Sega Genesis Mini Announced!

[atarilovesyou]

1 minute ago, -^Cro§Bow^- said:

Well, I didn't check the local gamestops near me, but the Minis and the 6-button controllers are sold out in all the best buy stores here in my city and surrounding burbs.

 

We've gots of them here in Canada. Walmarts, Best Buy, hell even in the Canex stores. TBH, I'm kinda hoping there isn't a big restock of these. Why?

 

Sega has done very well with this Mini. It really covers a lot of ground and it shows that they cared about this project. And they seemed to have produced a lot of these. Too many to have anybody miss out, which was the case for the Nintendo minis (until the restocks). The strange thing is you have the AtGames Genesis products shelfwarming right next to this new Mini, and that could be confusing to those who aren't quite up to speed. The AtGames stuff should have been removed prior to this launch, IMO.

 

If Sega doesn't move huge numbers, I hope they don't interpet that as a big negative. I'd like them keep moving in this direction. A Dreamcast mini, perhaps? Who knows.  

 

Anybody who enjoys the Genesis should like this mini as it's every bit the equal of the Nintendo hardware, and games-wise they are even better in terms of selection (man do I miss not having Desert Strike, though, loved it on the Genesis). And once it gets hacked, you're off to the races if you so choose.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

11 minutes ago, atarilovesyou said:

We've gots of them here in Canada. Walmarts, Best Buy, hell even in the Canex stores. TBH, I'm kinda hoping there isn't a big restock of these. Why?

Again, it appears to be the opposite story here in my city. In fact I pre-ordered my Mini through BB back in July. But never received notification it would be ready for store pickup at all. So, on the 19th, I printed off my pre-paid pre-order and went to the story where I had selected to pick it up. They were confused because they could see my order in the system, but it was still marked as pending waiting release? Meaning it was pending the release of the Mini which, it had been released?! Anyway, that store ended up handing me the last shelf unit they had on hand to take. Excellent that they did this for me, but not excellent was the dents in the edges of the box due to that stupid tight security cord they had wrapped around it. Now, the very next day (This past Friday), I got an email from best buy telling me my pre-order item was sold out and I would now have to choose to either wait for more stock or cancel my order? I called them up to verify this as I had actually picked it up the day before but apparently store staff never marked my order as picked up and now they were sold out, hence the email. Anyway, it all go straightened out but my point to this long story, is that there were about 3 or 4 other pre-orders at that store alone sitting there waiting for pickup and they said they had people come in first thing that morning to pick up and purchase the Mini. So it seems to have been popular here. While my city isn't that large by any means, we do still have about 4 best buy stores within 30min of each other and all of those stores were sold out.

 

I'm glad for the success or apparent success as well. I do think Sega has actually shown that they care about their legacy and recognize that the MD/Genesis is a huge part of that history for them.

 

** Just checked** - It appears most of my local Best Buys have the mini back in stock again. Including the store where I picked up the last one they had on Thursday. They show to have 1 left at that store and all others state they have pickup available today as well. So I'm assuming at least one other batch arrived to the local stores here. Now, the 6-button controller is another story. That is still sold out in over a 50mile radius to me currently. 

Edited September 22, 2019 by -^Cro§Bow^-

[Zoyous]

During the launch day livestream at Sega Japan, one of the producers in charge of the Mini project, Hiroyuki Miyazaki, remarked that sales of the Mini were doing great, so he didn't feel the need to announce in their marketing campaign some of the surprise goodies that came with the tower of power accessories (a large poster and booklet with reprints of the original hand-drawn design blueprints of the MD and various add-on hardware, lists of all game releases by date and platform, and even sheet music of Sega's company song). So it sounds like this is a very successful project for them.

 

Regarding a potential Dreamcast mini in the future, I read an interview a while back with someone either at Sega or at M2 who expressed that it would probably be several more years before they felt the technology will have advanced to adequately handle the emulation. Personally I think a Saturn mini would be great, too, and perhaps it could be commercially viable since it was apparently quite successful in Japan. Of course, it's notoriously difficult to emulate, so we haven't really even seen much in the way of official software emulations of Saturn games. Guardian Heroes is one that comes to mind that got a nice re-release.

 

Edit: I just saw a video that reveals that Sega hid a little surprise inside the mini Mega CD.

Edited September 22, 2019 by Zoyous

[Andromeda Stardust]

Amazon delivers!

