Sega Master System and Game Gear Arcade Gamer Portable

[mbd30]

It looks like it has some cool games, but too bad there's no "Shinobi".

[Greg2600]

Well, I went to get the Sega Genesis PORTABLE today at Rite-Aid for $30...it HAS the SD slot, and now I have both!

 

Yes the Arcade Ultimate has the SD slot, but it only plays Genesis games, no SMS or GG.

[Falconhood]

Understood.

put files in GAME file, make sure they are all BIN files

[wccw mark]

thats really cool.i want to pick up one of these just to add to my sega collection.i have one that has most of the same games on it,but looks completely different and say coleco on the front.

Edited December 16, 2013 by wccw mark

[onmode-ky]

Wow, a clone handheld system that actually has, *gasp* handheld games on it?

i have one that has most of the same games on it,but looks completely different and say coleco on the front.

wccw mark's Coleco-branded handheld was the first licensed SMS/GG system (the PlayPal-branded ones may have been concurrent, or slightly earlier or later), so it was a handheld reproducing handheld games as far back as 2006.

 

Here are the games that come with it:

[snip]

It looks like the library is mostly the same as the 30-in-1 "Poga" (Poga = POrtable GAmer, maybe?) that AtGames has sold for probably a few years. I discussed the Poga with gamecat80 in this post in a Dedicated Systems topic (he has one), and the PCB's revision date was mid-2009. In that post, he listed the system's game library, and there are only two titles switched between this Arcade Gamer Portable and the Poga:

 

- Arcade Gamer Portable exclusives: Golden Axe and Ecco: The Tides of Time

 

- Poga exclusives: Sonic Blast and Fantasy Zone: The Maze (a different game from Fantasy Zone and Fantasy Zone II: The Tears of Opa-Opa)

 

Falconhood, in the system menu, are the games listed in the order shown on the back of the box, or is it alphabetical order? Or something else?

 

I do wonder about the quality of the emulation, though... is the sound kind of wonky like it is on the Genesis handheld?

The SMS/GG plug-n-play and handheld systems since that Coleco one mentioned earlier until now have not run on emulation, but rather on a SMS/GG-on-a-chip implementation, which AtGames calls "Noza" (it's named after the enemies from the SMS game Zillion). Whereas AtGames' Genesis-on-a-chip implementations (RK and RK2, where the letters stand for "RedKid") are notorious for their screwy sound, I've never heard any complaints--of any kind, not just sound--about the fidelity of Noza-based products. Then again, maybe it's just that no super-hardcore SMS/GG fans have played one and reported on its problems before. That I've seen, anyway.

 

I can't see the value in a unit that should have an SD card slot. I bought the keychain mini SMS game machines instead.

Whoa, whoa, whoa--you actually HAVE one or more of AtGames' Arcade Nanos that run SMS/GG games? Through all my searching on the Internet, I never found proof that those were actually released; the only ones that I could be sure were more than just AtGames prototypes or marketing samples were three Genesis keychain models. No online stores offered any SMS/GG ones for sale, and no one wrote or filmed reviews for them. If you do in fact have some of the SMS/GG ones:

 

- which ones?

- what games are on them?

- when and where did you get them?

 

Does anyone else have any SMS/GG Arcade Nano models?

 

onmode-ky

[Falconhood]

Falconhood, in the system menu, are the games listed in the order shown on the back of the box, or is it alphabetical order? Or something else?

onmode-ky

Alphabetical

[onmode-ky]

If anyone's curious how the various SMS/GG plug-n-play and handheld systems over the last few years compare, I've updated the Retro Plug-n-Play Video Game System Contents page at my website with the game sets for all the models I know of (searching the page text for "sms" will get you all the systems minus the two by Techno Source). There have essentially been 6 models, plus 2 repeats under different brands, all of which were licensed from AtGames or directly sold by them.

 

- Two of the earliest models were released by Techno Source (who had previously worked with the Blue Sky Rangers on Intellivision plug-n-play systems): one with Sonic Blast alone and another with Sonic Chaos and Sonic the Hedgehog Spinball. Incidentally, these two were remarkably ugly.

 

- Two handheld models with identical 20-game sets were released in or around 2006, one under the Coleco brand name and one under the PlayPal brand name.

 

- Two plug-n-play systems shaped like Sonic's head, one with a joystick (the top of which was shaped like Sonic's fist) and one with a joypad, were released at around that time as well, and these two have the same 20-game sets as each other, but they're different from the handhelds' sets. The joystick model came under the PlayPal brand, while the joypad model was under the FunPlay brand. For a long time, I thought PlayPal was a company that disappeared after releasing the handheld and joystick plug-n-play, but it was actually just a brand; the company behind it was Kobian Canada. FunPlay was a brand of Freetron, which I believe was also manufacturer for the PlayPal-branded model. Edit: the joystick model was also released under the Power Shock brand, by Monolith Industries (it looks like these were sold in Mexico); that's the one Curt Vendel mentioned back in 2007. I haven't been able to tell if the handheld model in Curt's picture (in the post right above that one) was also released, though if it came with Sonic Blast, that would mean it had the plug-n-play game set, not the Coleco/PlayPal handheld game set.

 

- A few years ago, AtGames released a 30-game plug-n-play system and called it "Poga." I'm not sure what part AtGames played in the original Noza SMS-on-a-chip project, I mean beyond the game licensing, but by this time, it seems they owned the chip itself as well.

 

- The AtGames handheld which started this topic is the latest SMS/GG handheld.

 

I haven't included the 3 SMS/GG Arcade Nano keychain systems which AtGames' website lists, because I still have found no indication they ever reached market. The only blip on the search radar is this eBay Buy It Now listing for the model that contains only Sonic Blast. With this being the only one I've found, I think it's probably a marketing sample. If anyone actually buys that, by the way, $40 + shipping for just Sonic Blast on a keychain, please tell us about it when you get it.

 

onmode-ky

Edited December 23, 2013 by onmode-ky

[Falconhood]

I'll check it out

[Chuck D. Head]

I got the AtGames Genesis handheld and console with wireless controllers for Christmas. The handheld benefits from the SD card slot and the console has the cart slot and controller ports in addition to the wireless controllers, which is nice. Both have issues, but I am glad I got them. I would love to have the handheld SMS, but without SD support, I won't purchase, unless I find it at a discount. I think my wife said the other two were $30 on black friday.

 

Edit: I wonder how well the SMS games translate to a tiny screen. I love playing SMS games on the Game Gear with the Master Gear attachment, but forget about actually reading text or telling what your score is on the GG screen with graphics that were designed for tv viewing.

Edited December 27, 2013 by Chuck D. Head

[+GoldenWheels]

 

Right. You have to go for the novelty factor. Having a Sega Master System on your keychain is mind blowing. Having a portable game system in the year 2013 without an SD card is retarded - in my opinion.

 

Yeah but what do you do with the a/v cord? I got one of these for Xmas and to me the "novelty" of it is how absolutely and totally useless it is. Of course, my wife did get me the Columns one, which somewhat exacerbates that.

 

I got the portable SMS too and have been playing the hell out of some Astro Warrior....somehow I am better on this thing than on the real SMS.

[+GoldenWheels]

 

 

Edit: I wonder how well the SMS games translate to a tiny screen. I love playing SMS games on the Game Gear with the Master Gear attachment, but forget about actually reading text or telling what your score is on the GG screen with graphics that were designed for tv viewing.

Pixelly. I don't know how else to put it. Because of the type of screen the games look very different.