Talk:Sega Genesis

Lack of true article neutrality

I wish this page was less US-centric (in other words "the US is the center of the universe").

It should have the reasoning of "It was named the 'Sega Mega Drive' in Japan (where it was invented), and also registered under that name in Scotland, Ireland, England, France, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Brazil and more countries (at least 10), so by default (10 to 1), it's Mega Drive primarily, Genesis secondarily, no matter how many people bought it".

The problem is majority rule. With every debate/edit, the majority, Americans, keep hammering away at it, until it's Genesis focused.

Even the logo art has the Genesis logo 1.5 times the size of the Mega Drive logo.

Hardly the neutral goals Wikipedia is known for. Tallaussiebloke (talk) 07:50, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

I know, I think it's ridiculous for the page to be called Sega Genesis. Unlike the NES, where it was called by that name in multiple regions outside Japan, The Mega Drive was only called the Genesis in North America. Thomasfan1000 (talk) 11:31, 12 August 2025 (UTC)

Please read the FAQ at the top of the page. Sergecross73 msg me 11:59, 12 August 2025 (UTC)

I did, and it's absolute ridiculous why more people went for Sega Genesis, when it's only called that in one continent. If it was called Sega Genesis in Europe and Australia, I could see an argument being made, but it wasn't. Most of the world had the console as the Sega Mega Drive. Thomasfan1000 (talk) 18:37, 13 August 2025 (UTC)

Yes, we know. Let us know if something changes. Sergecross73 msg me 19:00, 13 August 2025 (UTC)

Majority voting should not decide disputes like this - when there is a clear reason for the page to use the name it is known by in nearly the entire world. The majority of Wikipedia editors are Americans, but the majority of people using Wikipedia are not, and the particular personal preferences of the editors should not decide this issue.

There is no objective or rational reason to use the name "Genesis" over "Mega Drive".

Wikipedia is great in so many ways, but it is problematically US-centric; fixing articles like this one is of crucial importance in addressing this problem and making Wikipedia the global resources it ought to be. Khardankov (talk) 10:46, 21 December 2025 (UTC)

I too was surprised by the title when I first saw this article many years ago. But reading through the FAQ convinced me that it's probably the sanest choice. I don't see anything in your comment here that responds to the reasons set out in the FAQ - the matter isn't simply settled by "majority voting". If you haven't read through the FAQ, I recommend it: Talk:Sega_Genesis/FAQ Popcornfud (talk) 12:06, 21 December 2025 (UTC)

None of what you just said accurately describes why this article is titled the way it is. I recommend a closer read of the FAQ. Sergecross73 msg me 13:45, 21 December 2025 (UTC)

We’ve all read the faq. It was written entirely by Americans with a complete American bias. It was voted that America is the centre of the world and nobody is allowed to argue. The fact that this console was called Mega Drive in 99% of countries means nothing. Santahul (talk) 19:42, 7 January 2026 (UTC)

You clearly haven't. Those weren't the reasons cited (not even close), and multiple editors have disclosed that they're from outside of America and still agreed with the reasoning. Blatantly lying or just making stuff up isn't going to get you anywhere. Sergecross73 msg me 20:12, 7 January 2026 (UTC)

Point me to an article about a console which doesn’t use the North American name and the top picture isn’t the North American version of the console. This is a bigger problem than this article. All of Wikipedia has a North American bias. If this console sold best in Iceland are you seriously telling me we’d call it by their name? Santahul (talk) 19:23, 9 January 2026 (UTC)

Point me to an article about a console which doesn’t use the North American name and the top picture isn’t the North American version of the console.

Think about this logically. Could there be another explanation for this?

How many consoles whose names were changed for the western market used different names for North America and other western regions? Popcornfud (talk) 19:45, 9 January 2026 (UTC)

(edit conflict) What are you referring to? What other consoles even had different names across NA and the rest of the world like this in the first place? Regardless, you're just asking further questions that show you haven't read the FAQ, that you could answer for yourself if you read the FAQ. Sergecross73 msg me 19:46, 9 January 2026 (UTC)

I have read through the FAQ. The reasons for using the single-market "Genesis" title a dubious at best.

First released english-speaking market: Doesn't matter when both the first market and every other market use a unified name.

