Sega knew their only way to win was to produce a system that absolutely blew away the NES. The 16-bit Sega Genesis was their successor to the ill-fated Master System. It was launched with an accessory called the Power Base Converter that allowed it to play the entire library of Master System games, even the obscure chip games. The Sega Genesis used the CPU from the Master System, the Z80, as a sound processor so a simple cartridge adapter did the trick.

It was a good strategy for Sega, very few people owned a Master System but were aware that a few great games existed for it. The Power Base Converter gave them a some new games to try while the Genesis library ramped up.

Once the Master System was dead and buried, in the United States at least, support for this attachment was dropped.