Alongside the release of the Mega Drive was the realisation that alot of Sega fans probably had no ideas on the lineage of games Sega made. Unless their consumers happened to live near Arcades, it was unlikely they’d understand the quality of gaming Sega offered either inside or outside of the Arcade scene simply due to the lack of sales the Master System and the SG-1000 series made. To rectify this problem, the Power Base Convertor was created. This big device sits atop of your Mega Drive inside the cartridge slot and allows you to play both Cart and Card style Master System games.

It’s a pretty ugly thing, but it does what it sets out to do, and honestly it looks a bit more presentable on a Mega Drive I (However I didn’t have one handy when I took the photos). To even get it to fit on a Mega Drive II or other variants you have to saw off the back stabiliser (Which does little to no stabilising anyway) as shown in the photos.

This bulky peripheral also has issues atop a Multi-Mega, as it blocks the CD drive door from opening up with it’s needlessly large front end. In actuality, a second Power Base convertor was in the works just after the release of the Mega Drive II. This newer Power Base Convertor was little bigger than the size of a standard cartridge and had the Master System cart slot on the top similarly to Sonic and Knuckles or the Game Genie. I’m unsure if this was released, finding information on it is nigh on impossible, however it can be seen on the back side of a poster given away with Sonic CD, the side where it shows the upcoming games and peripherals (A Sonic CD coverart poster is on the front side).

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