AtGames Is Releasing A New Sega Genesis Clone To Rival The NES Classic Mini

This was inevitable after the success and interest in the NES Classic Mini.

To tell the truth, that machine has been arrived in my local gamestore LONG time ago (Several months ago).
But, Yikes... !!!
There are some **** NSFW games inside !
Better find the original machines and choose my games as heart desire.

I got the one last year.

I have questions.

1 - Why use Infrared for the controllers? You have to point at a sensor on the lower front of the machine.

2 - Input lag, good lord its at least 1 second, sometimes it's just unresponsive

3 - Audio is absolutely terrible. Sonic Genesis GBA bad.

4 - Those games...I have questions about those but I daren't think about it.

5 - AV Out. In 2016.

Hope the hardware quality is better than the previous iterations. I probably won't be getting this.

Going by the quality of their past clones it's hard to have confidence this will be any different.I wonder why they insist on filling it with homebrew titles?Is it just so they can put a higher number of included games on the box?

@Anti-Matter you're thinking of the last model. This is a new version, with added features.

Will probably pick this up. Had been on the fence about the current model, but I'll wait a bit longer for the HD version. I hope they've sorted the sound...

Colour me interested in this. But those non Sega games make this a slightly more tacky machine. I could just never play them but it sort of puts a blemish on proceedings.
I'm interested in playing the Phantasy Star titles though, which the previously iterations of the Megadrive lacked.

They really should forgo the non-sega public domain games, since they have an official license. Those were mostly included with no-official consoles as a mean to justify their existence on store shelves, I believe...

Hopefully this can also be modified to take off the trash games and add in some more Mega Drive goodness.

ATgames have been making these for at least 5 years and they've always been trash. Not playing "Nintendo fanboy" but the emulation (in particular the sound) is brutal.

What a missed opportunity to not add Thunder Force III and Thunder Force IV.

So it comes with Altered Beast twice? Interesting...

Those controllers are utter garbage and the fact they keep churning them out is an insult to their customers. I like the styling thats great but the controllers render it utterly pointless. Once again AT games almost could of done something good........but no

Hmmm, a bit a worried since its ATGames. The PAL cartridge support was atrocious on their previous hardware.

Well if the sound is bad, then no sale for me. I love the idea though, if Sega worked with them during quality control then it won't be a problem. I'll wait for the reviews to come through.

Altered Beast is so good is twice on the list!!

No SD card slot
No S3&K
No buy.

We bought the previous version last year. We played it one night and took it back the next morning. It was hideous. I would rather deal with the NES Classic's short cord then those horrible wireless controllers that never worked unless you were less then 6 feet away and point directly at the system. The buttons felt clunky too.

"85 games, 720p over HDMI and save states"

And still a piece of crap, since they will probably still not have updated their emulator or sound chip that they've been using since the early 2000's...

And don't even get me started on those wireless controllers who seem to randomly lose their connection every once in a while, and the buttons suck as well.

If only they had the Streets of Rage games still on there that would be sweet but having all three Phantasy Star games makes this kinda tempting for me. I still don't get why AtGames kept giving us those other 40 craps games when they could had load them up with 40 more Genesis games which they had full rights to, nobody wants to play Cross the Road and Mr. Balls in HD.

These units are the reason that Nintendo under-estimated the demand for the NES Classic Mini.

Annually renewed and selling mediocre at best, Nintendo created a hyper-charged demand where one did not exist before by making a quality product.

This Genesis will sell some — and then be back in another form next year.

I've been wanting to buy an original Mega Drive/Genesis and a Mega Everdrive for a while now. This does not change my mind.

@Anti-Matter Has not been at your local game store. Production hasn't even started yet.

You're seeing an older version that has no bearing on this one. AtGames has completely revamped their hardware and emulator for this new HDMI Genesis and their HDMI Atari 2600 plug and play due to premier later this year. Any old issues with the composite versions have nothing to do with this, although it will continue to affect legacy products like their handhelds and lower priced composite systems that will remain largely unchanged for 2017 other than some changes on the game lists.

That's not to say that this new HDMI system won't have its own flaws. It just won't be the same old flaws of their older products.

@dkxcalibur Why not plug in genuine Genesis controllers? Has two controller ports just for that purpose.

@BLP_Software No IR on their new HDMI systems. They're RF this time around, as confirmed by the AtGames rep at the AtariAge forums.

Needs Sub-Terrania for me to consider a purchase.
At least it has Sonic 2 and Comix Zone.

@audiobrainiac I have the Atari Flashback 3-6, Intellivision Flashback, Colecovision Flashback, one of the new Atari handhelds that premiered last fall, and that Sonic head shaped plug and play with the Wiimote style controllers. Nothing has failed yet, although there are certainly other issues.

