Slashdot Mirror
Sega Master System is Reborn
Nick of NSTime writes "Various sources are reporting that a Brazilian company is releasing a new version of the venerable Sega Master System, dubbed the Sega Master System III. The case is a radical departure from the old SMS and SMS II. The thing to get excited about: it will include 74 games built-in. The translated page can be found here."
Well two things are interesting to note here. The first is that it seems to support Game Gear games as well. You can tell this because there was never a Sonic the Hedgehog (as per the screenshot)for the Master System... however there was one for the Game Gear, a nearly identical platform.
Also, I'd be worried about the legality of such an item. The brazilian piracy market is huge, and I'd be largely worried about any sort of retro console with a different design, and a lot of pack-in games. It seems largely like a pirated console with a large set of roms.
It also doesn't seem legal because of the presence of a 20-in-1 rom. Those are a favorite of pirate console and cartridge distributors. Some of them are neat as collectors' items, but by and large they are illegal.
Don't get me wrong, I'm intrigued by the possibility of older consoles making a decent comback, but this one certainly doesn't add up.
--jaybonci
Is this legal?
Sure, Sega isn't making hardware anymore, but how is the company allowed to make use of the product -- even modified?
"PC Load Letter? What the $@#% does that mean?!"
Hmm, I might even buy one of those sometime.
I still regret ever selling my atari 2600. Even though the graphics sucked in comparison with modern consoles, it was still good for hours and hours of fun.
I think the fun vs graphics ratio was much higher back then. Todays games look awesome, but gameplay usually bores after a few hours. I still much rather play 4d sports driving than any recent f1 simulator, and I was way more fascinated by and addicted to the original Mario than to todays 3d versions..
Oh, I was there the day they dumped the ROM ^_^
I actually played through both the English and Japanese versions through emulators (The Japanese version had FM music...much nicer), but prefer the console feel you can only get on a little TV in a musty basement (Yeah, I'm the freak who turns on the scanlines option in all those emulators).
I never got into PSO, despite having a Japanese Dreamcast, and ample opportunities to buy it used for a few hundred Yen every time I go back. It just feels like a completely different game...I was totally pumped about it right up until it came out. Go figure.
Speaking of emulators, I actually made a semi-working Saturn emulator way back in the day...got sidetracked when I went on exchange to Japan the first time. Anyone else remember when the only part of SEGA's development site that was password protected was the front page? I guessed a URL and downloaded all the dev kits and documents. They had that hole plugged by the end of the weekend, so it's a good thing I had telnet access to a T1...I wonder if anyone other than the network admin ever knew? ^_^;
It was real cool having all those PDFs with "SEGA Confidential" written diagonally in grey on each page.
That's the funny thing. The NES came out later than the Master System, and thus had better inherent technology.
The Genesis slaughtered the nes. Why? It came out later. Better tech. The SNES slaughtered the Genesis. Why? See the above.
Arguably, the 32x didn't slaughter anything, but it did make a bunch of people laugh. However, one could argue that the SegaCD easily slaughtered the SNES. If not that, then the Saturn, which was slaughtered by the N64. Which was slaughtered by the Dreamcast.
Which itself was slaughtered by Sega because they have idiots in charge of marketing.
All this aside, there's only one reason that the NES was so popular. It had the killer app. It had Contra.
If you couldn't hum the tunes from the various levels, you were a nobody back then.
No Phantasy Star?
That "74 games" link to the list of games available only lists 54 games.. I have to believe if these guys knew anything about Sega's legacy, they'd put Phantasy Star on there.
Personally, I liked Phantasy Star II for the Sega Genesis the best. Genesis games are considered classics too. The Sega Genesis was able to run old Sega games with an extra attachment. Surely this company could have supported both without much extra cost. Other nifty Genesis games that people would love to see included are Golden Axe, Altered Beast, Thunderforce III, Strider, Revenge of Shinobi, Shadowdancer.. need I go on?
Anyone have a clue as to what the price for this is?
All in one game systems are really common in Asian countries, particularly China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. If you go to stores in any of those places, you can find systems (generally, clones of the NES/Famicom) with literally hundreds of games in ROM. The coolest system I saw had the entire system+games built into the form factor of a controller, which had RCA video output to plug in directly to your TV.
Of course, it's unauthorized, but still, many classic games have their endearing value, and it's easier than carrying around all those carts, or messing around with a emulator on your PC.
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
I rekon that Nintendo could easily do this with all the Nintendo and Rare made games. Imagine every mario/donkey kong/zelda/pinbot/snakeratle n role/ et al from the NES and SNES I know there were good games from lots of other companies but at the time nin had a big share in rare so maybe they would be easiest to get the licences for (maybe not after the MS buyout...)
I'd gladly pay for such a disc. From what i've read around with a dreamcast and a nes emulator this could be done but I am not sure how good those emulators are. Nintendos would be spot on. Hell they could bundle a nes type comtroller.
Plus everybody know SMB3 and SMW are the best two mario games ever.
The problem with those sorts of compilations (on a Gamecube disk or whatever) is that they feel like emulation. For instance the Intellivision classics disk for the Playstation felt like it was emulated. Besides the unique vantage point of not having a real INTV controller for it, the sound didn't have that 8-bit-crunch to it.
I worry about direct ports or emulation on consoles, because there are the issues or compatibility and accuracy. More often than not, something gets lost in the translation.
Now with some of the pirate tools, you get the best of both worlds, but you tarnish under the light of legality. Having a Bung copier or similar device to jack NES Rom images into an NES-compatible flash cart makes for 100% accurate games, with a huge availability, but by and large, it is illegal.
Companies are at a wierd impass in regards to their classic games. Should one distribute Nintendos with a huge bank of games built in, or release compiliation CDs with subquality compatibility.
Sadly, as I have purchased several of those "classics" emulations/ports for playstation I'd prefer the original hardware.
Oh and yes, NES still rules.
--jaybonci
i can say its pretty sad. While some of you think about the "nostalgic cool factor", its just an economic solution for us. Brazils minimum wage is around $54 USD (R$200 - yey), so this console is one of the very few afordable eletronic gadgets avaiable for this xmass. Everyone wants a ps2 or a xbox.. but they cost around r$1800 ($493 usd) and the games around r$180 ($49 usd). The only solution then its to revive old gadgets with the technology avaiable, as importing anything right now is practically impossible. A few days ago i started to get the catalogs and it was really scary. The latest pentium 4 3ghz box? Not less than r$10k. A tablet pc? not less than $15k. Something to give you an idea: a new car, built here, starts at r$13k.
- Dad. I want a xbox!
- No can do, son. Heres your 8 bit master system.
- Dad. I want a new box. I cant play any new games on this pentium 133.
- Ok son, heres your pentium 233.
- Dad. I want a tablet pc.
- No can do son. Dont you prefer a brand new car? Its cheaper!
aargh!
Yes. It is sad.
Just get the GameBoy Advance game if you really want to play it. It has the first 3 games on one cart.
-]Phreak Out[-
I guess I'll just have to settle for the emulated Saturn version in the Phantasy Star collection on my modded Saturn
The Gameboy Advance keeps bringing back the classic hits... including all 3 Phantasy Star games on one cart.