Prevent confusion for the majority of English-speaking users: I feel that this is a very American reason and an unacceptable reason for a wikipedia article title. Americans happily discover the article "Soft Drink".

Largest sales portion of the English-speaking market: This does not change the fact that the name is an anomaly. It's also ignoring the enormous number of users in what appear to be deemed "non-english speaking markets" who will have English fluency and use English-language Wikipedia.

Straw poll: This is a popularity contest favouring the largest number of citizens in a geographic area, along with the notoriously-patriotic USA whom are known internationally to favour getting their own way over logic or international recognition. Plus this poll was run more than a decade ago and could have significantly different results now that the console is pushing more into a historic item.

More news articles and documentations under the Genesis name: So? This is just a "USA is bigger so we get to decide" under another name.

I also put forth four reasons which do not seem to be in the FAQ, and I believe are novel and enough to reopen discussion for the Mega Drive title.

1. The physical console has plastic mouldings for the "Mega Drive" name and branding. If you compare a mega drive II and genesis II, you can see the "Genesis" branding has been painted on, while the mega drive gets a plastic badge with the international and original branding. I think this demonstrates both that the mega drive branding was considered more important by the creators and the company. I have not seen a model I genesis to compare those.

2. The Genesis name was given by a sub-set of the original company for a single market. The console then continued to launch under the original name, repeatedly, in every single other market. It was clearly the preferred name by Sega.

3. Every single accessory released had "Mega" in the title, even after the genesis name was created, and they all had to be renamed for the NA market. This resulted in some weak generic names such "Sega CD" instead of the continuing theme of mega in "Mega CD". There are accessories that never released under the NA branding scheme such as the "Mega-LD".

4. Just because sales were lower in other markets, doesn't mean that less people know the name "mega drive". I would posit that more people know it as mega drive than genesis, whether they happened to own a device or not, and were exposed to the device under that name through general knowledge.

I think a better-informed, more balanced and less protective/emotional/nostalgic discussion would show decide that the Mega Drive name is the most appropriate title for the article. As has been said, wikipedia is not intended to favour the USA, and reading the FAQ there has never been sufficient reasoning for using an NA-only term as the article title. I believe the current naming is a blight upon wikipedia as a whole, effectively claiming the English-language wikipedia as a "USA-centric" space, despite claims that it is the contrary. If all emotion is removed from the decision and the merits are truly weighed against each other, the title would be "Mega Drive".

Also, the straw poll results should be disregarded as they have no way of knowing how significantly biased the vote was towards any specific region of voter, and it appears to have not included the points made above. The naming should never have been decided by the straw poll, and if you disregard it, the article was "Mega Drive" at the time and would have remained that way. The only reason it has a continuous run of being named "Sega Genesis" since then is because that poll was used to justify the decision a single time, and has been leaned on ever since then.

I think that at this point, 14 years after it was renamed to "Genesis" and people are still requesting it to be returned to the international, original, and more widely-known name of "Mega Drive", that a serious consideration should be given for doing so. I would be willing to bet that if opinions were sought from knowledgeable groups such as video game preservationists and historians, that even the NA-based ones would acknowledge that "Mega Drive" is the appropriate option when presented with a more complete discussion instead of the weak reasoning in the FAQ (and even with only the FAQ, I doubt they'd go Genesis). I would completely reset the reasoning back to prior to the 2011 straw poll, and ask that Genesis be justified.

As a comparison, cars are often under different names than the original name. An example is the Toyota Previa which was the Estima in Japan where it was designed and first released. The article is Previa because that was the naming in multiple english-speaking markets, and the car had further names (even in another english-speaking market), but the discussion was practical and never needed to consider "units sold" or anything like that. It was decided that the majority of markets used the name "Previa" and that was used for the article. That article has little controversy for using that reasoning, yet here (where the NA name is the only market with that name) the NA-market name was still chosen.