@GoneFishin Thanks for that info. But that doesn't change how the previous worked does it?

@BLP_Software What do you think? It's still very much worthwhile to point out that this won't be IR based this year, particularly since it's hard to see it on the boxart unless one looks closely and NintendoLife doesn't mention it in their article.

@GoneFishin Well it's good to see they are improving but they should probably make that more clear. A lot of potential buyers can read them like a book at this point?

Has there ever been a justification for their poor hardware before hand?

@GoneFishin I guess if I still had them laying around, I may have tried that option. However, since I just made the purchase, I felt that it should have worked right out of the box as advertised.

I also just noticed that there is no game from the Streets of Rage series! It does have Phantasy Star and Shining Force though, all are great RPGs.....or at least I remember them as being good.

Get rid of the crappy non-licensed games (they actually detract from the overall product rather than add to it), make sure the wireless controllers work regardless of direct line of site and don't suffer obvious input lag (and actually include full length cables/connections so you can use them wired if you want), and make the sound quality up to par with what people expect, and this would be an all-round pretty decent value proposition.

@dkxcalibur Yeah, that's actually a strange oversight. I'd rather they got rid of the forty or so random non-licensed indie games and put the full Streets of Rage series on there instead.

@impurekind It's really surprising because all of the Streets of Rage games have aged well in my opinion. I'm sure everyone that read your comment would agree that they would rather have the Rage series then the 40+ flash games. I would even compromise and say that I could live without the fighting games. I don't think the first 3 Mortal Kombat games, Eternal Champions, or Virtual Fighter 2 have aged well.

The game list is awesome. Did they actually lic nose all of those? But sounds like the machine is terrible. Like you see at islands in the mall. Too bad it's not made by sega.

@BLP_Software I assume you're referring to accuracy, or the lack of it with their emulation (Although technically, I believe it's a "Genesis-on-a-Chip" in their Genesis efforts in recent years rather than emulation). Build quality hasn't been awful with AtGames, although I wouldn't call their quality control perfect.

I imagine the answer is that "it's good enough". They see the sales they get each year and must feel that it's satisfactory, so the incentive to make great leaps isn't there unless they see a drastic decline in those sales.

It's an expensive proposition to hire skilled programmers or to revamp a hardware solution (Which is why NOAC chips never seem to make improvements, since it's such an expensive proposition to redesign and produce a new system-on-a-chip).

So the same old things are made for years, with hardware/software refreshes few and far between. But 2017 is one of those years and their adviser that they contract with that's active at AtariAge has left that community that's just as down on AtGames as this one, with a lot of optimism for these HDMI equipped products.

@BLP_Software It's right there on the box. Will be hard to miss if one looks at the box in a store, but easy to miss on this low res boxart in this article. Not their fault that NintendoLife didn't see fit to mention the new wireless gamepads.

@dkxcalibur I don't disagree.

I haven't bought a Genesis effort of theirs in about a decade, but since they went IR in most of their Atari products, I'm equally as dissatisfied. It's an awful technology for game controllers.

Luckily, I do have 2600 joysticks and their 2600 themed products include Atari compatible controller ports, so I'm able to bypass them. But I agree with your sentiment that we shouldn't have to just because they want to advertise wireless controllers on the box, regardless if they work well or not.

But these new RF based controllers for their HDMI Genesis and HDMI Atari systems should hopefully change that (Note that if you buy a composite "budget" system which will still be marketed this year, you'll still be getting the same old hardware and the same lackluster IR based controllers; Only the premium HDMI releases will have the new RF controllers).

If they don't straighten out the emulation problems I will not be buying! Being able to plug in your Genesis carts is a big plus however.

@impurekind They're freebies that allow them to pad the game count.

I don't think it benefits the product at all, but it's at least not taking away slots for quality original releases like the Streets of Rage trilogy since it's not using up any of their budget to include them that couldn't potentially been redirected to Sega to license more games to include.

I would hope if it was a decision between these or the Streets of Rage trilogy, they'd pick Streets of Rage. But it doesn't appear to be that sort of situation where they're giving up something to include this large group of rather lackluster games.

For those interested in where my information comes from, this thread at AtariAge is where most of the 2017 AtGames discussion has gone on.

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/259236-2017-flashback-speculation-thread/page-1

BillLoguidice is the individual with ties to AtGames that interacts with the AtariAge community.

will wait to see how good it is before considering. as it would have to be good to consider it but the concept looks promising and certainly has the edge with a slot to platy original software. I don't mind it comes with homebrew as it still offers WAY more titles than the nes classic and that's before you add in the homebrew stuff

after having the missfortune of getting one of there other consoles as a Christmas gift from other half. (delight when it broke after 5 minutes). I wouldnt hold out any hope on this quick cash in.

