General Questions and Information Thread

GD-ROM is catalogued as HKS-0200, which is interesting, suggesting there is a HKS-0100

Dreamcast games were HDR-XXX (DR for Dreamcast) and hardware was HKT-XXX and HIT-XXX (KT for Katana, IT when they ran out of numbers). Wonder what KS refers to

 

The Sega Kooky Sausage™


There's a point where Sega moved from GDL-xxx NAOMI discs to GDS-xxx ones - I think it's probably another case of trying to keep things together, but not having enough letters or numbers to do it cleanly.



p.s. there's a high chance this scheme is still in use. Sega still print Sega-style part numbers on their published games in Japan.

 

Digital Foundry's been good today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxJAI2omTsA

 

Would you mind posting scans/photos of the article? I have a folder of segaoa.com screenshots which I save everytime I come across some, but haven't seen that article.

 

Great find! Supertext was the name of Super Channel's teletext service in the 80s / early 90s. They had a computers section which also covered games. I think it was done by the same people who did MTV Europe's MTV Text's gaming section when it started in 1992. These were pan-European channels back then. Edit: I was missing just 2 issues of NCE, but they've been scanned at that link, nice!

Supertext in 1991;

 

Here's the structure of segaoa.com in 1994 / early 1995;

Code (Text):

1. [Sega Web (segaoa.com)]                                                                                               ???For a closer look at the story behind the scenes]
2.      ?                                                                                                                ?
3.      ?  ??[Hot New Releases (segaoa.com/ECCOTOT/hot1.hmtl)]??[Ecco - The Tides of Time (segaoa.com/ECCOTOT/hot.hmtl)]?????3 Different Platforms]
4.      ?  ?                                                                                                             ?
5.      ?  ?                                                                                                             ???Random Drawing]
6.      ?  ?                                                             ??[CES Press Releases-Jan 1995]
7.      ?  ?                                                             ?
8.      ?  ?                                                             ??[Press Releases Feb 1994-Sept 1994]
9.      ?  ???News and Events (segaoa.com/news+events/news+events.html)]??
10.      ?  ?                                                             ??[Special Events & Promotions]
11.      ?  ?                                                             ?
12.      ?  ?                                                             ???Random Drawing]
13.      ?  ?                   ??[Sega Genesis]
14.      ?  ?                   ?
15.      ?  ?                   ??[Sega CD]
16.      ?  ?                   ?
17.      ?  ?                   ??[Game Gear]
18.      ?  ???Video Game Area]??
19.      ?  ?                   ??[Genesis 32X]
20.      ?  ?                   ?
21.      ?  ?                   ???Sega Sports]
22.      ????                   ?
23.         ?                   ???Sega Club]                          ??[Sega Toys]
24.         ?                                                          ?
25.         ?                                                          ??[Sega Channel (segaoa.com/othercool/segachan.html)]
26.         ???Other Cool Stuff (segaoa.com/othercool/othercool.html)]??
27.         ?                                                          ??[Sega Visions]??[Check out the Sega Visions exclusive Sneak Peak of Virtua Fighter II Delux Arcade Gifs]
28.         ?                                                          ?
29.         ?                                                          ???Sports Byline USA]
30.         ?
31.         ?
32.         ???Sega Mall]
33.         ?
34.         ??[Elsewhere] (segaoa.com/elsewhere/elsewhere.html)
35.         ?
36.         ??[Who Are You? (segaoa.com/forms/whowhat.html)]
37.         ?
38.         ???Foundation (segaoa.com/foundation/foundation.html)]??[(segaoa.com/foundation/daughters/employers.guide.html)]

Sega Web

December 1994;



January 1995;



February 1995;



March 1995 (Site got a bit of an update now);



May 1995:



August 1995 (another update);



Hot New Releases

January 1995;



Ecco - The Tides of Time



March 1995;



News and Events

January 1995;



March 1995;



Video Game Area / Home Arcade

March 1995;



Other Cool Stuff

January 1995;



March 1995;



Sega Channel

January 1995;



Sega Sports

March 1995;



Sega Mall

March 1995;



Elsewhere

March 1995;

Who Are You?

January 1995;



March 1995;



Foundation

Foundation/daughters

 

1995-09-27: Sega's new Web site acts like interactive TV in a computer monitor

Major revamp on 27th September 1995, they switched to sega.com on May 16th, 1996.

Code (Text):

1. Sega Web (segaoa.com)]                                                                       ??[Genesis(segaoa.com/products/hardware/genesis)]
2.      ?                                                                                       ?
3.      ?                                          ???Hardware (segaoa.com/products/hardware)]????[Saturn (segaoa.com/products/hardware/saturn)]
4.      ?                                          ?                                            ?
5.      ?                                          ?                                            ??[Nomad (segaoa.com/products/hardware/nomad)]    
6.      ?                                          ?
7.      ?  ??[Sega Products (segaoa.com/products]?????Software (segaoa.com/products/software)]
8.      ?  ?                                       ?
9.      ?  ?                                       ???Third (segaoa.com/products/third)]                                                          
10.      ?  ?                              
11.      ?  ???Sega Live (segaoa.com/live)]??[Chat (segaoa.com/live/chat/ "This chat room is sponsored by Sega and offers nifty illustrations from Sega games that you can add to your messages."]
12.      ?  ?                              
13.      ?  ???Sega Sports (segaoa.com/sports)]                                                      
14.      ?  ?                                                                                          
15.      ????                                    ???Career (segaoa.com/inside/career)]
16.         ?                                    ?
17.         ???Inside Sega (segaoa.com/inside)]?????Foundation (segaoa.com/inside/foundation)]
18.         ?                                    ?
19.         ?                                    ?                                 ??[Current (segaoa.com/inside/news/current)]
20.         ?                                    ??[News (segaoa.com/inside/news)]??
21.         ?                                                                      ??[Releases (segaoa.com/inside/news/releases)]                            
22.         ??[History (segaoa.com/history)]
23.         ?
24.         ???Vectorman (segaoa.com/vectorman)]

