sega firecore system. ( new genesis unit) and retro duo snes +nes systems

[rlemmon]

I was checking out some genesis vids on you tube and came across something interesting called  the sega genesis firecore consel.
Have you guys seen or played around with this ?




http://videogamecentral.com/






It comes with 20 built in games and plays genesis carts.  Seems pretty cool to me. I have a drawer full of genesis games and nothing to play them on.  They also have a handheld one called the retrogen that also hooks up to a tv.


I also found a nintendo one called the retro duo that plays nes and snes carts.

I wouldnt mind that just for super mario allstars.

What do you guys think of thees ? The price is right and they seem pretty cool to me.

[SavannahLion]

Can't see the YouTube videos for some mysterious reason.  

I'd be more interested in the controllers if they're backwards compatible.

I've heard many NES clones use the NoaC for the core. I can't find the review right now, but emulation of the NES from the NoaC isn't 100%, such as screwing up the colors in Castlevania (IIRC). The original engineers for the NoaC (nor anyone else for that matter) apparently have zero interest in getting rid of the bugs.

Interesting the SEGA one is using the SEGA logo, implying they're an official product or something. I'm a little irritated about that. The Joystiq blurb clearly shows a box and console without the logo.

[ChadTower]

Genesis controllers are as common as leaves under an oak tree.  I'll send you some if you pay shipping.  I have a whole bin full of them.

I'm as against bad emulation as the next guy but even I think the issues with the NoaC are way exaggerated.  It plays at hardware speed and that's the major advantage vs software emulators.  At this point it is probably a better solution than constantly fighting old 72 pin connectors.

[2600]

Retro Duo is suppose to be fairly compatible compared to others clones.  I was going to pick one up by finally decide to just dig out my NES and give it a good cleaning and refurbish it up.

The Sega one is an actual licensed unit so that's pretty good.

[SavannahLion]

The Sega one is an actual licensed unit so that's pretty good.

I would take that with a grain of salt. The only mention I can find at the SEGA site is in the forums. If it's an official current product, why is it not listed on the site?

Where is the manufacturers site? Spent too much time trying to find their site.

Not saying it's a bad product. It looks very nice and as a gamer it certainly has my interest. I wouldn't go so far as to call it official without some word from the parent company.

[SlayerAlex]

yeah i would be suprised if that was an officially licened product. i always thought the money for them was in Virtual console downloads. They dont really see a dime from old gen cartridges sold on ebay. so i find it doubtfull they would officaly support something  like that. still awesome product. If retrozone doesnt come out with a powerpak cart that can play genisis roms, i'll probly pick one of these up eventually.

[DJ_Izumi]

If it wern't for the games I think this would be legal.  Sega's patent on the design should be just 20 years old now and thusly expired, shouldn't it?

Of course, giving out games is still a copyright violation.

[2600]

The Sega one is an actual licensed unit so that's pretty good.

I would take that with a grain of salt. The only mention I can find at the SEGA site is in the forums. If it's an official current product, why is it not listed on the site?

Where is the manufacturers site? Spent too much time trying to find their site.

Not saying it's a bad product. It looks very nice and as a gamer it certainly has my interest. I wouldn't go so far as to call it official without some word from the parent company.

I merely said it was good in the fact that it is licensed instead of the usual pirating that goes on.  SEGA sold them a license for it, they have no other involvement in the product and that is why it is not on SEGA's site. SEGA doesn't have any of the JAKs joystick things, but I believe those are licensed as well.

[ChadTower]

I'm pretty sure I have seen a few joysticks with Sonic in them.

This unit probably isn't all that necessary, IMO.  The Genesis was a tank.  I've seen them pulled from basement floods covered in sewage, run through a dishwasher, and the thing still works.  Seen dudes get ticked and throw them down the stairs and they still work.  I have very rarely seen one with a worn out connector.  Add the fact that there is a physical config of the Genesis for every desire it's easy to find a working Genesis for every spot without spending much cash.  They come big with and without stereo (Gen 1), medium with and without s vid (Gen 2), mini (Gen 3), integrated with the CD (CDX), a hot swappable module in a laserdisc player (LaserActive), a handheld (Nomad)...

[ChadTower]

Pic of Generation 1 with stereo output or it doesn't exist.