It's time to step back from what we prefer individually as the name and make the logical conclusion together, that the name used in every single non-NA market, where it was released as such both before and after the "genesis" release, is probably the one that we should be using here. I don't think any argument about following wikipedia's naming conventions holds any value when the name itself was based on what is clearly in retrospect a poor decision-making method (the straw poll). The fact that even 2 years later (as per the FAQ) they couldn't come to a consensus for either option, shows the straw poll to be the outlier. Misteranderson91 (talk) 08:24, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

Has anything actually changed? Sergecross73 msg me 12:00, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

Yes, what has changed is that I've presented several novel arguments, as requested. There is new information to work from. In a full discussion there would be more, I'm sure, but that should be enough at this point.

What has also changed is that I've pointed out the flawed reasoning for the original change to implement the "Genesis" article title in the first place. The article has stood under that title ever since effectively for this exact reason, that anyone who raises objections is told to "read the FAQ" and "has anything actually changed?".

If the reality is that the article won't be changed because the flawed 2011 decision will never be overridden regardless of new discussion, then that should be put in the FAQ, but otherwise I've done as requested demonstrated enough issues with that discussion and missing context from it that a new discussion should take place. Misteranderson91 (talk) 21:06, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

You wrote...a lot. Can you concisely pinpoint the new arguments you think you're proposing. It all feels like rehashed thoughts from the past decade or two. I mean, do you really think no one's ever thought of things like "I posit more people knew it as Mega Drive"? Sergecross73 msg me 21:14, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

1. The physical console has plastic mouldings for the "Mega Drive" name and branding. If you compare a mega drive II and genesis II, you can see the "Genesis" branding has been painted on, while the mega drive gets a plastic badge with the international and original branding. I think this demonstrates both that the mega drive branding was considered more important by the creators and the company. I have not seen a model I genesis to compare those.

2. The Genesis name was given by a sub-set of the original company for a single market. The console then continued to launch under the original name, repeatedly, in every single other market. It was clearly the preferred name by Sega.

3. Every single accessory released had "Mega" in the title, even after the genesis name was created, and they all had to be renamed for the NA market. This resulted in some weak generic names such "Sega CD" instead of the continuing theme of mega in "Mega CD". There are accessories that never released under the NA branding scheme such as the "Mega-LD".

4. The (Naturalness criterion) argument was used in favour of "Genesis" but I believe it favours "Mega Drive" when accounting for those with English as an additional language, due to much larger population count outside North America. I don't believe this was duly considered or too much weight was placed on "English as a first/primary language"

5. The straw poll was a significantly flawed process for decided to change the name. Until that point the longest single-name version of the article was "Mega Drive" and from that point, any attempt to change it back has pointed at the straw poll and subsequent 2013 discussion and claimed "no good reason to change that decision". If the straw poll is removed, there was no good reason to change it to "Genesis", and so in keeping with Wikipedia's naming conventions from that point, it would have remained/returned under the "Mega Drive".

6. It is flagrantly anti-international, pro-USA (and Canada) self-serving interest to keep the article under the rebadged title for only their market, as if the English-speaking world revolves around them, and not a reasonably neutral stance.

7. I've shown another article which could have the same debate (Toyota Previa) and it was decided that the majority of markets was the important factor there, but that was not the decision here, which is very inconsistent.

I've bolded the arguments which are new. As for your question "I mean, do you really think no one's ever thought of things like "I posit more people knew it as Mega Drive"?. Well, it's not recorded in the FAQ, so I don't know how much weight that received originally, but since "more english-speaking market consoles were branded 'Genesis'" is in there, I'd say this argument didn't receive enough.

If these are not enough, I would like some feedback on what might be considered enough new discussion points. I think it's in the greater public interest to list this article using an unbiased decision, but how can that happen if any argument proposed is discounted one at a time over the years, even when novel? If the FAQ is the reasoning for it to remain as-is, then I'd consider that they weren't properly considered in the first place.

Personally, I would be happy to hear that a (new?) group of more senior wikipedia members/contributors/editors will take submissions for reasons that the article should be "Mega Drive" both as per wikipedia's rules, and through the submission of reasons that the NA-market name does not have more weight than the name elsewhere. I think an actual consensus could reached. I'm perfectly happy to accept a decision that extensively covers these topics and as many as possible to come to a final decision, whichever way that goes. Misteranderson91 (talk) 22:47, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

I don't think any of those are new, except the molding one, which strikes me as...irrelevant...? And the FAQ was created by many very experienced editors, and is currently written and maintained by many experienced editors, so that's a bizarre ask. (Doubly so after looking at your own edit count.) Sergecross73 msg me 23:15, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

Well I've written another wall of text. My apologies. I will write this out as direct responses to Deciding on an article title.