 

So wrong. The cart slot doesn't function, but GBA carts fit perfectly! ??

 

[Greg2600]

 

Project Lunar already has dumped the kernal, and then some. 

[negative1]

a rather mixed review of the unit, issues with emulation, sound, game selection:

 

 

later

-1

[negative1]

review of the mini megadrive:

 

 

later

-1

[Tanooki]

It’s reviews like -1 and the dc retro one that makes me think m2 kind of screwed the pooch just a bit. A group like them given their history shouldn’t have negative comments about emulation audio and the rest about their work.  Maybe the low seen 2018 atgames using genesis Gx plus is nicer?

[negative1]

49 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

It’s reviews like -1 and the dc retro one that makes me think m2 kind of screwed the pooch just a bit. A group like them given their history shouldn’t have negative comments about emulation audio and the rest about their work.  Maybe the low seen 2018 atgames using genesis Gx plus is nicer?

Apparently, the units are underclocked. So once hackers figure out how to change it, there shouldn't be as many problems.

 

it's not my reviews either, i'm just reposting them. I would get one, but i'm not into the mini craze.

 

later

-1

[TrekMD]

Mine arrived today and it was also packed in the dreaded bubble envelope. Thankfully, it was not damaged. 

[Tanooki]

I meant it as you linked it, not that you reviewed it, either way though that is interesting they decided to cripple the speed.  You have to wonder what they were thinking as it's not like they need to save power over battery life in a handheld.

[famicommander]

They should just put "this isn't made by AtGames" in huge letters on the box. Sales would skyrocket.

[negative1]

1 minute ago, famicommander said:

They should just put "this isn't made by AtGames" in huge letters on the box. Sales would skyrocket.

I don't think that would help. The Atgames one are more expandable, and you have SD support and other features

missing here.

 

later

-1

 

 

[famicommander]

1 hour ago, negative1 said:

I don't think that would help. The Atgames one are more expandable, and you have SD support and other features

missing here.

 

later

-1

 

 

Don't forget the part where they're made of the cheapest materials imaginable, the emulation is absurdly bad, and not one AtGames product I've ever laid hands on has met my expectations which were already as low as I had previously thought they could go.

 

I tried 13 (bought 2, then opened all the rest the store had to check) different Flashback Portables and not one had a screen that was visible if you held it straight in front of you. All of them had to be held with the left side of the unit several inches closer to my face than the right side, otherwise the colors were so distorted nothing could be made out.

[negative1]

16 hours ago, famicommander said:

Don't forget the part where they're made of the cheapest materials imaginable, the emulation is absurdly bad, and not one AtGames product I've ever laid hands on has met my expectations which were already as low as I had previously thought they could go.

 

I tried 13 (bought 2, then opened all the rest the store had to check) different Flashback Portables and not one had a screen that was visible if you held it straight in front of you. All of them had to be held with the left side of the unit several inches closer to my face than the right side, otherwise the colors were so distorted nothing could be made out.

not talking about the portables.

 

talking about the regular versions.

 

later

-1

[famicommander]

6 hours ago, negative1 said:

not talking about the portables.

 

talking about the regular versions.

 

later

-1

Bad quality control is bad quality control, and the last time I touched an AtGames home console the freaking paddle controllers had like 2 full seconds of lag.

 

AtGames is a disgrace. They make Hyperkin and Retro Bit look good, and those companies are disgraceful too.

[Tanooki]

9 hours ago, famicommander said:

Bad quality control is bad quality control, and the last time I touched an AtGames home console the freaking paddle controllers had like 2 full seconds of lag.

 

AtGames is a disgrace. They make Hyperkin and Retro Bit look good, and those companies are disgraceful too.

Still doesn't justify your incorrect attitude and opinion of the atgames genesis console, the very last one they slipped out in 2018 in smaller numbers when Sega pulled the rug out.  That one is powered with solid hardware, the UI they took the criticisms it had and fixed that. The emulator isn't theirs, they licensed Genesis GX Plus and it works fantastic, and as -1 said, also takes more games through the SD card slot (and real carts too.)  The graphics and audio are as right if not more right than Sega's mini, and watching the DF Retro review of the Mini, it has audio lag problems the ATGame units doesn't have, and the audio seems to be slightly better too.

