[Tectoy] The Sega Genesis is officially back in production

[Magic Sam]

Hi all

http://www.dailydot.com/debug/sega-genesis-preorder-details/

http://www.tectoy.com.br/pre-venda-mega-drive-edicao-limitada/p/995040461825

It'd cost US$125 bundled with an SD card with 22 games.

Opinions ?

Cheers, Magic Sam

 

[directive0]

Another Emu-box?

Will we ever see a console re-make on the scale of the C64DTV?

 

[Magic Sam]

@directive0 : doesn't look like an "emu-box" to me (apart from the new SD card slot):

Spoiler

Conteúdo da Embalagem:

• 1 Vídeo game Mega Drive com cabo AC
• 1 Joystick de 3 botões
• 1 cabo de áudio e vídeo
• 1 manual de instruções com certificado de garantia

Conexões:

• Conexão para jogos em mini SD card – FAT32
• Vídeo composto PAL-M (RCA)
• Áudio estéreo (2x RCAs)
• Headphone com controle de volume 75mW por canal
• Fonte de alimentação interna 110/220v automática 0,75Watts

Processadores (integrados em um single chip):

• CPU: 16bits
• CPU: 8bits

Memória integrada

• RAM sistema: 64K bytes
• RAM som: 8K bytes
• Vídeo RAM: 64K bytes
• Resolução de vídeo (SEGA Original) 256 x 224
• Pallet de 512 cores
• Simultâneas: 64 cores (15 por Sprite de 8X8)

Efeitos de Áudio:

• 6 canais de modulação AM-FM
• 2 canais de PSG (cada canal com 3 geradores de onda quadrada e mais um de ruído branco)
• 1 canal analógico de 8 bits

Garantia:

3 meses

Jogos

1. ALEX KIDD
2. ALIEN STORM
3. ALTERED BEAST
4. ARROW FLASH
5. BONANZA BROTHERS
6. COLUMNS
7. DECAP ATTACK
8. E-SWAT
9. FATAL LABYRINTH
10. FLICKY
11. GAIN GROUND
12. GOLDEN AXE
13. GOLDEN AXE 3
14. JEWEL MASTER
15. KID CHAMELEON
16. LAST BATTLE
17. OUT RUNNERS
18. SEGA SOCCER
19. SHADOW DANCER
20. SHINOBI 3
21. SONIC 3
22. TURBO OUTRUN

EDIT: source

EDIT 2: and it also plays original cartridges

Cheers, Magic Sam

 

[levi]

I like that it resembles a Mk1 megadrive, and seems to take original carts - do that mean it's a full scale reproduction? I guess since it takes sd cards it's probably running on an ARM or MIPS CPU, meaning compatibility might not be 100%, especially for things like the master system adaptor or 32X. But that would be par for the course for these Brazilian clones.

Does that bell wire mains input suggest it's got an external PSU brick, or is that sort of cable for unearthed mains common there?

I'm not sure it's worth $125 for me personally, since I can emulate megadrive fine on most of my systems no problem already, but if I had a games room and didn't have an origial Mk1 already, it might be worth it to flesh out the collection.

 

[erico]

Not much worth for me either, but I love the case design and the joypad...in fact, I used these joypads for ages on my amiga while never owning a genesis. I even did the mod on them as recommended by the Hired Guns manual to use all buttons in game.
Some very good games on the set though.

Maybe some people will find this interesting cause of the case, pad and legal games. I guess if one considers that, it is not that much expensive.

 

[directive0]

@directive0 : doesn't look like an "emu-box" to me (apart from the new SD card slot):

Great!!

 

[Exophase]

Tectoy has been selling their Genesis builds for many years after Sega discontinued theirs, so if anyone can make something today with original discrete parts it'd be them. Pretty anachronistic technology (although a little more advanced/integrated than the earlier Genesis models), but I guess there isn't enough demand for a new ASIC or even FPGA-based design to make sense. That and they might not be comfortable supporting whatever increase in capabilities they'd need to accommodate that.

