Love The Sega Ages Range? Then 8Bitdo Has Made Your Dream Controller

Great. This will really help my Street Fighter matches. Might get the Mega SG too.

I've been waiting for this... my real Genesis seems to be having problems with the controller ports, so hopefully this will mean I can set these in and never have to worry about losing a good connection again.

Just in time for the Mega SG to come out...

Oh yes. Totally ordering this if there aren't any obvious hardware issues! This'll be amazing for the Genesis Collection games.

Really nice, but as for Sega Ages line... it's actually made up by arcade versions mostly, so Genesis games will be only a few.

Had my M30 preordered last year 😎

Where's Retro-Bit's official line of Sega controllers? 8bitdo's beating them to the punch...

YES! I need this to play Landstalker

This is good news — I was worried they were only releasing the 2.4Ghz model alongside the Analogue Mega SG. This makes the controller much more adaptable and useful.

That said, they're talking a big game about the d-pad, and I hope they can walk the walk. While I've been a fan of 8BitDo's SNES-style controllers, the d-pad has been a weak point, often registering diagonals while pressing cardinal directions. I had to modify mine a bit, and while it's an improvement, they still aren't perfect.

@Tedikuma They are supposed to be arriving at the end of February.

@Moroboshi876

And some of those are Sonic games which are literally one button games!

Still, the controller looks sweet.

I knew this was coming out in Feb months ago because I contacted 8bitdo directly and they actually answered back, This excites me and hopefully they do a Pro version with analogues and extra triggers like the SN30 Pro 2.0 (best bluetooth controller ever).

I dunno, I'll stick to the wired controllers. They do look cool know.

Wasn't too interested till I saw the wireless option for the Genesis. $50 for wireless pretty neat. Will it work with the UK MegaDrive?

Wow nice................... Maybe I should get one..... No?

That's great, I might get this for my Genesis Classic Collection of games and for the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection.

@Sakura7 Yes they will. The controllers are region free.

@Sakura7 Megadrive/Genesis all regions, as well as Master System all regions.

Nice. I've seen this listed on Amazon UK for a while and have been patiently waiting for it to be released.

@electrolite77 I checked quite a lot of reviews when the Mega Drive Classics Collection was released on Switch and couldn't find any mention of input lag. Yourself and plenty of other people have said it's a serious issue. I wonder how so many of the 'professional' reviewers missed it?

Cool, but I already got their DIY kit for an original Mega Drive controller, and that's working great for 2D games so far. I'd consider getting one of these if they release one with analog sticks, like they did with their SNES-like controllers.

@King-K-Rool Having played through all of the Mega Man X collection and quite a bit of the Sega Genesis collection, I haven't noticed any lag, and I grew up playing most of these games on original hardware. To me, they seem to play exactly as I remember.

I respect that some people might be more sensitive to small amounts of lag, but I don't think reviewers are ignoring a "very serious issue." I think they're literally unaware of it because, just like me, they don't feel like anything is off at all.

Finally somebody put out a gamepad with a 6 button lay out. Been waiting for this since Street Fighter came out

Nice! But I'm still trying to figure out an affordable way to hook up my Sega CDX to an HDTV without blowing $100 plus.

The Saturn fanatic in me would love to see them do one based on my all-time favorite controller, but 6-button Genesis is the next best thing. Curious if they'll do one with sticks like their higher end SNES controller--would make them more widely useful for games you want a good d-pad for but which still use sticks.

@SmaMan I'm not sure what your issues are or how much you know about Genesis hardware, but at least one of my systems, a model 2 VA3 revision has broken solder joints from the pressure of plugging controllers in. I don't recall if the earlier systems use the same style of ports. I do know that the late-era systems have a different design for the controller ports to handle the stress a bit better.

Hmmm.... I preordered a 2.4GHz one for my Mega Drive for £22.99. Getting the bluetooth one and a MD receiver would be more flexible but it costs £47 for the two. That's more than the price of two of the MD only ones...

Why does a Bluetooth receiver cost £19 when a controller and wireless receiver for the MD costs just £23?

I don't know why they keep promoting 8bitdo around here, I bought several of their products and they all had issues and stopped working. I also know other people who had the same experience.

I don't know... I've had the 8BitDo NES30 and still have the SFC30. The d-pads of those give a very tacktile response. Not the same at all like the somewhat spongy feeling of the original controllers, which I actually like better. I've had the Mega Drive with the original 6 button controller and that d-pad felt a but spongy too. I want the same feel of the originals but I guess that's out of the question.

@sdelfin
I'm talking about an early model 1 unit here. It seems I can never quite get a secure fit inside the port, and certain controllers will have either certain buttons reading wrong (like A pressing B or up pressing start) or nothing at all.