Lemon, if you own a Xbox 360 or Playstation 3, I'd consider Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection if you decide against it. No support for original carts or controllers, of course.

But it has a heck of a game list and for all but the most pickiest individuals, the emulation for the Genesis side is very solid (The same can't be said for the audio in arcade Space Harrier, which is one of several unlockable bonus games included).

@dkxcalibur I can vouch for Phantasy Star 4 at least. I love that game and go back to it every so often. I love the concept of Shining Force, but never played the Genesis ones, but they do look good, still.

@techdude Sorry, but AtGames has a mandate that they must include those Chinese Flash Games, otherwise, they'd be denied the right to distribute it internationally. Still, if it means it can use an ARM and an Emulator, maybe their thing can run on USB Power, like the NES Classic, and that would allow you to remove all the NON-Sega Stuff, and give us the opportunity to add our own Genesis Games. But at least with the Genesis Slot, maybe I can play Sonic 3 & Knuckles. Still, I have a Model 2 Genesis System, so hard cheese.

@YoshiAngemon They have no such mandate.

SD slots for rom-loading are exclusive to the handheld versions. Bill tried to get that changed for the Atari/Sega HDMI consoles in 2017, but AtGames management apparently couldn't be persuaded, so it didn't happen. Particularly unfortunate for the Atari system, since it won't have an original cartridge slot for original media like the Sega system will, thus it no expandability and will be limited to the built-in selection of software.

I've encountered the AT Games Genesis thing. I still love the Genesis and play a lot of its games in various ways including on original hardware, so it was quite obvious how poor the AT Games was in terms of audio and video as well as controller quality. I give them credit for finally updating and, hopefully, improving the product. But reviews will be important for this thing.

The game list is pretty good and Mortal Kombat is a surprise. Virtua Fighter 2 is listed twice. As for Streets of Rage, that series has always been an issue along with Revenge of Shinobi. Seems like an issue of licensing costs with games in which Ancient/Yuzo Koshiro were involved. They are available other places, but are the ones most commonly missing from some compilations.

Hope the emulation doesn't suck like Sega did with their Steam release, they really botched the sound quality lol.

A Genesis without Streets of Rage is not a Genesis.

@YoshiAngemon In Asia, there's plenty of NES or Genesis portables that had flash games on it and the ROMs on a separate cartridge, those ROMS will shows up (on Menu) when you insert the cartridge, although I am not sure if they are really in the cartridge or it serves as a switch. I can't think of a good reason other than ROMs are copyrighted stuffs, and in countries with more strict IP enforcement. they could keep the cartridge if the legality is questioned.

Don't buy those AT systems...Genesis emulation on those is usually REALLY terrible. Sega should just mandate M2 to create do the emulation work if they want to release an official emulation machine.

Except for the Mortal Kombat series (who bought the rights when Williams/Midway gone under?), it's all Sega IP, wish they cast a wider net ( I pay $10 more) for some Konami games (Castlevania: Bloodlines, Contra: Hardcore, RocketKnight Adventures), or Capcom (Strider), or Treasure - Sega own the IP to their Sega Games (Gunstar Heroes, Guardian Heroes, Dynamite Headdy), or Disney/Sega (licensing issues again! Aladdin, Mickey in Castle (and World) of Illusion), and Namco (Rolling Thunder II, Splatterhouse II), EA (Desert Strike, NBA Live or it's predecessors, PGA Tour Golf, Madden (before the curse)) and those shooters (Gaiares, Thunderforce II, III, IV (Sega own those IPs now),etc . Oh...those were the days...

SEGA should partner up with somebody else. And why not a Master System?

It would be nice if Sega released a decent quality one themselves, the RF-out on my MDII is faulty

@techdude Mortal Kombat went to Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment and was the main impetus behind buying the bulk of Midway's assets. Not everything went that way though, such as Hydro Thunder ending up at Microsoft.

@techdude Looks like Warner Brothers has the rights to the Genesis ports of Mortal Kombat. I have the 2016 handheld, and they are mentioned on the box with the copyright info for the Mortal Kombat games.

No Streets of Rage or Cyborg Justice but an otherwise fine list. If the emulation turns out to be good, this might be a good buy.

Too bad At Games doesn't make good plug and plays. Also I wish the controllers were wired but alas...

@BinaryFragger I have two units(a 2013 and a 2016) model, and I've never had any issues with the emulation for the built-in games. As for games on the SD card, I have had some games not work, but its unclear if the issue is the system, or the games. Some Genesis games used hardware tricks to run.

Which model do you have and what kinda trouble do you have? I'm curious.

If they can at least fix the god awful sound emulation from the original version, it might be a passable clone system as the HDMI out on it would be a welcome change.