That also means the bundled games and SD card support is likely accomplished through something like an integrated flash card and not a core redesign. Which would help explain why it's all so expensive. Kind of ironic given that the whole reason Sega's consoles were so viable for so long in Brazil was because of their low cost compared to more modern alternatives.

Composite-only output and bundling it with the three button controller instead of the six button one seem like big misses.

The game selection is also pretty mediocre, and I don't expect it to be a huge component in the large price. Compared to the $30 Steam classics pack (http://store.steampowered.com/sub/7825/) it has Arrow Flash, Jewel Master, OutRunners, Sega Soccer, Sonic 3 and Turbo Outrun. So a mediocre shmup, an alright platformer, a couple Outrun series conversions of dubious quality and an incomplete Sonic game (seriously, leaving out Sonic & Knuckles is just insulting). The Steam pack on the other hand seems way more genre robust with nearly twice as many games, with the notable omission of anything Sonic.

That said, I'm guessing that the game selection stopped shy at including anything text heavy that would be hard to play for importers who don't speak Portuguese.

 

[AnimatedFreak]

Is it region-free? Like can it play Japanese, European and American games?

 

[levi]

I think genesis games aren't region locked in the binary, just in the shape of the carts. If you've got a rom image, it should run anything. If you've got a physical cart you might need to do some filing of the cart slot.

@Exo Yeah, the the specs say it's got two CPUs on one die, presumably something 68k like and a knock off z80, to match the Mk1's discrete CPU and sound controller. And probably some integrated SD reader than can talk FAT32 and has address lines so it just looks like a ROM. I don't know whether Motorola would let you build their design into a unit combined with a zilog part, though there enough knock off z80s around to mean there shouldn't be a problem from Zilog. Or has the 68k been reverse engineered these days, just as the z80 was by the mid 80s?

 

[Exophase]

I think genesis games aren't region locked in the binary, just in the shape of the carts. If you've got a rom image, it should run anything. If you've got a physical cart you might need to do some filing of the cart slot.

@Exo Yeah, the the specs say it's got two CPUs on one die, presumably something 68k like and a knock off z80, to match the Mk1's discrete CPU and sound controller. And probably some integrated SD reader than can talk FAT32 and has address lines so it just looks like a ROM. I don't know whether Motorola would let you build their design into a unit combined with a zilog part, though there enough knock off z80s around to mean there shouldn't be a problem from Zilog. Or has the 68k been reverse engineered these days, just as the z80 was by the mid 80s?

Back in 1998 Majesco released a very cheap third model Genesis, there is a breakdown of the PCB here:

http://segaretro.org/Mega_Drive_PCB_revisions

You can see that they incorporated practically most of the chips: 68k, z80, VDP, and YM2612 are all on the same ASIC. The memories have also been consolidated into a single SDRAM.

From what I can find Motorola actually did start licensing the 68k for use in third party ASICs, it's just kind of overlooked because it happened relatively late. 1996, apparently:

http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1208708

It'd be pretty bad if this unit is actually going backwards in terms of integration. Guess we'll see when someone gets one and opens it up.

The Majesco unit sold for $50 in 1998, but allegedly got discounted to prices as low as $20. $50 in 1996 money is still only $77 today, so this new unit is quite a bit more expensive than the Majesco unit while being a quite bit more outdated. Although I have to imagine that if they crammed those 22 games on a 1998 unit it'd have sold for a much higher price.

 

[levi]

I also wonder how many TVs will like PAL-M output via composite. PAL-M runs at 60Hz (and thus has less lines than PAL) but with Phase Alternating Lines, albeit the carrier frequency used to combine that with the Y signal is closer to that used by NTSC, rather than normal PAL.

 

[Fzero]

Megadrive rules!
I have the original already, but I'd still be very tempted to get this if wasn't so expensive to ship to here

 

[levi]

I'll just leave this here:
It's strictly not relevant to this thread because the game contains it's own processor, and isn't actually compatible with a whole slew of real genuine old MDs, so an emulator in a MD shaped box is highly unlikely to be able to play this. But this was the best vaguely recent thread I could find, and I thought this review was worth posting.