the current versions of the logo (chrome or solid) were traced from scans or photos or were derived from a digitization of Limited View such as the Castcraft/OPTI version.
Sega Mega Drive packaging.
Web announcement of the SEGA Mega Drive Mini, 2019.
Web advertisement. Text is in Century Oldstyle, with headlines in Helvetica Compressed.
