JayJ

He kinda ruined this opportunity by not finishing the original story with Shenmue 3. It seems like even Suzuki is tired of Ryo's story dragging on forever.

It's a cool novelty, but about $600+ for a novelty like this is a lot for a novelty like this, as getting the full setup with the keyboard, mouse, and monitor is the only way to go IMO.

Punisher was always a favorite of mine on Genesis.

This series was one of the most impressive things I saw back in the early days of PS2 when they were showing off demos for it. The first game turned out to be excellent, probably one of my all-time favorite PS2 games. A shame the sequel wasn't as good, I would have loved to see what they could have done with this on more advanced hardware. The third game is one of those games that got cancelled where I always wondered what could have been.

Almost looks like a Jaguar game.

Okay, now this actually looks interesting.

This seems like one of those pointless novelty items.

Well the analog stick placement looks terrible but I do love the Saturn controller for fighting games, and I guess it would be nice to use a wireless controller on my Saturn if I hook it up.

@samuelvictor Yeah I have one of those Japanese Game Boy Light models, which is essentially just a GB Pocket with a front light that takes AA batteries. It's honestly one of my all-time favorite classic handhelds, something about that crisp black and white with the light-blue lighting and contrast adjust wheel, it's aged incredibly well IMO.

@Poodlestargenerica What?! The GBP was arguably one of the best handheld consoles ever made. Rock solid reliable build quality, super simple, easy to use, very affordable, relatively compact design, properly focused on gaming, and it also had one of the greatest libraries ever seen. It basically helped establish the standards that every handheld console followed in.

You would have to be smoking something funky to suggest the N-Gage of all things was any better.

@Tasuki I think this was one of those ideas that was truly ahead of it's time. So ahead of it's time they really lacked the design capabilities needed to make it work. Like the mobile phone market simply wasn't ready for a gaming focused device, nor was it really capable of making mobile phones and handheld consoles work well together.

To this day I still think this is the worst handheld game console of all time. It had some good ideas and a few good games, and good graphics for it's time, but it has aged incredibly poorly, worse than anything I can think of, and I think the bad outweighed the good.

That is really cool but largely useless today outside of novelty, as systems that can play a variety of NES games has become so common. Definitely just one of those collectors items for someone who wants the "ultimate" rare old original piece of NES hardware.

@bryce951 Yeah this looks like something I would actually buy. Problem with the mister is that it just comes off as hardware for people who like to mod, work on, and build their own hardware. This looks more like the type of thing where I can just buy it, and it would just work.

@RootsGenoa Yeah I wonder why that was, some problem with licensing rights maybe?

Glad this is getting an ACA release, I haven't exactly been going for that Taito Milestones collection.

Piko Arcade was the only one that really interested me. Delphine collection is interesting though, but I already got the two best games there on other platforms.

@KingMike Well I think that's because Microsoft could never come up with a consistent theme for succeeding Xbox consoles. I mean they went from 360, to One, to Series X and S. Like I get the idea behind 360 and One, but they really didn't work that well, especially One which seemed to confuse people.

Seems like they really focused on trying to find a way to put Microsoft in the name and relate it to existing Windows products of the era. Glad they decided to just abandon that and come up with something more original instead.

Out of all of those though, I'd say VIC was the least terrible.

I already got the lynx and arcade collections. Skipped the 2600 games as I already got a bunch of them in Atari collections for the Switch, and most haven't aged particularly well IMO.

If it's just custom, these would be easy to reproduce. Just get a standard N64 controller, disassemble it, hydro-dip the shells, and rebuild it.

This is the problem with games as a service and anything tied down to an online availability status. Especially on mobile, where support goes away with updates.

I had a Gamecube adapter for SNES way back in the Wii era for playing the retro console SNES games. Heck I even bought a custom N64 cable for Gamecube for the N64 games.

I never thought "what I need for my retro consoles is more RGB lighting."

Wow, you seriously felt a need to create 5 accounts to troll with?

@VideoGameBoy Yup, there is no good reason they can't produce more transparent plastic anyways.

Why would anybody care about having someone's old receipt? I could MAYBE see it having some value if it was attached to the complete game or something.

So a cool thing that nobody can buy.

Cool but I already got one and they're too expensive to warrant buying another for novelty.

@RupeeClock Yeah mine is an old Razer Black Widow I bought about 10 years ago, I think it's got their own bespoke mechanical keys and it's always worked well for both gaming and typing IMO. It's also just got one color for the key lighting, green lol. I don't mind that one bit though, I keep it on one of it's dimmest settings and I just like that solid consistent color look.

Never been a fan of these mini keyboards, in my experience they just aren't that great to use. Honestly this whole design just sort of reminds me of something like an old UMPC or one of those early texting phones they had back in the 00's before they came out with decent touch screens. Considering the capabilities of modern touch screens and how awkward these mini keys are to use, I think this is a bit of a redundant design for this day and age.

