Sega announces a tiny Sega CD retro console(arstechnica.com)
arstechnica.com
Sega announces a tiny Sega CD retro console
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/06/adorable-japan-only-sega-mega-drive-mini-2-faithfully-recreates-the-sega-cd/
108 comments
Yeah adding a CD-ROM onto those early 16-bit consoles was doomed from the start. The megadrive and similar consoles had just a few kilobytes of RAM so they had no hope of really loading or taking advantage of any high quality assets on the disc. You ended up with the same kinds of games and graphics but with a few full motion videos or CD audio tracks playing at times. Nintendo was planning to do a similar thing with the SNES and a CD-ROM addon but canned the whole project to instead build a new console with more memory.
The Sega CD actually had a fair bit of RAM in it for the time. 512 KiB dedicated to the second 68K, 256KiB that could be swapped between the two processors or split into two 128 KiB banks with each processor getting one of those and 64 KiB of PCM RAM (there's also a little RAM for the CD-ROM drive's buffer and some battery backed up RAM for saves, but those aren't directly useful for game assets).
The library is very much a mixed bag, but I think a large part of that was game developers needing time to figure out what to do with all the extra space. The largest cartridge released during the Genesis/Mega Drive's heyday was only 5 MiB and most were a fair bit smaller than that. CD-ROM gave you two orders of magnitude more storage. The other problem is that Sega of America didn't believe there was much demand for RPGs in the US so while there were quite a lot of them released for the system in Japan, only a few of them made it here.
I think the main thing that did it in was the cost though. CD-ROM drives themselves weren't cheap at the time, all the RAM wasn't cheap and neither was all the extra hardware they stuffed in there. The much more modest CD add-on for the PC Engine/TG-16 sold almost as many units despite the base console being much less popular than the Genesis/Mega Drive and it seems likely that hardware costs were a major factor in that.
The library is very much a mixed bag, but I think a large part of that was game developers needing time to figure out what to do with all the extra space. The largest cartridge released during the Genesis/Mega Drive's heyday was only 5 MiB and most were a fair bit smaller than that. CD-ROM gave you two orders of magnitude more storage. The other problem is that Sega of America didn't believe there was much demand for RPGs in the US so while there were quite a lot of them released for the system in Japan, only a few of them made it here.
I think the main thing that did it in was the cost though. CD-ROM drives themselves weren't cheap at the time, all the RAM wasn't cheap and neither was all the extra hardware they stuffed in there. The much more modest CD add-on for the PC Engine/TG-16 sold almost as many units despite the base console being much less popular than the Genesis/Mega Drive and it seems likely that hardware costs were a major factor in that.
The CD-ROM format was a godsend for certain genres of games. RPGs could pack a ton more content into a CD and even games that weren't like that could be made better thanks to the co-processor on the SegaCD.
That's not really a fair assessment of CDs. There were lots of advantages:
+ CD audio (this advantage cannot be overstated given the limitations of sound chips of that era
+ higher storage (cartridges were very limiting. It's why Sonic 3 was originally split over two carts (Sonic 3 + Sonic & Knuckles)
+ Cheaper to produce
The issue wasn't that the world wasn't ready for CD-based consoles. The issue was that it was effectively buying a whole new console as an addon to an existing console. In fact the Sega CD had it's own RAM, CPU and graphics processor too. I cannot blame families for not buying the Sega CD because why would you when you already had the Mega Drive?
So the issue wasn't a lack of technical capabilities. It was just that it was an expense too many for most people.
As an aside, I do have a Mega CD (PAL) and a bunch of games hooked up in my games room. It's a great system. I love it. However I got it when it was cheap retro hardware (before the 16bit retro market exploded). I love collecting hardware and even I wouldn't have paid release prices for it at the time.
+ CD audio (this advantage cannot be overstated given the limitations of sound chips of that era
+ higher storage (cartridges were very limiting. It's why Sonic 3 was originally split over two carts (Sonic 3 + Sonic & Knuckles)
+ Cheaper to produce
The issue wasn't that the world wasn't ready for CD-based consoles. The issue was that it was effectively buying a whole new console as an addon to an existing console. In fact the Sega CD had it's own RAM, CPU and graphics processor too. I cannot blame families for not buying the Sega CD because why would you when you already had the Mega Drive?
So the issue wasn't a lack of technical capabilities. It was just that it was an expense too many for most people.
As an aside, I do have a Mega CD (PAL) and a bunch of games hooked up in my games room. It's a great system. I love it. However I got it when it was cheap retro hardware (before the 16bit retro market exploded). I love collecting hardware and even I wouldn't have paid release prices for it at the time.
While it didn't have as much of an impact in the west, I do think there's a lot more interesting content for the CD-ROM² add-on for the PC Engine. I sometimes wonder if the Sega CD's library would be more fondly-remembered if FMVs weren't as forefront and the extra technical abilities were more tastefully applied.
Didn't Nintendo's planned system disintegrate due to political shenanigans between them and Sony rather than technical reasons?
The concept system actually materialized and was pretty underwhelming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ug-CyGXMabg
The big issue is that most of those early consoles were designed with the expectation that games were on ROM chips directly connected to the CPU bus and mapped into memory so you wouldn't have to load all the assets in RAM (which was miniscule, a few dozen or low hundred kilobytes at most). If you just bolted a CD-ROM onto that architecture it can't be mapped into memory so now you have to cache things in RAM or architect your game to allow for seeking and getting them on demand.
Sony did take all the learnings from the SNES CD-ROM and used it to design the Playstation hardware. They added 2 megabytes of RAM, a huge increase over the SNES, which worked much better with games on CD-ROM.
The big issue is that most of those early consoles were designed with the expectation that games were on ROM chips directly connected to the CPU bus and mapped into memory so you wouldn't have to load all the assets in RAM (which was miniscule, a few dozen or low hundred kilobytes at most). If you just bolted a CD-ROM onto that architecture it can't be mapped into memory so now you have to cache things in RAM or architect your game to allow for seeking and getting them on demand.
Sony did take all the learnings from the SNES CD-ROM and used it to design the Playstation hardware. They added 2 megabytes of RAM, a huge increase over the SNES, which worked much better with games on CD-ROM.
You still had to load assets into memory even on cartridge based systems. And before that you had even less memory and assets being loaded from cassette (or floppy disk, if you had cash) so it's not as if developers had to learn how to load assets from slower storage for the first time when CDs came along. In fact the Famicom (what is effectively the Japanese NES) also had a floppy disk drive. I've got it and games play fine on it.