I would avoid the original like the plague unless you can get one for under $10 and want to have it just as a curiosity/collectible. This is all you need to hear to know how terrible the first version is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtDjmFqEwwY

Ill wait for the reviews. The previous ones get god awful reviews.

I actually hear some things that will make this new one much better than all the other ones that came before it. I am keeping my eyes peeled

HOW DARE THEY CLONE ME!

I have the Atari Flashback and I happy with it. I would prefer At games do away with the wireless controllers as wired controllers would be better.

@Caryslan They're picky about the file extension, which is likely why some of your incompatible files wouldn't work. I forget the particulars, but renaming files got many to work on my early AtGames unit (Going from .bin to .gen, or perhaps vice versa).

It's a shame AtGames have a habit of adding garbage third party games to make up the numbers.

This definitely got my interest but when I saw AtGames were making this, I was reminded of the portable Megadrive which had poor sound emulation. It make Streets of Rage 2's soundtrack into a mess. I hope, at this price, it's going to have updated hardware.

@Deanster101 Yeah, had they gotten rights from Disney as well as Warner Bros., we would've had games like Castle of Illusion, Quackshot, World of Illusion, Goofy's Hysterical History Tour, Taz-Mania, Taz in Escape from Mars, Bugs Bunny in Double Trouble, and even games from Konami, like Rocket Knight Adventures, Castlevania: Bloodlines, TTA: Buster's Hidden Treasure, and thanks to a licensing struggle between Konami and Nickelodeon, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist. That would've given us a reason to shout COWABUNGA or BOOYAKASHA, depending on which generation you're from.

If it isnt 1:1 emulation I don't see the point. May as well just get a RasPi with installed emulators.

Personally, the big draw from the NES Classic is how well the games ran. Don't care if it had a small library, it's really the museum-quality handling. We need more systems that strive to reproduce antique-gaming at the highest possible quality.

@GoneFishin Yeah, I get that, but this is how I think of things like this: I'd rather have ten 10/10 games than ten 10/10 games plus five 5/10 games. Even though both options have the same amount of 10/10 games and one option actually has more games in total, one option is technically perfect and the other is very much flawed; and I always prefer a smaller sampling that's perfect than a larger sampling that's flawed. That goes for everything in this life with me. For example: I'd rather have a racing game that has three perfect tracks, like Sega Rally Championship, than a driving game with a hundred tracks where many of them are crap and there's so much that ultimately I'd never really play any of the courses long enough to truly appreciate or enjoy any of them. Another example would be how I think of adding in the Hado mode (or whatever it's called) into the new Street Fighter II for Switch, which has actually dragged the entire game down just by being there; without it the entire package would be viewed and experienced as higher quality overall, because there's not some clearly crap mode stuck in there that will always be their tainting the game. So, for me, having all those genuine official titles plus a bunch of largely chucked-in random crap is actually worse than just having the official titles alone. Does that make sense?

That's a really sweet list! But it suffers from a serious lack of Ecco the Dolphin, Zombies Ate My Neighbors, both Streets of Rage, Slaughterhouse and both Toejam and Earl games.

At least Bubsy ain't on there.

I'll also bet that they'll do one better then nintendo and Actually make it easily available.

Really interested in this, but Retroblox (or whatever it ends up being called) still has my money first.

Game list is a bit odd. All the Mortal Kombats listed together, but other numbered entries are split up. In the article it says all the Sonic games are included, but I don't see Sonic 3 on the list.

People earlier pointed out Altered Beast was listed twice. I guess someone went in and edited that, but didn't bother proof reading the article again to make sure it was accurate.

Someone's drunk. Comments section is basically the editing staff. Maybe give trusted site users some limited editing access?

The list isn't nearly complete enough for my liking, and their track record is abysmal. No thanks. Sega consoles on the Switch VC would be so much better.

@GoneFishin to be honest I have a NES mini gathering dust and I also have a Raspberry PI so don't have any need for this. plus I also recently got an old ps2 and I have a switch so im very occupied with my gameslist right now

If anyone is interested, Bill posted a few more details over at AtariAge.

-Besides the pair of wireless Bluetooth controllers, this will retain Genesis controller ports.
-$70 USD MSRP which likely means this will go for about $50 at most places.
-Save states (Which implies they can be reloaded, versus suspend states like the Wii VC had).
-Rewind functionality.

And sounds like SD rom loading has a shot at being included in the 2018 revision of their HD systems, although it won't be present this year.

@YoshiAngemon

Rocket Knight was on the Genesis?

@Tempestryke The original one: Rocket Knight Adventures was a Genesis Exclusive. Sparkster, the sequel was two different games: One on SNES, and the other on Genesis. Then there's the modern sequel game: Rocket Knight for Steam, PS3 and XBox 360.

@YoshiAngemon Oh okay. Yeah I got it mixed up. Thanks.