The Genesis one had stereo out through the headphones jack.  That went away in the first rev of the Gen 1 when the jack was eliminated.

[ChadTower]

 

[ChadTower]

It did from the Gen 2 on.  The Gen 1 never had stereo through the back of the console.

I can't remember whether the Gen 2 came with a stereo cable, though.  I know at least one rev was S vid capable through the same A/V socket and it definitely didn't come with an S vid cable.

[Mauzy]

If this thing is indeed licensed (judging by the press release I would say it is), I gotta find me one.

I'm pretty sure I have seen a few joysticks with Sonic in them.

This unit probably isn't all that necessary, IMO.  The Genesis was a tank. I've seen them pulled from basement floods covered in sewage, run through a dishwasher, and the thing still works.  Seen dudes get ticked and throw them down the stairs and they still work.  I have very rarely seen one with a worn out connector.  Add the fact that there is a physical config of the Genesis for every desire it's easy to find a working Genesis for every spot without spending much cash.  They come big with and without stereo (Gen 1), medium with and without s vid (Gen 2), mini (Gen 3), integrated with the CD (CDX), a hot swappable module in a laserdisc player (LaserActive), a handheld (Nomad)...

Ha, crap. I must've bought the one bad Genesis. Its a second generation that has a graphical issue deeper than a dirty connector...

[DJ_Izumi]

I have difficulty believing this is lisenced.  Sega lisenced the Genesis hardware to different companies, including for it's long life in South America, but in those cases those companies legally reproduced accurate Genesis hardware.  This 'Firecore' seems to have emulation issues in tune with backward engineered chips.  Agian, as the Genesis/Mega Drive patent should be expired that's legal, but it seems they are rebuilding the chips from the exact manufacturing specs, thusly causing some inaccuracies in the hardware.

[Mauzy]

Anyone know how reputable gamesindustry.biz is? They have the press release here:
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/innex-sega-deal-us-distribution-agreement-signed-for-assortment-of-handheld-and-plug-into-the-telly-games

[rlemmon]

Thanks for all the input guys, I did a little digging and i found out that both of the sega firecore and retro gen (both made my the same company) have a few issues.  The sound is only one channel and there are some sound issues with alot of games. That problem is more so on the handheld unit though.  Another problem is that there are a few sega game carts that wont load on it. And last but not least is the fact that you cant use the game genie on it.  And it's made a bit on the flimsy side.  I still really like it though.

I found a nice system 1 genesis with new power and hookup cords for 25 shipped. Also comes with a 180 day guarantee.   I'm still tempted to pick up the hand held retro gen unit to. It would be fun to take on long trips and whatnot.

[SavannahLion]

Even if the patent expired, I understand that any company would still have to contend with copyright laws on the BIOS and games. Of course we all know about that.

Back to the topic at hand, researching this firethingie, I'm further convinced this isn't exactly what it appears to be. Box art from last year don't show any SEGA logo at all.

Seriously, if they're legitimate, there's virtually no information put out from them. Really, Game Doctor had a lot more information available in the 90's.

If this thing is indeed licensed (judging by the press release I would say it is), I gotta find me one.

I'm pretty sure I have seen a few joysticks with Sonic in them.
This unit probably isn't all that necessary, IMO.  The Genesis was a tank. I've seen them pulled from basement floods covered in sewage, run through a dishwasher, and the thing still works.  Seen dudes get ticked and throw them down the stairs and they still work.  I have very rarely seen one with a worn out connector.  Add the fact that there is a physical config of the Genesis for every desire it's easy to find a working Genesis for every spot without spending much cash.  They come big with and without stereo (Gen 1), medium with and without s vid (Gen 2), mini (Gen 3), integrated with the CD (CDX), a hot swappable module in a laserdisc player (LaserActive), a handheld (Nomad)...

Ha, crap. I must've bought the one bad Genesis. Its a second generation that has a graphical issue deeper than a dirty connector...

Same here. I have a 1st run Gen1 console with a really bad GPU. Used to work fine until the system warmed up and I got graphic glitches up the ass. Played the console on ice until one day the GPU just up and died. I only had it four weeks. Called the shop and instead of taking it as a return, they just sent me a newer Gen1 console.

Still got that old Gen too. Took it apart to see how it worked and it's still in a box. Found it after three moves and amazingly it's still all in one piece except I lost the little baggie with the screws. Oh well.