 

Look I agree with you about atgames, they're crap peddling don't care a-holes when it came to Sega Genesis for like a decade with that firecore failure emulator of theirs that they had no excuse to leave as is for so long.  But right now, from what I can dig up about reviews on both specific devices, sickeningly enough, M2 created some issues with their core that make it lesser than the emulator author who created Genesis GX Plus which atgames licensed instead of trying again on their own.

[atarilovesyou]

Well I finally got to fire up this long awaited baby, and....eh, it's all right, I suppose. The video from Neg1 above says it all, really. The volume lags a bit in spots, but I was prepared for that with the NES Mini, not really a deal breaker. The double button inputs on the menu screen were apparent, although I haven't played enough games to see if it affects games themselves. I hope not.

 

For me, I really wish they included a better CRT filter, like the SNES Mini. That filter rocked. This one I'd peg a step less than the NES mini.  And the pixel perfect is just...odd, to me. Really odd. Golden Axe just looked strange. Playable, of course, but strange. And it seemed to have these cheap deaths that I've never encountered on the actual hardware, where you get the enemy pinging you away with hit after hit, and you're basically trapped until you die. Happened like three times. 

 

At this stage, I'm a bit underwhelmed and am awaiting for it to be hacked. All those games I was psyched for in the build up kinda fizzled upon quick plays...some of the older ones in particular. 

 

Visually for the hardware, it's amazing. The pads are great, the plastic as mentioned a hair rougher but the DPad is improved from the original and in a good way.  The system itself is gorgeous, although my volume slider has some play in the bottom position...could be normal, who knows.

 

And yes, that menu sound for returning back screens was a bad choice.  Cringey.  

 

I don't mind paying the retail price on this, however...hacking it should fix those issues. And since I have some Retrobit six button controllers enroute, I hope it does. I'm a bit worried for the TG16 now that this has brought me back to earth...the SNES Mini really spoiled me. I was thinking Sega would put out something to compete with that. This is still good, just not THAT good.  

 

Just my thoughts, from a picky dude. Picky, but not unreasonable. I hope they don't plan on rereleasing these every year ala AtGames, but if they do and fix some of the issues, I might be persuaded.

 

For all the hoopla this M2 team was drawing on youtube, I honestly was expecting a better effort.  Still worth price of admission and I like to support the concept.

Edited September 30, 2019 by atarilovesyou

[Shannon]

Just so you know the Genesis Mini has been hacked.  There is something called Project Lunar that was just released this past weekend.  It also comes with the ability to run emulation station.  Apparently the Hakchi guys are working on something as well but nothing has been released yet.

 

[+-^CrossBow^-]

Yeap I was playing around with this all day yesterday on my Mini. Project Lunar is really simple to use and get games added. Having said that I've found more than a few issues to be aware of:

 

1st is that there is a list of compatible games that work with the Project Lunar setup. Basically, this installs Retroarch on the GenMini and uses it transparently in the background with the additional games but still uses the Genesis Mini UI to access the games etc. Really awesome! But some of the games listed as fully working, I've not had too much luck with. These are the games I've had issues with that are listed as working:

Fire Shark - I've tried several roms of this one, the game will work, but I have ZERO audio on this game. 

Hellfire - not supposed to work, but strangely it does for me except it has the same issue as Fire Shark and produces no audio

Verytex - Same as the other two, no audio though the game does come up and play

Phelios - I've tried several versions of this game and they all do the same thing, E4 Shutdown errors. I've tried to resync it several times with no change.

Brave Battle Saga - The translated version of this game is supposed to be working but like Phelios above it just gives me the E4 Shutdown error when trying to load it up. Same for the original rom image as well.

 

These issues I'm okay with as there are LOTs of other games I can replace them out with that do work that I would likely play. But there is one big issue that is a PITA to deal with and I've not seen it listed yet.

 

Save States...ugh. Okay so Save states do work with the games but I found a problem that occurs when you add or remove games and naturally have to resync to load them in. I'm guessing the games and their Save states have some sort of matching ID so that the Genesis Mini OS knows which save states go to which game? I'm stating this because when you add or remove a game and resync, this association does not get synced up! As an example, I had save states created for both Sol-Feace and Smash T.V. But when I removed Hellfire and Fire Shark and added in two other games and did a sync to load them in. I then noticed when I fired up Smash T.V. and went to load up the save state from it, that instead it was showing me the save state from Sol-Feace?! I loaded up the save state and sure enough, Sol-Feace loaded instead of Smash T.V. I was able to create a new Smash T.V. save state, but that ended up overwriting the one for Sol-Feace and I've yet to find out where the original Smash T.V. save state ended up?