Also streaming assets from the optical drive on demand is doable too. Plenty of games (old and new) have employed this kind of hack.
Lastly you haven't even got your estimations of memory right. The Sega CD had a few megabytes of dedicated RAM [edit: sorry, megabits. Still more than your estimations though]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_CD#Technical_specificatio...
I was around at that time, buying hardware, playing games and even writing my own games too. While your arguments here and your post before sound informed I'm sorry to say they're completely unfounded.
Also streaming assets from the optical drive on demand is doable too. Plenty of games (old and new) have employed this kind of hack.
Lastly you haven't even got your estimations of memory right. The Sega CD had a few megabytes of dedicated RAM [edit: sorry, megabits. Still more than your estimations though]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_CD#Technical_specificatio...
I was around at that time, buying hardware, playing games and even writing my own games too. While your arguments here and your post before sound informed I'm sorry to say they're completely unfounded.
> You still had to load assets into memory even on cartridge based systems.
What do you mean? Weren't the ROMs connected directly to the main bus through the cartridge port? As far as the CPU was concerned, there was no difference accessing RAM or ROM.
What do you mean? Weren't the ROMs connected directly to the main bus through the cartridge port? As far as the CPU was concerned, there was no difference accessing RAM or ROM.
This is correct. A system like the NES, SNES or Genesis never loaded any graphics or code into RAM unless they were doing special tricks. It was all ROM mapped into the CPU address space.
Larger games, especially on systems with a 16-bit address bus (64 kbyte address space), included memory mapping hardware on the carts to swap in and out graphics as needed. It was still all in ROM.
Larger games, especially on systems with a 16-bit address bus (64 kbyte address space), included memory mapping hardware on the carts to swap in and out graphics as needed. It was still all in ROM.
You couldn't use the ROM as video memory. You could swap sprites in and out of video memory via DMA to the ROM (which you can also do on the Sega CD via the extended RAM) but you still had to load them into video memory to actually do anything with them. The video chipset was the real limitation here.
Also I seem to recall the DMA trick was something that came alone a little after the Mega Drives release. Though I could be wrong on that. But I vaguely recall it wasn't something people knew how to do on day one.
Also I seem to recall the DMA trick was something that came alone a little after the Mega Drives release. Though I could be wrong on that. But I vaguely recall it wasn't something people knew how to do on day one.
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> The Sega CD had a few megabytes of dedicated RAM (which is at least an order of magnitude more than you claimed)
It added 6 megabits of RAM. The order of magnitude is forgetting to divide by 8.
And the SNES-CD that they were talking about only added a 256KB ram bank onto a main memory of 128KB.
Playstation had 2 megabytes of main memory, and >1.5 in other chunks.
It added 6 megabits of RAM. The order of magnitude is forgetting to divide by 8.
And the SNES-CD that they were talking about only added a 256KB ram bank onto a main memory of 128KB.
Playstation had 2 megabytes of main memory, and >1.5 in other chunks.
> It added 6 megabits of RAM. The order of magnitude is forgetting to divide by 8.
Ack dang it. You're right. Though even at 8Mb it's still significantly greater than the GP's estimations.
> And the SNES-CD that they were talking about only added a 256KB ram bank onto a main memory of 128KB.
The SNES CD was cancelled with only one known prototype made. One could speculate whether those specifications would have made it to the final console or not had the project continued but it would be pure speculation. So I don't think it's all that constructive to compare the SNES CD with the Sega CD.
Ack dang it. You're right. Though even at 8Mb it's still significantly greater than the GP's estimations.
> And the SNES-CD that they were talking about only added a 256KB ram bank onto a main memory of 128KB.
The SNES CD was cancelled with only one known prototype made. One could speculate whether those specifications would have made it to the final console or not had the project continued but it would be pure speculation. So I don't think it's all that constructive to compare the SNES CD with the Sega CD.
> Ack dang it. You're right. Though even at 8Mb it's still significantly greater than the GP's estimations.
Well also the specific phrase of "few dozen or low hundred kilobytes at most" was about ROM-based systems.
Well also the specific phrase of "few dozen or low hundred kilobytes at most" was about ROM-based systems.
But there were systems in that realm that weren't ROM based. In fact in the 80s it was more common for systems to load from slower media like floppy disk or cassette than it was from ROM cartridge. I'm not denying that the access speed of optical media was definitely noticable (than and now) and required designing games a little differently to cartridge based systems, but the GP's claim that it was a deal breaker is completely false. And I have a collection of Mega CD (PAL) games sat behind me that demonstrate just how good the device really was. As well as Famicom FDD games. And games for various Commodore, Amstrad, Acorn, Atari, Sinclair and IBM-compatible PC systems too.
The downfall of the Mega CD had nothing to do with CD access times.
The downfall of the Mega CD had nothing to do with CD access times.
Lastly you haven't even got your estimations of memory right. The Sega CD had a few megabytes of dedicated RAM (which is at least an order of magnitude more than you claimed)
6 megabits = 768 kilobytes.
6 megabits = 768 kilobytes.
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Yeah.
A good demonstration would be the CD-i version of Lost Eden, it takes up to 3 (three!!) seconds to get a response for the action. 1x (and even 2x) CD-ROMs are unbelievable slow by any modern standard.
[0] https://youtu.be/evZw8WFqQ5g?t=398 (6:38)
A good demonstration would be the CD-i version of Lost Eden, it takes up to 3 (three!!) seconds to get a response for the action. 1x (and even 2x) CD-ROMs are unbelievable slow by any modern standard.
[0] https://youtu.be/evZw8WFqQ5g?t=398 (6:38)
Slower to load compared to cartridges, yes. But that doesn't mean they cannot be used in place of cartridges. The fact that Lost Eden and the Sega CD exists is proof that systems could handle CD-based games just fine. And as I've said elsewhere, we were loading games off cassette and floppy disk in the 80s so writing games that had to support slower access times wasn't exactly a new concept.
The reason the Sega CD tanked was because you had to buy two games consoles (the Mega Drive + Sega CD) just to use it. The fact that Sega CD games had no copy protection probably didn't help much either (the Famicom Disk System suffered a similar problem there too).
The reason the Sega CD tanked was because you had to buy two games consoles (the Mega Drive + Sega CD) just to use it. The fact that Sega CD games had no copy protection probably didn't help much either (the Famicom Disk System suffered a similar problem there too).