It could just be those controllers dying out, as I've had some newer, aftermarket 6-button controllers work just fine, but they do still slide out of the console fairly easily.

This is what I've been after. I can now finally get the Street Fighter Collection.

All I need is the reciver! Love the 8bitdo products!

@SmaMan I didn't think the issue I saw with that particular system would apply to you, but it's the only physical issue with the controls that I have seen, so I wanted to pass that along. From what you describe, it does sound like the controllers might be the issue. Your idea to try the receivers out and leave them in place sounds like it's worth a shot. Good luck to you.

Strangely, I had similar issues with the six-button pad, but only on computer through a (presumably)good USB adapter. I suspect the internal timing of those pads is tricky.

Will they only work in docked mode for the Switch?

Was looking at this last night on amazon buying it for my megadrive but it’s a massive bonus that it works on switch but there is no mention of it working on other consoles

@Gs69
It should work on anything bluetooth enabled. That includes any computer, android device, and anything they've released retro receivers for. So you could even use these on the (S)NES Classic, or a real (S)NES, for that matter.

I feel puzzled. In a few months, Retro-Bit will release official bluetooth Switch-compatible SEGA controllers that look as good as they were 25 years ago, and on the other hand, 8bitdo has always released controllers that are highly recommandable and the new form factor and the triggers seem to improve the original design.
I might have to wait a little bit to make a choice... or buy both! xD

@King-K-Rool I didn't notice any input lag on the Sega collection. I have played it a lot and played original hardware. Eh. Some people are precious and looking for problems that aren't there. If sonic needs "tight mid air" controls then they must suck at video games...

Day 1 buy for me, the switch pro controller dpad is abysmal. I didn't notice how bad until I started playing a lot of Celeste. I can't believe the thing gets a Nintendo seal of quality.

It looks cool for systems that support 6 face buttons, but will the Switch actually work with the extra 2? Does this pad have the 4 shoulder buttons as well?

Sweet! As soon as they showed off the 2.4G version, myself and probably a few hundred others hammered 8bitdo with requests for a Bluetooth version. Voila, they responded with the product we asked for. How cool is that?

@JayJ

I'm not trying to be rude, but to clarify, I thought you bought a one NES30 arcade stick and went through two replacements from Amazon because you couldn't get them to pair?

I'm not going to defend their out of house arcade stick, but I do have 5 of their gamepads that work flawlessly. They aren't built to the standard of a german power tool (mmmh glass reinforced plastic), but they are certainly better built than most of the high margin garbage they compete with.

@bolt05 Please just consider not everyone is the same as you. People from all over reddit, resetera, youtube and others have had the experience of input lag on the newer Sega Genesis/Mega Drive collections on Switch and PS4 (on PS3 for example, it is weirdly enough somewhat better). I'm really glad you don't have a problem with it, just enjoy your games, but don't go and dismiss others in their experience.

@Heavyarms55

It will be seen by the Switch as a Nintendo Pro Controller.
I can’t tell you what button configuration they’ve programmed, but it’s safe to assume that two of the face buttons will register as shoulder buttons.

Obviously, no analog sticks. There’s a tiny select button and a home and capture, however.

@bolt05

For Celeste, I’d suggest one of their controllers with the Nintendo patent d-pad. Tight and purposeful. The Genesis 6-button d-pad (and Saturn pad that followed), dubbed a “roller”, showed it’s strength because hadoukens were all the rage at the time. Likewise, Ken and Ryu with a NES/SNES game pad is my idea of torture.

And yes, the positive things I can say about the Switch Pro Controller is that the circuit boards are fancy, the injection molding is accurate, the battery is user replaceable, and assembly optimization is as good as you can get with something so needlessly complicated (6 or 7 pieces for a gamepad shell). Otherwise... :0

@robr It is worth noting that their d-pads vary in quality. I have some 8BitDo controllers where they work perfectly, and others that register phantom diagonals.

There are some easy DIY hacks that minimize the problem, but it's a little frustrating that I had to do that.

@Razieluigi

That is a shame.

My money, take it, take it all!

But... It's a Saturn controller... Why's there no Saturn adapter?

@Damo Well, to be fair for now MD wins, OK. But looking at the list arcade is a majority, isn't it? And after the first 15 (are there 2 or 3 titles yet unannounced, by the way? They might be Mega Drive games, OK), I think they want to give us Saturn-Dreamcast-more powerful arcade boards games, right? So strictly Mega Drive / Genesis will be a few.

Question is, will the receiver work for the Master System? I would love to play my MS games with a SF30Pro.