[Nipedley]

These guys were at one of the major games shows this year (don't remember which, but I was watching it online) and it is sega licensed. They said so there, at a games show.. not somewhere pirate companies generally set up booths.

Personally I quite fancy the handheld unit, I always meant to pick up a nomad but over here (UK) they are pretty expensive

[Frigo]

I don't know what it is, but that claim on the box that says "pseudo 3-D games" just makes me 

[Nipedley]

You mean pseudo-32bit games? It's not wrong but it is an odd way of saying it.

From what I remember of the games expo they were at, this Firecore SD thing is meant to be a way of playing 'new' games, whether they are developing/were developing or hoping someone else would I don't know.

[Frigo]

Yeah, that was it. For some reason, I saw the 32-bit in there, but wrote 3-D instead...

I still don't know what "pseudo 32-bit" means, or what it does, exactly. I wonder if the hardware has some sort of 32x emulation built into it that the developers can harness with the new dev kits...

[ChadTower]

32 bit cpu with a 16 bit bus, probably.  Wasn't that how the 32X worked?

[Frigo]

Yep - the SH2s shared a 16-bit bus, and had to be further processed by the Genesis, anyway... There are people that even claim the 68000 was really a 32-bit processor at heart, anyway, but the ALU was 16-bit, so as such it was marketed as a 16-bit proc... In any case, I'm still bitter about the whole thing - I paid well over 500.00 for the Sega/CD/32x Combo in the 90's, not to mention the 400.00 I shelled out for the Saturn in 95. 

[ChadTower]

The Saturn was a great piece of hardware.  It was the software that was the problem.  Took too long to master.

[Frigo]

Absolutely; Yuji Naka (former head of Sonic Team) was even quoted as saying the following about the problems programming for the Saturn:

One very fast central processor would be preferable. I don't think all programmers have the ability to program two CPUs—most can only get about one-and-a-half times the speed you can get from one SH-2. I think that only 1 in 100 programmers are good enough to get this kind of speed (nearly double) out of the Saturn.

My main gripe wasn't the system, but the lack of support for it. Even SEGA themselves dropped the ball (and granted, it had to do with the mismanagement of the company over in Japan), when they refused to release several key titles that would have won american audiences over (my most anticipated one was Eternal Champions: The Final Chapter - something that was advertised on the back of the box, but never even began to be coded). The whole SEGA debacle just makes me mad because I stood by them the entire time and watched their company become a shell of it's former self. The Dreamcast was a nice "Last Hurrah," but the mistakes between it and the Genesis were far too great to ignore.

[ChadTower]

Yeah, I bought a launch Saturn too.  I feel that pain.  The last year of great games didn't really make up for the prior years of some really bad ones.

[pmc]

Buy.com has the Firecore on sale for $25 shipped right now.

[Mario]

I guess the debate was about whether or not the Genesis ever had an AV cable with stereo output?  I remember I ran speakers and an amp off the headphone jack on my Genesis... which I probably would have only done if a stereo AV cable was unavailable.  Granted, I was just as cheap then as I am now and had the parts laying around to go the headphone jack route.

A little late to the party, but just for clarification:

The original Genesis definitely had a stereo headphone jack and a 5-pin DIN plug with MONO sound and both composite video and RGB video output. I still have mine, and I have it wired to connect to an arcade cabinet.

Mario

[pmc]

Yeah. I drove mine into my stereo off the headphones jack. That kinda sucked because a) you had to be careful with the volume slider because it's an amplified signal, and b) the jack was in the front where it was easy to kick/bump. Stereo RCAs off the back panel would have been much, much better.

Here's a neat handheld version for $43 shipped. Comes with 20 games. Merry Xmas.

[Brutal E]

I own a Nomad it is awesome. Can use it as a console or handheld great stuff. Mine I bought new back in the day. Not a scratch on it and still plays great. I love that thing.

[ChadTower]

Okay NOW we are getting somewhere.  NES and Genesis in the same console.  If we can just throw SNES in there that would be a total winner even with known issues on the clones.


EDIT:  I spoke too soon.  That exists!

[Frigo]

You're forgetting the Super Genintari.

(Granted, it's not for sale, but it's still cool. )