> Slower to load compared to cartridges
Access time. You loaded from the cassette, but once loaded you didn't need it. CD-ROM games (like LE) needs to access the disk for everything and with an already minuscule RAM you can't cache anything.
I played LE on the PC (and with 2x drive and SMARTDRV) and I don't remember such big lags, though it was 25 years ago so of course my memory could deceive me.
Of course if you can find some balance not using the CD all the time then of course it could greatly enchance the experience.
Syummary: yeah, they could be used, but access time was another small, but a nail in the coffin, at least IMO.
Access time. You loaded from the cassette, but once loaded you didn't need it. CD-ROM games (like LE) needs to access the disk for everything and with an already minuscule RAM you can't cache anything.
I played LE on the PC (and with 2x drive and SMARTDRV) and I don't remember such big lags, though it was 25 years ago so of course my memory could deceive me.
Of course if you can find some balance not using the CD all the time then of course it could greatly enchance the experience.
Syummary: yeah, they could be used, but access time was another small, but a nail in the coffin, at least IMO.
> Access time. You loaded from the cassette, but once loaded you didn't need it. CD-ROM games (like LE) needs to access the disk for everything and with an already minuscule RAM you can't cache anything.
I was specifically on about load times. As already discussed several times in this thread, most CD-ROM games systems had onboard RAM to solve the access time problem (Sega CD especially so).
Sure there might be some outliers of bad CD systems, but there’s also bad cartridge systems too (like Amstrads attempt at rebranding the CPC 646 architecture as a games console). You simply cannot compare the worst CD systems against the best cartridge systems if you want a sensible discussion.
> I played LE on the PC (and with 2x drive and SMARTDRV) and I don't remember such big lags, though it was 25 years ago so of course my memory could deceive me.
I’ve not played LE so cannot comment on that game specifically but there are such things as bad console ports of good PC games even on consoles that are technically capable of playing the game well. I own a few examples of this myself. It’s far better not to compare one game and make a conclusion based off that in isolation.
> Syummary: yeah, they could be used, but access time was another small, but a nail in the coffin, at least IMO.
Again, the Sega CD had a large on board RAM. I have a Sega CD (well, the Mega CD because it’s PAL) and games play fine on it.
I wish HN wouldn’t perpetuate this complete fallacy that console CD addons were as limited as their host systems. It’s completely false. I even have the hardware to prove it.
I was specifically on about load times. As already discussed several times in this thread, most CD-ROM games systems had onboard RAM to solve the access time problem (Sega CD especially so).
Sure there might be some outliers of bad CD systems, but there’s also bad cartridge systems too (like Amstrads attempt at rebranding the CPC 646 architecture as a games console). You simply cannot compare the worst CD systems against the best cartridge systems if you want a sensible discussion.
> I played LE on the PC (and with 2x drive and SMARTDRV) and I don't remember such big lags, though it was 25 years ago so of course my memory could deceive me.
I’ve not played LE so cannot comment on that game specifically but there are such things as bad console ports of good PC games even on consoles that are technically capable of playing the game well. I own a few examples of this myself. It’s far better not to compare one game and make a conclusion based off that in isolation.
> Syummary: yeah, they could be used, but access time was another small, but a nail in the coffin, at least IMO.
Again, the Sega CD had a large on board RAM. I have a Sega CD (well, the Mega CD because it’s PAL) and games play fine on it.
I wish HN wouldn’t perpetuate this complete fallacy that console CD addons were as limited as their host systems. It’s completely false. I even have the hardware to prove it.
It's not what they were so limited, but more what to fully utilize them you need a vast experience and an ability to seriously think out of the box.
Given the tight schedules and and overall pace of the things back then it is understandable why it didn't flew the way it could be.
Totally unrelated but somewhat relateable anecdata: a couple of weeks ago I decided what I needed some more notification sounds for my two phones and bazillion apps which trigger notifications. Being (mentally) a greybeard I decided to use some sounds from Duke3D. After extracting VOCs from DUKE3D.GRP I came to realisation what if you exclude monsters sound variants (roam, attack, death etc) - there is overall a pretty pale palette of sounds. Yet, back then (and even now - it is only a couple of years since I did kick those alien asses) it were perceived as a wonderful, submerging experience. Duke3D shipped on the CD, with only 35Mb of data used.
Given the tight schedules and and overall pace of the things back then it is understandable why it didn't flew the way it could be.
Totally unrelated but somewhat relateable anecdata: a couple of weeks ago I decided what I needed some more notification sounds for my two phones and bazillion apps which trigger notifications. Being (mentally) a greybeard I decided to use some sounds from Duke3D. After extracting VOCs from DUKE3D.GRP I came to realisation what if you exclude monsters sound variants (roam, attack, death etc) - there is overall a pretty pale palette of sounds. Yet, back then (and even now - it is only a couple of years since I did kick those alien asses) it were perceived as a wonderful, submerging experience. Duke3D shipped on the CD, with only 35Mb of data used.
> It's not what they were so limited, but more what to fully utilize them you need a vast experience and an ability to seriously think out of the box.
That's not true at all. I've said multiple times already that systems with slower access times on storage media was the _norm_ and cartridge based systems were the exception. I've cited multiple examples of how that was the case as well. I don't understand why you're still containing on with this myth of yours even when presented with evidence that clearly disproves it.
> Given the tight schedules and and overall pace of the things back then it is understandable why it didn't flew the way it could be.
Neither of that had any baring on why the Sega CD flopped. Most of the games on the Sega CD were quality games. The issue was mostly down to cost. You had to literally buy two consoles to use it. And games were only marginally better on the Sega CD (plus quite a few Sega CD games were also released as cartridge games for the Mega Drive) so few people saw the Sega CD as a worthwhile purchase. Hence why Sega CD's rise in popularity was afterwards with retro collectors.
You keep saying that games on the Sega CD were crap and that simply isn't true. I have a shelf full of Sega CD games that are to a very good standard. Sure there were some naff titles and those were typically FMV games, but that doesn't mean that every game for the Sega CD was FMV, nor that other non CD-based systems didn't also have their fair share of duds. You're intentionally comparing the worst of CD with the best of cartridges and not even realising how skewed an analysis that is -- then retroactively applying some made up technical facts to fit the analysis. Thus your entire reasoning here is completely backwards.