Recognizability – The title is a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize.

The English-speaking population of "Mega Drive" markets who would know it under that name significantly outweighs the NA markets, demonstrated by the values of "Total English speakers" taken from List of countries by English-speaking population. I calculated NA as around 330 million, including Mexico and rounding up that makes 350 million. I stopped adding the other countries/markets after 360 million. I am assuming about the same percentage of people in each market actual know and recognise the name from their own market, but I'm willing to be corrected.

Naturalness – The title is one that readers are likely to look or search for and that editors would naturally use to link to the article from other articles. Such a title usually conveys what the subject is actually called in English.

This is the same argument as above. There are more English-speaking people in the markets where it was advertised, sold, and known as "Mega Drive" and that would be the most likely term to be searched. Obviously this is hard to provide hard numbers on as many (most?) searches are occurring external to wikipedia itself and those are automatically shown the Genesis article.

Precision – The title unambiguously identifies the article's subject and distinguishes it from other subjects. (See § Precision and disambiguation, below.)

I have no good argument in either direction for this, except that maybe "Mega Drive" could be confused with the cloud storage site "Mega", and "Genesis" could be confused with the book in the bible. Both are solved by a "Sega" prefix if necessary and so have no weight here.

Concision – The title is not longer than necessary to identify the article's subject and distinguish it from other subjects. (See § Concision, below.)

Both titles satisfy this, unless you count "Sega Genesis" vs "Mega Drive" making the current title less concise. I would propose this does not matter in the slightest.

Consistency – The title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles. Many of these patterns are listed (and linked) as topic-specific naming conventions on article titles, in the box above. (See § Consistency, below.)

I've demonstrated that at least one similar article (Toyota Previa) follows a different pattern to this article. Amongst video game consoles, I don't believe there are any others with such region-specific split while having significant sales figures in that particular region, and so we could argue this article needs to be decided by other means. But if there are stats we could refer to (including where the NA-specific name wins out over other options and whether there is bias in that direction) then those would be good to reference.

As for the straw poll, as per Wikipedia:Consensus:

Many of these discussions will involve polls of one sort or another; but as consensus is determined by the quality of arguments (not by a simple counted majority), polls should be regarded as structured discussions rather than voting. Responses indicating individual explanations of positions using Wikipedia policies and guidelines are given the highest weight.

I do not believe that the previous discussion truly followed these principals, as from an outside observer (outside that 2011 discussion), it appears that the poll was used as the final decision maker without truly weighing the quality of arguments (neither the arguments of the time, nor the current arguments raised since). The FAQ in particular has poor arguments in favour the Genesis name, as already demonstrated by my points about the "naturalness" and "common name" arguments being flawed and ignoring English-speaking people outside of primarily English-speaking countries (but inside "Mega Drive" markets).

Noting your reply just now: My edit count is low as I typically have not used my account when making edits as I never felt the need in the past. I never felt the need to increase for my suggestions/recommendations to be taken seriously and typically don't bother signing in. I did not know the value of my arguments here would require a recorded proof of my contributions in the past, so I ask that it is not used to dismiss what I see are valid arguments.

I don't think anyone wants to continuously go over this topic and keep debating year after year, but currently the FAQ is significantly lacking reasoning (as per wikipedia's own guidelines) for the decision that was made in 2011. I don't disparage those who took part in that discussion in the past, but I feel I have raised enough significant reasons that the decision does not follow the 2026 guidelines for article names that at a minimum, a new discussion should be had, using those guidelines to weigh arguments and reach a more justifiable conclusion. Misteranderson91 (talk) 23:24, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

I recommend 1) learning how to respond concisely, as these wall-of-text responses, as you're seeing, brings discussion participation to a screeching halt and 2) taking the time to learn how the website works before jumping straight into one of the largest running discussions in the content area. Experienced editors on both sides of the dispute have long argued that both names are perfectly acceptable names for the article, so when you say things like "AT/CONSENSUS wasn't followed" and "Wikipedia's guidelines are lacking"...are red flags that you're not on the right track here. Sergecross73 msg me 19:11, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

