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Sega Genesis again in production in Brazil as of 2016

Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2016 2:21 am
by koitsu
https://games.slashdot.org/story/16/11/ ... production

I had a big long write-up about my concerns with this device (from a legal and "oh look, those old games from the 90s are still making us money, so hey, time to sue people" standpoint), but I decided to say f*** it and just post the link + let people blab on their own. I do find it interesting it has an SD card slot + includes an SD card with 22 games, while simultaneously supporting cartridges (smells like a Genesis version of the Retron 5 -- except this is apparently a Sega-sanctioned product).

We have enough Portuguese-speaking folks here that if someone needs something translated from the pre-order page, it shouldn't be a problem.

Re: Sega Genesis again in production in Brazil as of 2016

Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2016 4:34 am
by Bregalad
The Sega Mega Drive is only called "Genesis" in the United States, (and possibly in Canada - this would have to be verified). In all other countries of the world, it is called "Sega Mega Drive", and "Genesis" refers to the first book of the Torah/Old Testament and to a music pop group from the 80s.

Re: Sega Genesis again in production in Brazil as of 2016

Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2016 4:37 am
by nesrocks
Tectoy has been re-releasing the sega genesis and master system non stop since the 90's. It's just that this time they listened to the fans on facebook for feedback on what they wanted. Still, not everything seems to be great, so you can wait and see or you can support the direction they are going by pre-ordering. I chose to do so, but it is a high risk, because recent history shows they use bad GOACs. I can only hope that they took into account what everyone said about quality first. But the fact that it isn't compatible with any peripheral sucks really bad.

I'm not sure where they stand with sega today (I'd say that now have a green card to do anything they want with sms and genesis, apparently), but yeah, they were the official sega publishers in brazil in the 90's.

Re: Sega Genesis again in production in Brazil as of 2016

Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2016 5:21 am
by tokumaru
From what we know so far, it seems that it copies the games to its own RAM in order to run them. This conclusion is based on the fact that, in addition to using cartridges, it can also load games from the SD card, and that "special" cartridges and accessories don't work. Unfortunately, it does look like they're using a SOAC, considering their comments about the inaccurate ("not identical to the original") sound and the fact that it only outputs composite video.

Re: Sega Genesis again in production in Brazil as of 2016

Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2016 6:14 am
by Near
I would actually like it if someone could make a competent Mega CD clone.

Those systems go bad if you run them for more than two hours at a time. I've literally gone through four playing through the Lunar games.

And nowadays a good working setup will push you back $150-300.

Re: Sega Genesis again in production in Brazil as of 2016

Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2016 7:32 am
by ccovell
nesrocks wrote:...that now have a green card to do anything...
carte blanche?

Re: Sega Genesis again in production in Brazil as of 2016

Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2016 8:24 am
by TmEE
Inaccurate sound comment is the red flag for an emulation based clone. Even the garbage single chip hardware based clones have proper sound (but terrible analog side making things distorted).

Re: Sega Genesis again in production in Brazil as of 2016

Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2016 9:05 am
by tokumaru
They did specifically say this isn't using emulation, though. They are being fairly honest about all this (even though some excuses are pretty lame, like the "HDMI won't improve the resolution anyway, so it's not necessary" thing), so I don't think they would outright lie about emulation. What I find really weird is that input devices like the Activator, the Sega Mouse or even multitaps don't work...

Re: Sega Genesis again in production in Brazil as of 2016

Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2016 9:49 am
by adam_smasher
Can confirm that the MD was called the Genesis in Canada.

I wouldn't be surprised if it's emulation - economy of scale means that an ARM microcontroller (as a guess) would be way way cheaper than the alternatives.

Pretty much everything in the Genny besides the VDP is an off-the-shelf component and AFAIK still in production. I wonder if there's a market for a "premium" clone using real parts, maybe with a FPGA based VDP? It'd be pricey, but so is the Analogue NT...

Re: Sega Genesis again in production in Brazil as of 2016

Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2016 9:55 am
by lidnariq
TekToy has had the masks on hand for years, and made a series of new runs every couple years whenever they felt it was useful.

If this really is still a 68k I'm much more excited than Yet Another RetroPie variant.

Re: Sega Genesis again in production in Brazil as of 2016

Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2016 10:37 am
by TmEE
tokumaru wrote:They did specifically say this isn't using emulation, though. They are being fairly honest about all this (even though some excuses are pretty lame, like the "HDMI won't improve the resolution anyway, so it's not necessary" thing), so I don't think they would outright lie about emulation. What I find really weird is that input devices like the Activator, the Sega Mouse or even multitaps don't work...
Hardware based clone would have zero problems with any of those peripherals, it also suggests emulation being used...

Re: Sega Genesis again in production in Brazil as of 2016

Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2016 10:58 am
by tepples
Conjecture:
It's possible for the input layer to be emulated even if the CPU, memory controller, VDP, and FM aren't. The front-end processor reads the gamepads 60 times a second and then hands the signal off to the Mega Drive SoC hardware. This means things relying on nonstandard read timing, such as the mouse, won't work for much the same reason that anything but a standard NES controller won't work through a Four Score or Satellite adapter.

Re: Sega Genesis again in production in Brazil as of 2016

Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2016 11:06 am
by mikejmoffitt
I expect this has a clone ASIC / clone ASICS, but it won't work with original "special cartridges" and peripherals because it has their SD loader bullshit in the way, and cartridges are dumped and written to RAM, which is then mapped to the cartridge space.

Re: Sega Genesis again in production in Brazil as of 2016

Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2016 12:49 pm
by tokumaru
TmEE wrote:Hardware based clone would have zero problems with any of those peripherals, it also suggests emulation being used...
Which is precisely why I find this weird, despite their claim that this is not an emulator. Guess we'll have to wait and see.
mikejmoffitt wrote:I expect this has a clone ASIC / clone ASICS, but it won't work with original "special cartridges" and peripherals because it has their SD loader bullshit in the way, and cartridges are dumped and written to RAM, which is then mapped to the cartridge space.
I don't think TecToy ever had any chips manufactured, I'm pretty sure SEGA has always supplied the ICs. And it doesn't sound like they're making something of their own this time either. They constantly say in the FAQ that the original components aren't manufactured anymore, and this is why they're using "similar" parts. They're clearly not making new chips, just using whatever is already out there.

Again, we'll have to wait until we can know for sure.

Re: Sega Genesis again in production in Brazil as of 2016

Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2016 1:09 pm
by HJRodrigo
Too bad it is pal only. It doesn't appear to be emulation and the site claims it uses a 16-bit and 8-bit processor integrated on a single chip... I wonder if that means SMS games can work on the system.