> Totally unrelated but somewhat relateable anecdata: a couple of weeks ago I decided what I needed some more notification sounds for my two phones and bazillion apps which trigger notifications. Being (mentally) a greybeard I decided to use some sounds from Duke3D. After extracting VOCs from DUKE3D.GRP I came to realisation what if you exclude monsters sound variants (roam, attack, death etc) - there is overall a pretty pale palette of sounds. Yet, back then (and even now - it is only a couple of years since I did kick those alien asses) it were perceived as a wonderful, submerging experience. Duke3D shipped on the CD, with only 35Mb of data used.
Yeah that is totally unrelated. :) Asset sizes naturally get exponentially larger as the quality increases. Audio would be dropped to ridiculously low bit rates and in mono. Textures would be low resolution. etc. I remember some of the tricks I had to pull to crunch sound effects for Worms down to < 1MB for the entire sound pack. If you played them through a HiFi set up they sounded dreadful but over your average PC speakers* and blended into the background ambient sound effects streamed from CD audio, and you had something that sounded pretty ok. But individually those SFX were dreadful. The same is true for Duke3D and every other game of the 90s. The N64 had to pull similar tricks to fit all the audio data onto one cartridge too and didn't even have the luxury of CD audio.
Another thing to remember is our expectations were lower back then. I remember being blown away at Sonic 3 thinking those graphics looked incredible. I also remember playing Wolf3D for the first time and being shocked at a PC could generate real time 3D graphics that played that smoothly. And back when a lot of people were still stuck with MIDI and PC Speakers, hugely bit crunched sound effects sounded amazing compared to what came before it. Heck, I remember hearing spoken text via PCM audio on a 64k BASIC micro and being shocked that was even possible and that spoken text consisted of 2 works that were almost impossible to make out if it had not been for the fact it was the same two words as the games title.
* as in those little desktop speakers that were the norm -- not to be confused with the PC Speaker sound device that most IBM-compatibles shipped with at one time
But anyway, back to the point: the access times for CD were not the downfall of the Sega CD. It was the fact that you needed a Mega Drive to run it and half the library was re-issues of Mega Drive games anyway. So it effectively became a novelty for rich kids rather than a mass consumer addon.
That's not true at all. I've said multiple times already that systems with slower access times on storage media was the _norm_ and cartridge based systems were the exception. I've cited multiple examples of how that was the case as well. I don't understand why you're still containing on with this myth of yours even when presented with evidence that clearly disproves it.
> Given the tight schedules and and overall pace of the things back then it is understandable why it didn't flew the way it could be.
Neither of that had any baring on why the Sega CD flopped. Most of the games on the Sega CD were quality games. The issue was mostly down to cost. You had to literally buy two consoles to use it. And games were only marginally better on the Sega CD (plus quite a few Sega CD games were also released as cartridge games for the Mega Drive) so few people saw the Sega CD as a worthwhile purchase. Hence why Sega CD's rise in popularity was afterwards with retro collectors.
You keep saying that games on the Sega CD were crap and that simply isn't true. I have a shelf full of Sega CD games that are to a very good standard. Sure there were some naff titles and those were typically FMV games, but that doesn't mean that every game for the Sega CD was FMV, nor that other non CD-based systems didn't also have their fair share of duds. You're intentionally comparing the worst of CD with the best of cartridges and not even realising how skewed an analysis that is -- then retroactively applying some made up technical facts to fit the analysis. Thus your entire reasoning here is completely backwards.
> Totally unrelated but somewhat relateable anecdata: a couple of weeks ago I decided what I needed some more notification sounds for my two phones and bazillion apps which trigger notifications. Being (mentally) a greybeard I decided to use some sounds from Duke3D. After extracting VOCs from DUKE3D.GRP I came to realisation what if you exclude monsters sound variants (roam, attack, death etc) - there is overall a pretty pale palette of sounds. Yet, back then (and even now - it is only a couple of years since I did kick those alien asses) it were perceived as a wonderful, submerging experience. Duke3D shipped on the CD, with only 35Mb of data used.
Yeah that is totally unrelated. :) Asset sizes naturally get exponentially larger as the quality increases. Audio would be dropped to ridiculously low bit rates and in mono. Textures would be low resolution. etc. I remember some of the tricks I had to pull to crunch sound effects for Worms down to < 1MB for the entire sound pack. If you played them through a HiFi set up they sounded dreadful but over your average PC speakers* and blended into the background ambient sound effects streamed from CD audio, and you had something that sounded pretty ok. But individually those SFX were dreadful. The same is true for Duke3D and every other game of the 90s. The N64 had to pull similar tricks to fit all the audio data onto one cartridge too and didn't even have the luxury of CD audio.
Another thing to remember is our expectations were lower back then. I remember being blown away at Sonic 3 thinking those graphics looked incredible. I also remember playing Wolf3D for the first time and being shocked at a PC could generate real time 3D graphics that played that smoothly. And back when a lot of people were still stuck with MIDI and PC Speakers, hugely bit crunched sound effects sounded amazing compared to what came before it. Heck, I remember hearing spoken text via PCM audio on a 64k BASIC micro and being shocked that was even possible and that spoken text consisted of 2 works that were almost impossible to make out if it had not been for the fact it was the same two words as the games title.
* as in those little desktop speakers that were the norm -- not to be confused with the PC Speaker sound device that most IBM-compatibles shipped with at one time
But anyway, back to the point: the access times for CD were not the downfall of the Sega CD. It was the fact that you needed a Mega Drive to run it and half the library was re-issues of Mega Drive games anyway. So it effectively became a novelty for rich kids rather than a mass consumer addon.
CDs were cheaper to manufacture, but the tradeoff was that the CD-ROM consoles were more expensive.
There are definitely a few gems on the Sega CD; Lunar and Popful Mail are two common examples.
I also do find that, in hindsight, there's a bizarre charm to the Full Motion Video games that were popular in the 90s. Night Trap and Corpse Killers aren't "good" games in any kind of objective sense, but at the same time they're extremely entertaining games in 2022, at least worth playing on an emulator.
I also do find that, in hindsight, there's a bizarre charm to the Full Motion Video games that were popular in the 90s. Night Trap and Corpse Killers aren't "good" games in any kind of objective sense, but at the same time they're extremely entertaining games in 2022, at least worth playing on an emulator.
Not Sega, but Gabriel Knight 2, the FMV one, is still my favourite gaming memory.
