In 1986, Sega redesigned the Mark III for release in North America. They called it the Sega Master System. They released it in Europe in 1987. Although the Master System sold well in Europe and Brazil, it did not sell well in Japan or North America. By the mid-to-late 1980s, Japan and North America were dominated by Nintendo. With Sega doing poorly in the home console market, Sega's console R&D team, led by Masami Ishikawa and supervised by Hideki Sato, started working on a successor to the Master System. They did this almost immediately after the Master System was released.