All console games came in cardboard boxes in North America other than Sega's right through to the 32-bit generation. I don't know what the exchange rate would've been back then, but pre-8-bit games were pricey and not available the way that console games are today. What did SMS games sell for at the time?
SMS games were £24-29.99 on average. RPG's like Ultima IV sold for £39.99. However, Sega had a budget range that included early 1 Meg releases such as Ninja that were only £9.99. That must have swayed a lot of people.
Personally, the technical jump from Spectrum 128K to NES/SMS wasn't big enough to excite me. The Megadrive however was a different story.
Oh I forgot, you foreigners called the Megadrive "Genesis".
I remember the story regarding how Nintendo found out about the 16-bit console. Miyamoto phoned up the head of Sega and asked him about a rumoured project titled "Genesis". The Sega bigwig, wanting to keep it secret, replied "Genesis - what's that?"
Miyamoto responded, "DON'T INSULT MY SUPERIOR INTELLIGENCE, ADMIRAL!!"