> There are definitely a few gems on the Sega CD; Lunar and Popful Mail are two common examples.
Alas the video gaming portion of my life ended right after I got the Sega CD, so never knew about the later better titles.
Alas the video gaming portion of my life ended right after I got the Sega CD, so never knew about the later better titles.
Shining Force CD is worth playing as well.
So much of Golden Sun's aesthetic and design DNA is in the Shining series. For someone who has strong nostalgic memories of Golden Sun, it's fascinating to see/try its essential predecessor.
I approached it the other way around. Golden Sun was an exciting game as someone who used to rent Shining Force II every opportunity I got.
Is golden sun turn based strategy?
No, golden sun is a more traditional turn based JRPG, unlike Shining Force which is a Tactical RPG. A lot of the same people who worked on Shining Force went on to form Camelot, the company that made Golden Sun.
Between Shining Force to Golden Sun I can see that the aesthetics of the overworld UI's first layer (very small illustrated buttons arranged as an overlay near the bottom of the screen) and the perspective of the battle system when an attack is performed (3/4 over the shoulder) are quite clear carry-throughs. The font and box graphics are also similar - thin white text on a deep blue. They even both ubiquitously have multi-headed dragons as the final boss!
The creators of these games had a very particular, very effective experiential vision of a fantasy adventure and I'm grateful I got to experience it as part of my childhood and even got to see it when looking further back in time. Even though some of the Djinn were very frustrating to catch sometimes!
Between Shining Force to Golden Sun I can see that the aesthetics of the overworld UI's first layer (very small illustrated buttons arranged as an overlay near the bottom of the screen) and the perspective of the battle system when an attack is performed (3/4 over the shoulder) are quite clear carry-throughs. The font and box graphics are also similar - thin white text on a deep blue. They even both ubiquitously have multi-headed dragons as the final boss!
The creators of these games had a very particular, very effective experiential vision of a fantasy adventure and I'm grateful I got to experience it as part of my childhood and even got to see it when looking further back in time. Even though some of the Djinn were very frustrating to catch sometimes!
The version I played was the CDX, which bizarrely you could put batteries in and carry around like a Discman: https://retroconsoles.fandom.com/wiki/Sega_CDX/Multi-Mega
It was also notable for being a miniature but combined SEGA CD and SEGA Genesis.
IIRC it did not officially support the 32X, but it did work?
IIRC it did not officially support the 32X, but it did work?
It worked. I owned both. But they said it didn’t. At least for a while.
But it was sort of odd. The 32X didn’t seem too stable since it stuck up so far. I think they later had a piece of plastic they offered (in box or via mail?) to fix that.
But it was sort of odd. The 32X didn’t seem too stable since it stuck up so far. I think they later had a piece of plastic they offered (in box or via mail?) to fix that.
It's incredible how many different pieces of hardware Sega released around that time. All these weird permutations of Genesis, Sega CD and 32X with this portable thing and the Nomad and then the Saturn came out right after. I don't know what they were thinking.
As I know it:
The Genesis started losing to the SNES. They thought they could improve/extend it with the Sega CD but that flopped.
Nintendo of America realized they needed something better. So they designed the 32X. They later planned to sell a Genesis with one built in, sort of like the CDX. Honestly 32X + Sega CD was pretty good.
But Sega is a Japanese company. And Sega of Japan didn’t care for what Sega of America was doing (and possibly wanted to teach them a lesson?). So they basically refused to support the 32X, leading to very few games.
To make things worse Sega of Japan had their own solution to the problem, the Saturn. It was further off (this why the 32X made it out), but it got announced. And it was incompatible. Why buy a 32X if it’s going to be obsolete in like a year anyway?
So SoJ basically undermined/killed the 32X, though it may not have been a great idea in the first place.
Sega found out about Sony and got scared. I believe that’s why the added the second CPU to the Saturn (making it harder to program/more expensive). But they decided to beat everyone to market to see things up with a first mover advantage. So they announced the console officially and said “It’s out today in the US”. That was a huge bombshell no one expected.
Not even KB Toys and Toys R Us. They didn’t know and were PISSED. They were responsible for the vast majority of game sales. KB pulled all Sega stuff and stopped selling it. Huge loss. TRU did something too (lack of advertising? Low stock?).
Between that, the insane price of $400, and the lack of promotion (it was a surprise launch so no pre-release coverage) the Saturn started in serious trouble and never recovered.
Sony, famously, went up to the mic at their press conference, said “$299”, and walked off stage. It was a huge hit.
Sony had money (Sega wasn’t doing hot), partners (Sega pissed ‘em all off), a lower price, and Nintendo didn’t come out until later. Nintendo was also expensive to develop (carts) and didn’t have much space (carts).
So Sony cleaned everyone’s clocks.
(I love video game history. I got to live through such an amazing time)
The Genesis started losing to the SNES. They thought they could improve/extend it with the Sega CD but that flopped.
Nintendo of America realized they needed something better. So they designed the 32X. They later planned to sell a Genesis with one built in, sort of like the CDX. Honestly 32X + Sega CD was pretty good.
But Sega is a Japanese company. And Sega of Japan didn’t care for what Sega of America was doing (and possibly wanted to teach them a lesson?). So they basically refused to support the 32X, leading to very few games.
To make things worse Sega of Japan had their own solution to the problem, the Saturn. It was further off (this why the 32X made it out), but it got announced. And it was incompatible. Why buy a 32X if it’s going to be obsolete in like a year anyway?
So SoJ basically undermined/killed the 32X, though it may not have been a great idea in the first place.
Sega found out about Sony and got scared. I believe that’s why the added the second CPU to the Saturn (making it harder to program/more expensive). But they decided to beat everyone to market to see things up with a first mover advantage. So they announced the console officially and said “It’s out today in the US”. That was a huge bombshell no one expected.
Not even KB Toys and Toys R Us. They didn’t know and were PISSED. They were responsible for the vast majority of game sales. KB pulled all Sega stuff and stopped selling it. Huge loss. TRU did something too (lack of advertising? Low stock?).
Between that, the insane price of $400, and the lack of promotion (it was a surprise launch so no pre-release coverage) the Saturn started in serious trouble and never recovered.
Sony, famously, went up to the mic at their press conference, said “$299”, and walked off stage. It was a huge hit.
Sony had money (Sega wasn’t doing hot), partners (Sega pissed ‘em all off), a lower price, and Nintendo didn’t come out until later. Nintendo was also expensive to develop (carts) and didn’t have much space (carts).
