Mega Play

From Magweasel

Mega Play
Editor	Ed Semrad
Categories	Sega console games and hardware
Frequency	Bimonthly-ish
First Issue	Nov/Dec 1990
Final Issue — Number	June/July 1995 (?) 28 (?)
Publisher	Sendai Publishing
Country	USA

Mega Play is a bimonthly magazine devoted to Sega video games, particularly the Genesis. It "debuted" inside an issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly before going out on its own in 1990, almost simultaneously with Game Player's Sega Genesis Strategy Guide.

History

By and large, it was created mainly to create more product for Sendai to sell. Each issue (nearly all of them 52 pages long) had roughly the same content as would be in a normal issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly. Extras included longer strategy guides, more previews, and a different Review Crew taking on new games each month.

In 1991, Sendai announced that Mega Play had been picked up by Warner Publisher Services, the same distributor handling Electronic Gaming Monthly at the time. With this improved distribution, Sendai revealed plans to make the magazine monthly and increase its distribution to over 200,000 copies a month. For whatever reason, though, Mega Play didn't go monthly -- in fact, it had trouble keeping a bimonthly schedule in the following years, occasionally skipping a month or putting out two issues in consecutive months.

Despite the lack of original content, the documented devotion of Sega fans allowed Mega Play to survive for over five years before petering out in the summer of 1995, just as Sega's Saturn was debuting in the US.

Issue Index

Index of Mega Play issues

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

1990

1

1991

2

3

4

5

6

7

1992

8

9

v3n3

v3n4

v3n5

1993

v3n6

v4n1

v4n2

v4n3

v4n4

v4n5

v4n6

1994

v5n1

v5n2

v5n3

v5n4

v5n5

v5n6

1995

v6n1

v6n2

v6n3

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