Great Ice Hockey for the Japanese Sega Master System (Sega Mark III) was never released in stores, and only available in 1988 through a few magazine publications including Terebi Land and BEEP!.
It was a promotion to commemorate the release of Phantasy Star a year before. To enter, you needed to send in your UPC code for Phantasy Star. On the entry form you had to specify if you owned a Mark III or the Master System. For Mark III owners, 1000 people won a FM Sound Unit and Rapid Fire Unit. Another 1000 who indicated themselves as Master System owners won this limited Mark III edition of Great Ice Hockey and the Sports Pad controller required to play it (the controller hadn’t yet been released in Japan). However it’s very likely due to the failure of the Master System in Japan, that most people entered the Mark III raffle and not every copy of this game was distributed.
up for auction is the game and Japanese manual (it never had a real box) and the the boxed Sports Pad controller. The seller is also including a complete copy of Sports Pad Soccer, the only other Mark III game which uses the Sports Pad. The controller does not work on a Mark III, only on a Japanese region Master System.