 

So just be advised that adding and removing games to this thing will hose up your save states. 

 

The overclocking is there but not on by default. I've enabled it but haven't really noticed too much of a difference. There is still some slight audio lag and input lag even with it on so I'm not sure what advantage the Overclock will actually do at least for me.

[Zoyous]

12 minutes ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

So just be advised that adding and removing games to this thing will hose up your save states.

Thanks for the heads up! I was wondering about that. My daughter and I are playing through Monster World IV, so I'm going to wait until we finish it before I mess around with Project Lunar.

[Shannon]

Yes the savestate issue is a known and confirmed bug.  Apparently they are working on fixing it and oddly enough it is tied into the future promised "folder" option.  But supposedly when the fix is implemented all saves will be restored to their proper place.

 

Me I just slapped emustation on a USB drive and have been playing with that some.

 

[+-^CrossBow^-]

26 minutes ago, Shannon said:

Yes the savestate issue is a known and confirmed bug.  Apparently they are working on fixing it and oddly enough it is tied into the future promised "folder" option.  But supposedly when the fix is implemented all saves will be restored to their proper place.

 

Me I just slapped emustation on a USB drive and have been playing with that some.

 

I hadn't read that in the FAQ though so I must have missed it? 

 

What I haven't done regarding the save states is if the save states of the original games is effected. From what I've read this is all being handled in an unused partition of space in the flash memory. This is also why you aren't able to remove any of the original ROMs because they don't physically mess with that space. So it has me thinking that the save states might only get hosed up on games you have added and doesn't effect the original save states of the original games since all of that resides in a different part of the system?

 

Will have to test that later tonight.

 

Maybe some IPS patches can be created for the games where audio apparently doesn't work. But since Hellfire was working on mine (minus audio) I should go ahead and give TMNT: Hyperstone a try since that supposedly no version of the rom is supposed to work properly.

 

And I just checked the compatiblity list again and it has been updated from what I was working with yesterday afternoon. It now shows Phelios has not working at all and only the Japanese virtual console version apparently works. Also shows the no audio condition for Hellfire and Truxton which, Truxton was originally listed as working before. 

 

Battle Brave (Barver) Saga is now listed as not working where again the list I looked and saved yesterday did have it listed as working originally.

 

Fire Shark is still listed as working and I can attest that game does not produce any audio just like Hell Fire and others on the list.

 

Also a Hack not listed that does work, is the one for Sonic 3D Blast DX (Directors Cut) done by one of the original coders on the game. Was playing it without issue last night so that's good.

[Tanooki]

I didn't read a lot into it, but are you forced to use that wretched retroarch or can you just toss a handful of games on there and use the original emulator like Hakchi did for the Nintendo's?  Believe it or not, I have one, my mom wrapped one up for Christmas and I have to admit I'm surprised how solid it is.

 

I'm not sure given it was a gift I'd want to tear it up, never did it with the NES/SNES but also on those I've got systems+everdrives and a game library too.  This though, I'm not greedy but I'd love to add maybe like 10 games to it, that's all.  There are a few games the system does I enjoyed in the day, but I also looked at the compatibility list and it sickened me to see TMNT is a broken game.    But then I saw that others like Dune and Star Control works great.  I'd add those, the Rocket Knight and Sparkster sequel, but little else.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

Yes for now as I understand it the Retroarch part is required and does something on the back end of things. I've read in some forums where many of these games work as well as they do because it is retroarch kicking in transparently when you select an add in game instead of one of the originals. Then I've read other forums messages that stated the extra games are using the internal emulator and the retroarch piece is there for some requirement in accessing the extra partition with the games and adding it in seamlessly to the original UI and emulation?

 

Because of this you will also see a Retroarch icon listed along with your new games and I believe another one for Emustation even though it isn't installed and apparently they have to be there for the whole thing to work. It really does work well for the games that I've got put on in that they do work 100% provided they aren't on the list of games known to not work. It does surprise me though that TMNT doesn't work but most all other Konami titles do. Still, this is one of the easier ones to add games to and it supports .zip files. I'm curious to go back and undo it all and redo it with all original rom files being Zipped up vs in their unzipped form when I first installed them. Then again, the installer might be unzipping them and placing them in the partition unzipped to begin with?