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//by halo- 11th November 2003
Over the years Sega and it's partners have many many *ahem* intresting consoles - ones they probably knew wouldn't sell well but they still brought out for the hell of it. Many people don't know of these oddities because of their limited release and dismal failure, as well as the fact that they weren't the best products in the first place. However, these consoles deserve their mark in Sega's history and because of this, I will list them here.
The Sega CD-X/Multimega is one of the only Sega rarities ever to be released in a PAL region. A portable sized combination of a Megadrive/Genesis and a Mega/Sega CD which can also be used as a portable CD player - it even includes a small screen showing what track is being played. Released in 1993, it had a very high pricetag (£399 in the UK) and flopped quite quickly due to the fact that Sega didn't realise that nobody wanted the Sega CD, let alone an overpriced combination of both consoles.
The Wondermega 1 was avaliable in a variety of different flavours. The first revision was manufactured by Sega, while the second revision to the Wondermega 1 was created by Vector (JVC) - they are supposedly exactly the same except for minor case differences. At launch the price was 59,800 yen, or $598.00 you had to spend a lot of cash for very little. The dark grey machine included various features not found in the regular version of the Megadrive including external CD controls, Karaoke and, oddly, even Midi support. Considering that the Megadrive and Mega CD were over $100 cheaper when this was manufactured, it did well enough to justify manufacture of the cheaper-to-make sequel.
The JVC X'eye, also known as the Vector Wondermega 2 in Japan, is a twisted combination of a Mega/Sega CD and a Megadrive/Genesis II intergrated into a relatively large CD32-esque unit. When it was released US in September 1994 the machine had a walletbusting $500 pricetag - over $100 more than buying a seperate Sega CD and Genesis unit. The X'Eye was designed to appeal to older audiences as a piece of home electronics, rather than the standard "toys" - oddly, it even came with an Encyclopedia(!) to prove it wasn't just another games console - and also contained a CD+G Karaoke feature along with a microphone socket. It never took off because, frankly, it was an overpriced piece of crap and it was released months after the superior Sega CD-X/Multimega, and the death of the Sega CD sealed its fate. One notable record is that the X'eye is the only console ever to be released with an inappropriate apostrophe in its name. The only differences between the X'Eye and the Wondermega 2 is the case and the bios. The differences between the Wondermega 1 and 2 is that the prior contains MIDI support and the latter contains a wireless controller, and there are many slight differences between the two machines that make it cheaper to manufacture.
The Sega Mega Jet is an odd beast - a screenless portable machine supposedly only avaliable as a promotional item for Japan Air Lines. I doubt this fact, however, as lots of Mega Jets have recently been appearing on eBay along with Dragon Ball Z games - enough for me to say that it isn't as rare as many people seem to think. A small machine, with a cartridge port at the top, is the only Japanese machine allowing US and European cartridges to fit inside it. Supposedly designed to connect to monitors inside Japan Airlines aeroplanes, it connects to a TV screen just like any other console. In other words, it's just a compact Megadrive with a built in controller with nothing more to note.
The Pioneer Laseractive CLD-A100 was a Laserdisc player that also accepted game modules to introduce compatability with games formats. Two types of machine were manufactured; a NEC TurboGrafx addon and a Sega Megadrive/Genesis addon. These inserted into the machine and simply added a cartridge slot to the machine along with the relevant console hardware. The Laseractive could play Sega Megadrive/Genesis games, Sega (Mega) CD games and, most notably, Mega LD games. As with the other Megadrive hybrids, this player had an insane pricetag - $700 for the Laseractive machine and $400 for the addon. Only 3 MegaLD games were ever manufactured: Pyramid Patrol (the pack-in LD game), Space Berserker and High Roller. The 4-in-1 Sega CD classics pack also came with the machine. An odd thing to note is that it's the only US named Sega console with the word "Mega" in the title. Whereas Pioneer Laseractive machines can be found relatively easily and cheaply, a machine with the addon units is relatively uncommon and is, justifiably, worth a lot more.
The Sega Nomad is probably the most well known of Sega's weird and unsuccessful consoles. Basically, it's a Megadrive 2 shoved into a case with a backlit TFT screen and a joypad wired up into the case, and that's pretty much it. I would say that very little R&D went into this handheld and unfortunately it shows. Extremely low battery life is the main flaw with this system - it likes to eat through 8 AA batteries in hours, along with (yet again) a high price. Designed to compete with the Gameboy, the leader in the handheld market, it failed for a variety of reasons despite a good concept - if someone rereleased the Nomad now with a longer battery life and a cheaper price I wouldn't be suprised if it sold well.
As you may have noticed from this article, Sega and it's licensees have a history of providing expensive, under publicised, overpriced and generally crap Megadrive clones. This worrying trend does continue for the next few years, albiet with fewer systems, these and more will be explored in the upcoming second part of this article.
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