And if it were at Mega Drive there's be plenty of people requesting it to be returned to the far more successful Genesis name, so that's not really a point. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 13:20, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

Far more successful, what do you mean? It was the North American name. Mega Drive was the name in all other countries and it was successful there. It’s like colour being spelled colour despite only one country in the world spelling not like that. ~2026-54451-5 (talk) 02:51, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

This response completely misses the point. She's not arguing that point, she's saying what would happen. If we switched the name, then there'd just be endless comments complaining that the article isn't named "Genesis" for various reasons. Sergecross73 msg me 03:20, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

I feel though that those who would complain the article isn't named Genesis would overwhelmingly come from North America. As the Global South increasingly develops, Americans and Canadians will become a smaller and smaller share of the readership on ENwiki. To be honest I don't think it's fair to use a mostly North American-only name for an article on a global encyclopedia. Yes I'm considering other countries that speak English: India, Nigeria, Ghana, Singapore, Malaysia, South Africa, etc. From this map the PAL (Mega Drive) regions that speak English are generally far more numerous than the NTSC (Genesis) regions. (Yes, the Philippines and some Caribbean and Pacific countries use/used NTSC)

India (now the most populous country in the world) is especially key as de facto English is the real national language and businesses overwhelmingly use English even if the less affluent population hasn't achieved fluency in English.

WhisperToMe (talk) 03:37, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

And? You think there are millions of people in Nigeria that care about the Mega Drive/Genesis? I am sure a few of the people who come here are pedants that just want Wikipedia to conform to their interpretation of policy, but the majority of people who come here are going to be the people that actually engaged with Sega systems back in the day or have become interested in the history of the company and its systems since. In the English-speaking world, it is not even close where the most people who interacted with the system or are generally aware of Sega as a company and the Mega Drive/Genesis as a system come from.

Now me, I don't care. I think it is silly Wikipedia is so doctrinaire about regional variations in article names: it's an online encyclopedia where you can search for either term and likely a few more besides and get the right article. The articles do not have to be arranged alphabetically in a table of contents or an index. I would just call it Mega Drive/Genesis and be done with it (yes, I remember the dark days of the "Mega Drive and Genesis" article title that pleased no one; I am not saying what I would do is what consensus would want to do) or even better, update the Wikipedia codebase so that titles are dynamic and you can choose what regional article titles you see (I am not an engineer, I am not saying that would be remotely possible, just saying it would be sensible) so that all users are happy.

Anyway, I'm not here to relitigate the name, which will never ever please everyone ever so why bother. I'm just commenting because I don't find the argument that English-speakers in the Global South outnumber English speakers in North America today to be particularly compelling. Historical context and actual user engagement is much more important. Indrian (talk) 08:06, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

It is true that back in the 1990s console gaming was not accessible in much of the global South. The game changer is access to mobile phones and video game subscription services: the EMEA African countries and South Asia now learn about where the games they play on subscription services came from, and for them it's Mega Drive. To me, that's retroactive.

Even if one only focuses on the wealthy, big native English speaking countries back in the 1990s, it's UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand on the PAL (Mega Drive) side, versus U.S. and Canada on the NTSC (Genesis) side.

WhisperToMe (talk) 13:20, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

"Contributing to its success was..."

"Was" should be "were", since multiple (plural) factors are listed. 2A00:23C5:FE1C:3701:2895:24CF:DAEC:6BF1 (talk) 17:06, 24 August 2025 (UTC)

 Done. Thanks. Popcornfud (talk) 17:09, 24 August 2025 (UTC)

Why wasn't the console released as the Mega Drive in North America?

Does anyone have any idea why the console was released as Sega Genesis in North America and not Mega Drive like everywhere else? Why didn't they call it the Mega Drive in North America? Fish567 (talk) 22:26, 1 April 2026 (UTC)

All that's known is in the article. Sergecross73 msg me 22:29, 1 April 2026 (UTC)

Oh. Apparently they were originally going to release the console as the Mega Drive in North Anerica, but someone disliked the name "Mega Drive" and so they changed the name to "Sega Genesis". Fish567 (talk) 22:36, 1 April 2026 (UTC)