So Sony cleaned everyone’s clocks.
(I love video game history. I got to live through such an amazing time)
The problem runs a little bit deeper than just what happened in the 90's; Sega of Japan was an arcade-first company, used to designing new hardware on an 18-month cycle, and able to count on a guaranteed market for new titles through their own locations. This tendency helped them make a lot of defining arcade hits in the 80's, but it became an Achilles' heel in all of its console efforts, with three different iterations of the SG-1000 series plus regional variations(Master System) too. When they hit big with the Genesis, they didn't learn to change their hardware strategy to match what the console market needed going forward, so the same mismanaged release cycle resulted, and in a market that was getting bigger and more expensive to stay in, with more and more of the development costs being weighted towards software technologies.
Not to mention the Saturn didn't even have an SDK for the early part of it's life so most of the good early releases were Sega owned studios who were already familiar with the hardware from arcade cabinets. Whereas the Playstation didn't have their own games developers so had to ship an SDK to get 3rd party developers on board (couple that with a few exclusivity deals/bribes) and it's not hard to see why games studios dropped the Saturn.
The non FMV library on the Sega CD is surprisingly good! Give it another look. Back in the day the FMV games had all the spotlight.
Snatcher (by Hideo Kojima of Metal Gear Solid fame) is one of the best. Basically a Blade Runner-esque adventure/detective game with a bit of action too.
I started that one and it was actually pretty fun before my emu or something started bugging out.
Eventually I'll sit down and watch a let's play or find a good copy.
Eventually I'll sit down and watch a let's play or find a good copy.
Lunar: The Silver Star and Lunar: Eternal Blue were great.
Dark Wizard! It remains one of my favorite games of all time and was [probably too] far ahead of its time. It's an open-world turn based battle strategy game with leveling units, multiple storylines to play through (with distinct heroes, persistent/leveling units, skill trees, evolution trees, etc), lots of secrets, and so on. It also has some great orchestral type music [1].
It holds up extremely well.
[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnLXQkkscy8
It holds up extremely well.
[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnLXQkkscy8
Sonic CD was always my favorite.
Best Sonic the Hedgehog game imo
The recent 2D Sonic that wasn’t truly made by Sega, Sonic Mania, would be my other contender.
Terminator is a notable original CD title, not a port unlike a lot of its cousins.
This seems to be a case of genuine irony: Sega CD might have had some good titles but the value was never there, even more so with 32x. But we can't get Sega systems anymore and retro games are cool anyway. And I'm guessing we won't have to worry about the load times of course. So all of a sudden these systems become cool again.
For me, the system always seemed like a waste of money for my friend that had it. Sewer shark and night trap weren't exactly great games. So I guess I never had to regret the purchase. I'm excited about the games that aren't fmv based though.
For me, the system always seemed like a waste of money for my friend that had it. Sewer shark and night trap weren't exactly great games. So I guess I never had to regret the purchase. I'm excited about the games that aren't fmv based though.
We had the top loading version. I'm really glad this version is cosmetic only, because we had to return the original several times for suddenly refusing to read discs.
Fool me once… twice… won’t get fooled again!
Yep, memories of a $300 attachment to play my Information Society CD+G, which was cool but not enough.
Yep, memories of a $300 attachment to play my Information Society CD+G, which was cool but not enough.
The set of games includes Shining Force CD and Sonic CD. IMHO worth it for those two titles alone
Buy it, enjoy the novelty for 30 minutes, put it in the closet, forget it existed, sell off at garage sale 2 years later for a pittance.
That is really true. Especially because you can play a lot of old console games (including old Sega games!) on, say, a Nintendo Switch. Or on pretty much any PC or Mac with moderate fiddling.
And if you are a "preservationist", you'll either want to play/document/whatever it on the original console, or on one which is dedicated to emulate the system as faithful as possible, i.e. the systems from Analogue or a MiSTer FPGA solution.
And if you are a "preservationist", you'll either want to play/document/whatever it on the original console, or on one which is dedicated to emulate the system as faithful as possible, i.e. the systems from Analogue or a MiSTer FPGA solution.
That feels like the majority of hardware releases on HN. Just consumerist crap. The reality is that outside of nostalgia factor, the vast majority of old games just aren’t that fun compared to modern ones.
There are people for who the nostalgia factor is huge. Or will have a great time introducing those games to a spouse or playing with their children for many hours. And these things are certainly way cheaper than a “real” console.
Me? I would do exactly what the GP said. But that why I won’t buy it, because I know I don’t care enough. Even for something I have much more nostalgia for (PS 1) it would have been more a art nick-knack for me if I bought it.
Me? I would do exactly what the GP said. But that why I won’t buy it, because I know I don’t care enough. Even for something I have much more nostalgia for (PS 1) it would have been more a art nick-knack for me if I bought it.
I feel just the opposite. It seems like the only innovation coming out of modern games has to do with graphics.
Even if this was true, you don't have to play the vast majority. Your goal is, and always has been, to play the best.
Agreed. As much as I adore sega and what it brought to my childhood, this amounts to a gag gift at this point.
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And create a lot of plastic waste in the process
I would really appreciate if those reissue consoles would rather be FPGA based mimics of the original hardware instead of essentially correctly shaped plastic around a raspi and retropie. The perceived success of devices like the Analogue Pocket indicate to me there's a market for this, and at the audience scale of first party devices this might actually hit non-enthusiast pricing
I do share the sentiment[1], but I also believe that the target market neither cares nor really understands the difference. So from a perspective of both design and cost margins, it just makes much more sense to use whatever cheapest ARM SoCs is available as long as it is still "adequate".
Of course form a hardware hacking perspective, the FPGA would be fantastic, but those toys are not meant for that.
[1] Even though my thoughts on what an FPGA can really do better in this situation are complex.
Of course form a hardware hacking perspective, the FPGA would be fantastic, but those toys are not meant for that.
[1] Even though my thoughts on what an FPGA can really do better in this situation are complex.
Tectoy is a Brazillian company that still manufactures SEGA consoles (they have the license back from the 90s).
They still use the original motherboard and whatnot...
Yet, somehow, they still manage to make it have issues, seemly they replaced several of the original chips with cheaper ones that don't have same algorithms, some games notoriously have issues (Sonic 3 for example has audio problems).
Also they removed the cartridge port from the mobo... but still left the holes and space on the mobo for it.
