I was browsing the wiki and came across this article: https://segaretro.org/Competition_Pro_Star A lot of stuff in the article is vague, but I'd like to give my accounts to clarify. Firstly, the article lists the release date as 199X in both europe and america, and claims that it was released with "Genesis support in America, and SMS support in Europe." Well, that doesn't line up at all with my experience with the joystick. How I got the joystick was a very special moment in my life, and i have some photo evidence to back it up. I got this joystick during christmas of 1988 and lived in Houston, Texas, right in the middle of America. The circumstance of how I got this joystick is that my "big" christmas present from my dad that year was Space Harrier 3D for the master system, of which I have photos of myself receiving in 1988. Unfortunately, he did not know you needed the 3D Glasses for Space Harrier 3D, so I had to wait a couple of days after christmas to play it, when he took me to Toys R Us to buy the glasses. As a way to say sorry for the wait, he picked me up the competition pro star joystick along with the 3D glasses. This would have been around December 28th 1988 or December 29th 1988. Now, considering the dates, it's possible it *was* advertised explicitly for the Genesis, but that's not what I remember. For the first thing, I had no idea the Genesis existed when I got this joystick, the only Sega I knew was the Master System. That said, I remember using this very explicitly to play Wonder Boy in Monster Land, because the only way I could beat The Sphinx if I got his riddle wrong was with a joystick, and my previous SMS joystick, a Beeshu, had it's ball top fall off and that was part of the reason I needed a new joystick. Wonder Boy in Monster Land explicitly will not work with Sega Genesis controllers, it's one of the few incompatible games that requires a Master System joypad. So a few oddities with my recollection and the article: 1) I remember getting the joystick 2 years prior to the earliest listed date, and 2) my joystick definitely worked as a master system controller, not a Genesis pad, in America, not Europe. I know this is a pretty specific thing to talk about, but anyone else in Texas from around that time have any memories of this joystick?
That's an interestic story, and nice of your father to take you to Toys R Us days after for the glasses. I'm not from Texas so can't vouch for it. You say you have some photo evidence, would you mind sharing?
Sure, the proof is a photo from that Christmas that has the date on the back, which lets me know it was indeed 1988 and not my memory slipping (and it happened in like 1990 or something). The following picture is me opening Space Harrier 3D on Christmas morning, the back of the photo has "Christmas 1988" in my dad's handwriting written on the back.
It's vague because the internet doesn't know - you'll have to go digging. There was definitely a Mega Drive-specific version though - the box is on the wiki, so the earliest that version would be is 1989. It's probably possible to find a more precise date for the Master System version, but you'll have to trawl through magazines looking for adverts.