October 2nd, 1995;



October 11th, 1995;



January 29th, 1996;



Vectorman.com



segaoa.com/history

Some surviving graphics;

 

In the latest episode of "hey I wonder if this thing will be worth considerable sums of money in the future"




this is "Rome II: Total War Имперское издание" which translates to "Imperial Edition". It's a version of the game you didn't get.


secretly it's a stripped down version of the Rome II "Collectors Edition" which the West did get - basically a symbol of Sega short-changing Russia. But in the process that's created a Russian-exclusive version of the game with a prettier box.


it's too early in the history of the human race to know whether collectors editions of games will actually be collectible some day, but when we talk about a game being "rare", I can't not see these things topping the list. This is the sort of cack that even Creative Assembly probably don't know exists.

 

Is there an easy way to create a self booting Dreamcast iso in 2017? Assembler has had a bunch of betas released, including a version of DOA2 (it's an arcade port so differences would be minor), but they're all in archival GDI format. I was able to rip the data's content with some available python scripts and there's one utility that actually boots in Win10 that will let me create a self booting iso but crashes upon trying to burn it. Suggestions?

 

Introducing my favourite Mega Drive bootleg:



I mean yeah, there are cartridges with horrible artwork which are always a laugh, but here's a Golden Axe cart with an end cap. And if I didn't know any better, I'd easily mistake this for an official product - I mean surely when you're pirating a game you wouldn't spend time designing your own bespoke shells and using more plastic than Sega to make them.

I particularly like the way less of the artwork is obscured when plugged into a Mega Drive console. You know, that thing that real cartridges don't do.


"Tall" carts like these are exceedingly rare (though you'll find tons for the Famicom). I've only come across one other - a copy of Tetris, but it's not quite as cool.

 

Wow... is undoubtedly an excellent find... maybe the "pirate" was a "perfectionist"

 

I've been working on Sega Retro for almost 8 years... and I still find these things accidentally:



Apparently Sega Pro had a Russian translation. And it's looking very likely right now that "Issue 0" came with a box of Kellogg's Frosties.

They're greeeaat. etc.

 

Great find!

There's a video of this on issue on youtube, it's a straight translation of the UK Sega Pro issue #53, with just the adverts seemingly changed.

 

Gonna be impossible to get a full scan of this I think.

 

It's funny because I was in McDonalds on Friday - it didn't look like that

 

God ...what the hell is that thing? A cybernetic Macdnonald's waitress? :v: ...

 

I think you're right.

 

So anyway this all ties into a project I've been working on in the last couple of weeks. Over the years we've been collecting photos of Sega-related tat from the far East, but a lot of it has been hiding away in project pages because I didn't know what to do with it all. Now I've pushed it onto the main namespace so the world can see:

Mega Drive bootleg games

This is the largest compilation of bootleg Mega Drive games known to man. The total stands at around 550-ish overall, but the fact I chose to split the list by letter should suggest we're only scratching the surface here.


Mega Drive unlicensed multi-carts

This is the largest compilation of unlicensed Mega Drive multi-carts known to man. I can confidently say that no collector, database, website or otherwise has been able to make as much sense of what's out there (and even we have weird things in storage).


These things are important, because if you lived in a world without official Sega support, this was what your video games might have looked like. It's as relevant to some parts of the world as official PAL releases are to me - it just so happens that these ones lack the special badge and disintegrate in your hands.



Also, Russia exists.


Mega Drive bootleg games in Russia

This probably isn't the largest compilation of Russian bootleg Mega Drive games known to man, but it's the best English attempt. When one company with a monopoly produces crap for their home market over course of 15 years, it's exceedingly difficult to keep track of. I've split this up by what I think are five distinct print runs - I have no idea if it's right.


Mega Drive unlicensed multi-carts in Russia

This is the aaaaaaaaaaaahh.

Here's many hundreds of undumped, unscanned, undocumented Russian multi-carts.

There's something novel about quirky little Chinese cartridges from 1992 - I could imagine bragging about it in the playground in a similar manner to when people gawked over Japanese Pokémon cards and the like. But this is scraping beyond the bottom of the barrel - we're several feet under the ground where the barrel stands, and we've accidentally tapped into the local sewage system.


Progress is a little slower on the Game Gear front. I find Game Gear multi-carts a bit more interesting, but they're far less common than the Mega Drive ones.



This is how I spent my weekend. I need to wash my hands.

 

Impressive ... i would not have done better ... that's why I like Sega Retro... there is nothing comparable...