I find all this so confusing, why not just sell either the original hardware or an FPGA based one instead of stupid hacks?
Picture of the mobo with missing cartridge slot: https://i.imgur.com/tqOM56N.png?3
They still use the original motherboard and whatnot...
Yet, somehow, they still manage to make it have issues, seemly they replaced several of the original chips with cheaper ones that don't have same algorithms, some games notoriously have issues (Sonic 3 for example has audio problems).
Also they removed the cartridge port from the mobo... but still left the holes and space on the mobo for it.
I find all this so confusing, why not just sell either the original hardware or an FPGA based one instead of stupid hacks?
Picture of the mobo with missing cartridge slot: https://i.imgur.com/tqOM56N.png?3
These use the DMC Redkid 2 "enhanced" Genesis/Mega Drive clone chips. These same chips were used in older AtGames clones as well (not the FlashbacK HD line though, those use emulation on an ARM SoC). In some sense, these are more "real hardware" than even an FPGA clone, but the clone has some flaws. It's also more configurable than the original hardware and the firmware configures it wrong, though at least this part is fixable with 3rd party firmware. The programmer of the 2018 Mega Drive game Tanglewood wrote an interesting blog post about his efforts to get his game to run well on these: https://blog.bigevilcorporation.co.uk/2018/04/18/taming-the-...
Are you certain the ICs were replaced for cost reduction, and not because the original parts were discontinued?
This seems extremely likely. From what I have seen on other products. If you are a small company, it’s almost impossible to make a device for more than 10 years before you have to redesign on new parts.
Tec Toy built systems with original ICs for as long as they could (even when the likes of AtGames had moved on to cheap-o reproductions), but they are discontinued so that's impossible. There is no way to get buy a new 68k nowadays, for starters. TecToy has used clone chips for a while now.
FPGA probably costs too much for these; and there's not likely enough money in them to make an accurate single chip system. (single chip NES asics exist, but accuracy isn't quite 100%; I've read that at least one of the atari 2600 retro consoles was built with one and they just ported the games to the NES)
The analogue pocket sits at 219 USD retail currently, and it has a screen with very high density and pretty high quality build in general. They are however having issues with sourcing parts leading to long preorder cycles. With the scale of these reissue consoles, and lack of a screen or batteries, I'd think it would be possible to reach the price point of these toy reissues if they came as FPGA based builds from first party. Not the profit margin though unfortunately
Strongly doubt it.
If it's sold in retail and costs 60$, the BOM needs to be less than 20$. It's hard to get just an adequate FPGA suitable for the task at that price, and there are still a lot more components needed. I expect the linux chip to const less than 5$.
FPGAs also quickly require much more complex board & power delivery designs.
If it's sold in retail and costs 60$, the BOM needs to be less than 20$. It's hard to get just an adequate FPGA suitable for the task at that price, and there are still a lot more components needed. I expect the linux chip to const less than 5$.
FPGAs also quickly require much more complex board & power delivery designs.
I'd bet my house this will just be a raspberry pi-like device with an emulator.
The audience that would want an FPGA will buy an analogue device.
I personally bought a mega sg plus a Mega EverDrive Pro. Combined they support mega drive and mega cd (plus MSU). Excellent, but that costs around $400 combined.
I mean, I'd love an FPGA at this price point; it would be great, I'd buy two (even though I've already got the 2019 one). I just don't think it's realistic, and I'm not willing to pay what it would cost. I've got a Genesis2 floating around somewhere that I could accessorize for less, and a nice CRT to connect it to. I've misplaced the cables, some of my games, and the controllers, but you'd need most of that with an FPGA remake anyway.
The linked article mentions $80, which would give a little more room:
> The console will cost 9,980 yen before tax; at just under $80, this is in line with the pricing of earlier mini-consoles.
At the same time, on eBay the analogue pocket routinely sells for $700 - $1000, so it seems there's quite a gap in supply for this
> The console will cost 9,980 yen before tax; at just under $80, this is in line with the pricing of earlier mini-consoles.
At the same time, on eBay the analogue pocket routinely sells for $700 - $1000, so it seems there's quite a gap in supply for this
Good news is a MiSTer device solves this problem, is infinitely more useful and is pretty affordable, even with inflated prices now.
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There are systems that are just what you want, and they come from... er, Analogue. Specifically the Analogue Super NT (FPGA SNES clone) and Mega SG (Genesis clone). They're a little pricey and they need original carts, but they come closer to the real thing than any software emulator I know of, with almost zero lag too.
Or MisterFPGA can do all this and more. Well worth checking out for anyone into old systems. Great community as well.
Highly recommend the misterfpga, I sold my nt mini noir after getting it, so much better and less half based (for example nt mini noir's jailbreak had Genesis support but no controller remapping making it useless with the 8 bitdo genesis controller).
Also very impressive to see all the work being done on mister cores including things like Amiga, Acorn Archimedes, the first Playstation and Saturn
Also very impressive to see all the work being done on mister cores including things like Amiga, Acorn Archimedes, the first Playstation and Saturn
Why people recommend Analogue devices is beyond me.
Because they are beautiful and just work.
Mister also, just works. But yes, it's really not beautiful (in terms of living room aesthetics). I'm not being facetious, but Mister is really cheap and easy to get running and as I always say, the community is amazing. One of the best internet communities around IMO.
Maybe it came from hearing the past tracks from Sonic CD as a child, but I've always been curious about sample-based chiptunes using the Sega CD's Ricoh RF5C164. It always seemed like an incredible compliment with the YM2612+PSG, but sometimes Googling can feel a bit scarce.
There’s an incredible lack of documentation on the SEGA CD’s actual development architecture - you can find copies of all SEGA’s official documentation, but it’s pretty arcane and tough to approach.
Obviously there’s tons and tons of Genesis/MegaDrive documentation, but there’s little documentation for the CD.
Obviously there’s tons and tons of Genesis/MegaDrive documentation, but there’s little documentation for the CD.
Given how the documentation was lacking like you mention, I can understand developers relatively eager to stick to Red Book audio. It’d be relatively easy to set up and it gives the composer a lot of freedom.
It’s not uncommon to see PlayStation 1 JRPGs eschew Red Book audio (and use sequenced samples) in order to take advantage of loading game data while music’s playing. In some ways, it’s not unlike the bulk of Snatcher’s soundtrack being mostly YM2612. I wish I saw more of that during the Sega CD’s lifetime, although homebrew could change that!