@tameshiyaku For real, I have never been a fan of RGB lighting. Could never understand why some people want their PC accessories performing a rainbow light show. I just think it's distracting and tacky looking.

The Pluto is pretty interesting, kind of a showing of what could have been, and shows off how Sega was thinking about modem integration long before the Dreamcast. The Neptune is what I always really wanted, probably the holy grail of Sega consoles and a proper 32X console, but pretty sure none of those really exist.

This is definitely a list that very few could make.

Problem I got with this is how it's just too similar to a Steam Deck. There is a reason why I always prefer the $100 - $200 Anbernic kinda handhelds, they are just a lot more appealing to me when it comes to retro gaming.

For starters a widescreen just isn't ideal for most retro gaming needs, and the size of these Steam Deck sort of handhelds is just too big for practical handheld needs. I mean I love my Steam Deck, but I hardly consider it ideal for a true portable, it's more of a device to use somewhere around the house, I don't think I would want to take it on vacation unless I would be planning on spending a lot of time wherever I would be staying.

I prefer the original box art, it's far more period appropriate. This new box art looks like it's meant for a modern indie game.

Cool how it's getting this support, No Mercy has pretty much always been my favorite wrestling game, but Wrestling Empire has largely replaced the need for this as far as I am concerned.

I always just used an old DVI box to hook up to a DVI to HDMI converter. These internal console mods are usually a bit beyond what I would be comfortable with if they require any soldering.

For me, I seem to do pretty much all of my retro gaming on handhelds these days. Most old games don't look that good when blown up on a modern 55"+ 4K OLED, but they sure look great on a handheld screen with a resolution that scales well for them.

Exception for me is when we start getting into the PS2/Gamecube/Xbox generation, heck even the Dreamcast can be included. That's about the start when graphics and hardware got capable enough to look great on modern displays when enhanced with modern emulators/adapters. *maybe the N64 is the first console I could include on that list.

@KainXavier Yeah the financial harm aspect is always the only thing I could be concerned with. Like, if this is from a currently active IP that is being sold somewhere I could understand, but if it's something that has been for the most part abandoned, where the IP holder can't even be bothered to make it available anywhere, I think it's pretty hard for them to claim they're losing any money. This is the same reason why I don't have any issue with retro gaming roms if nobody is trying to sell the games new anywhere.

Would have been cool, although the N64 was never known for it's sound quality, especially when it came to real licensed music. That said they still went with real tracks for the most part and Prodigy would have been a lot better than most of them.

@mjparker77 I don't think they should treat the latest Ages series they released on the Switch as any indication of what the interest for their 3D 90's classic arcade games would be like, as that was just a collection of old Master System and Mega Drive era games.

I think the Ages games they had on the PS2 would be more like it, but sadly that was a Japan exclusive series that is about two decades old by now. I just can't help but to feel like Sega had completely forgotten about their 90's era arcade games if it wasn't for the Yakuza series. Considering the popularity of retro collections lately, especially 90's era, it just seems crazy for them to have no proper home console releases.

As good as this is, Sega really needs to just release a collection of their classic Arcade games by now.

Seems like the 90's has become a real highlight era as far as video game collecting is concerned. Something about the era, a good blend of interesting games and unusual concepts with graphics and sound that has aged a lot better than prior eras. By the 00's it seems like we were getting a lot less in the way of unusual platforms like this.

Great article, nicely covers an early period of Sega's history that would be easily lost on most people. Even as someone who grew up as a Sega fan with Sega consoles, everything pre-Genesis (Mega Drive) was pretty foreign to me. While Nintendo managed to get a big presence in the late 80's and early 90's, I don't think anyone in the west was really paying any attention to Sega back in those days.

The fact that 2D pixel art has made such a big comeback with the modern day indie scene is proof of how timeless it has become. I mean pixel graphics really went away in the 32-bit gen as 3D graphics was the big thing, and you would be hard pressed to find much in the way of pixel graphics in the PS2 generation. Having made the comeback it did, I would say it's become a timeless art style.

Might have to buy this as I so miss having these light gun games, especially Time Crisis which was one of my favorites growing up.

Much like the first one, this is just too expensive for what it is. I enjoy these mini-arcade deals as a relatively low priced novelty, but when they become as expensive as a legitimate modern console I simply lose interest. I'd probably just buy one of those Arcade 1-Up deals over this as I could at least get some games I really love and want with that. Taito just doesn't have enough games that I consider that appealing.

I only see this appealing to the type of people who already had an Atari 2600 collection.

@ferryb001 Yeah it's like I'd rather just try to help everyone.