It’s not uncommon to see PlayStation 1 JRPGs eschew Red Book audio (and use sequenced samples) in order to take advantage of loading game data while music’s playing. In some ways, it’s not unlike the bulk of Snatcher’s soundtrack being mostly YM2612. I wish I saw more of that during the Sega CD’s lifetime, although homebrew could change that!
Come on Sega, release a new console. Come on. Get back into the game...
I honestly would love to see Nintendo have a direct competitor again. Another company that isn't chasing resolution and fps counts, but focusing on family and group gaming.
There's no good business sense to do so. Why compete with three other titans in hardware (where they've been beaten several times already), where they can just release software on whatever platforms makes the most sense, or all platforms.
Especially when hardware is a money losing game half the time. Just do the software and let others lose money on the hardware!
It’s impossible to compete with Sony and MS. They put insane amounts of money in, and selling another $500 console to someone without the name/brand/library of the big two is hopeless.
Nintendo got off the GPU treadmill and started playing a different game. It’s the only reason they survived.
But other companies have tried doing a Switch like thing of taking an existing chip and making a console. nVidia and Google couldn’t do it and they have tons of money too. Steam had a niche, but a giant existing library (of a sort) and a strong name.
Sega has published the Yakuza series (supposed to be great), Sonic (let’s face it, garbage for 15+ years), and what? Their nostalgia is running low. They don’t have the money to make a Tegra 1 console.
And if they did? Who would buy it? Why risk buying that unless you’re a collector? I doubt they could undercut the Switch price much but the Switch has an amazing library and massive name behind it.
I don’t see how Sega could do any more than be a publisher/creator. Hardware is a losing game. The market is full.
Nintendo got off the GPU treadmill and started playing a different game. It’s the only reason they survived.
But other companies have tried doing a Switch like thing of taking an existing chip and making a console. nVidia and Google couldn’t do it and they have tons of money too. Steam had a niche, but a giant existing library (of a sort) and a strong name.
Sega has published the Yakuza series (supposed to be great), Sonic (let’s face it, garbage for 15+ years), and what? Their nostalgia is running low. They don’t have the money to make a Tegra 1 console.
And if they did? Who would buy it? Why risk buying that unless you’re a collector? I doubt they could undercut the Switch price much but the Switch has an amazing library and massive name behind it.
I don’t see how Sega could do any more than be a publisher/creator. Hardware is a losing game. The market is full.
I hope. I still have hope in my heart. I grew up with Sega and seeing them come back with a console... wow. I would line up. I still remember my dreamcast so many good warm memories of my childhood.
One might expect this to mean that they might someday announce a dreamcast mini. I will choose to believe this even though I don't actually believe this.
Anyway Yu Suzuki can always just make a kickstarter for a shenmue specific dreamcast mini and get another $4 million in 2 hours. I want another chance to donate $10,000 so I can get Ryus jacket.
Anyway Yu Suzuki can always just make a kickstarter for a shenmue specific dreamcast mini and get another $4 million in 2 hours. I want another chance to donate $10,000 so I can get Ryus jacket.
People think they want these retro consoles, but they don't. It's a quick novelty attempting to relive those childhood years through rose tinted glasses. In reality, you quickly realize how far gaming has come, and you have no patience for the past. Enjoy those years in your mind.
Speak for yourself, friend. I still primarily play video games from the 80s-early oughts. I play some new games, but largely indie games and puzzle games, so this is pretty relevant to [an admittedly small] fraction of gamers.
Perhaps you are right in a sense though, as i'm happy to play emulators on my pc, and more likely to make a weekend project of converting an old NES into a raspberry pi console than shell out a couple hundo for some of Sega's weaker entries.
Sad to see that the dreamcast hate won; some of my fondest gameplaying memories are with the unusual and stellar titles released for dreamcast. It is unfortunate to see people equating the console's commercial failure in the US market with some sort of failure to create excellent games (crazy taxi, chu chu rocket, dead or alive 2, shenmue, seaman, etc etc)
Perhaps you are right in a sense though, as i'm happy to play emulators on my pc, and more likely to make a weekend project of converting an old NES into a raspberry pi console than shell out a couple hundo for some of Sega's weaker entries.
Sad to see that the dreamcast hate won; some of my fondest gameplaying memories are with the unusual and stellar titles released for dreamcast. It is unfortunate to see people equating the console's commercial failure in the US market with some sort of failure to create excellent games (crazy taxi, chu chu rocket, dead or alive 2, shenmue, seaman, etc etc)
Same here. I still play a lot of old games.
Too bad it doesn't seem to include Jurassic Park. I was obsessed with Jurassic Park and dinos in general and I always wanted the Mega CD because its JP game looked great (back then), even with actual footage from the set, IIRC?
Sadly; though, they announced not to expect a miniature Saturn or Dreamcast anytime soon; which - the Saturn being my all-time favourite console - couldn’t be much more of a disappointment.
I'm happy they're releasing one in the shape of the North American console. I'm sad about the recent announcement they decided not to make a Dreamcast Mini.
North America got both variants. This iteration is the model 2, but the model 1 was also sold here.
> Sega is selling a purely cosmetic Sega CD accessory
Seems like a missed opportunity.
Seems like a missed opportunity.
It's Sega, after all. I'm surprised they're still alive.
I really want to play the old NHL. Please have NHL
Put Snatcher CD on it and I'm interested.
pervert
>Katrina Gibson - Jean Jack's young daughter. Works as a model. Her house is attacked by snatchers later on in the game but she manages to find refuge in Gillian's apartment. In the Japanese version, her age is given as 14 years old, and the player can sniff her panties while she's showering before walking in on her.
>Katrina Gibson - Jean Jack's young daughter. Works as a model. Her house is attacked by snatchers later on in the game but she manages to find refuge in Gillian's apartment. In the Japanese version, her age is given as 14 years old, and the player can sniff her panties while she's showering before walking in on her.
I had the original Sega CD, the one with the motorized tray for the CD that sat under the Genesis/Megadrive console, not the discman-esque top loading device they are copying here.
I suppose I'm the exact target market for this, as a pure nostalgic impulse purchase. But I have to say even as a kid I was so disappointed in the games available for it, that to impulse buy this would be to relive that disappointment, so ... pass.
Credit goes to the original device's included Video-CD for introducing me to Jimi Hendrix though (it had Manic Depression with a multimedia accompaniment) . That definitely changed me!