A Working SEGA Neptune prototype LOST in a move!

Hi gamers,

Every SEGA fan knows the story behind the one and only Neptune, it's mainly just a stand-alone 32X anyway. It was going to be a in-between the Megadrive and Saturn time frame to prolong the life of the Megadrive.

Recently a prototype collector that goes by the name of drx contacted a 1st party SEGA producer, as he was asking more questions about the system and just about to finally have it in his collection the producer said he lost it while moving houses. Sounds like a lie right? It most likely is. drx has many weird boards from SEGA as he claims, and I do believe him, he is fairly trusted by the community he has released a lot of prototype material in the past.

How could a professional first party producer lose such a rare piece of hardware, hell it's not rare it's ONE working on earth, and it's now misplaced. Now don't get confused with the many that people have "spotted" they were just case prototypes, no guts inside.

We may hear about the one and only Neptune again some day, but for now it's going to fade into the past. Sad day for many SEGA freaks including me, I could of seen a HD image of one of these oh well.

Source: http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=35859

SEGA Mega Drive Asian PAL - Some are shady jobs!

Hi gamers!

Today, I jumped on YouTube to check my status of my videos which most of us do. Anyway as I was looking through my subscriptions I noticed a restoration video of the MegaDrive. Through out the video TheDamoMonster was restoring the MegaDrive to it's original NTSC-J state, he explained the story behind the Asian PAL systems. What would of happened back in the day is people from Hong Kong would order a Japanese MegaDrive and convert it to PAL and then sell them as PAL versions with just a few cut traces and a modulator. By the looks of the mod it was horrible, everything was lose, and just crappy cut in the case with a cable sticking out, you can learn more about the restoration in Damo's video here.

After watching the video, I checked my MegaDrive (when I bought this I was told it could play PAL, NTSC-J and NTSC-U in laymen's terms it was region free). Flipped over the system and saw on the sticker "PAL-I", there are no modifications from what I can see and nothing lose like as mentioned in Damo's video. Many gamers are confused when they see a Japanese MegaDrive, there are actually to versions (no I'm talking about the Megadrive 2 and 3) one was ONLY sold in Japan and there was also a model that was sold in Japan, Taiwan and Philippines. The model that had labelled "For sale in Japan, Taiwan and Philippines" is the Asian PAL-I system, and vice versa.

A very easy way to find the difference is either on the box or at the bottom of the system where the sticker is located.

'Sold only in Japan' model/box art

'Sold only in Japan, Taiwan and Philippines' model/box art

 Thanks for reading, this is HeXiGON signing out.

SEGA 32X value is rising, what?

Hi gamers,

For anyone who is a fan of AVGN would know how much the 32X sucked ass. While only being 6 months in production before SEGA pulled the plug, the system it's self is very rare not so rare that's it's exactly hard to find, but rare as not many were made.

Amazingly you can pick up a brand new 32X for around $160, yeah it's not my type of cake either but the demand for these have risen. The used value is a bit hard to determine mainly the reason behind this is, if the previous owner had a model 1 Megadrive/Genesis the metal slot insert would come with it, and with the model 2 it wasn't required, however the video communication cable is usually a missing piece.

Not many collectors keep track of the 32X hardware as the software library just wasn't solid enough, even I haven't kept track of it. The demand in the hardware market has changed, SEGA hardware is becoming VERY collectable and the 32X is becoming one of the most collectable systems, together with it's software library.

Very Rare Nintendo 64 LodgeNet System Spotted!

Hi Gamers!

When I was 5 years old, my parents took me to the United States of America we got a hotel room right across from Disneyland.. In the hotel room there was a TV, but I noticed on top there was a Nintendo 64 controller looked down on it, and there were some extra buttons, and a telephone like cable coming out of it. What is this?

In 2011, today I found out what that controller was all about. It was a LodgeNet.. What's that you ask? A money operated Nintendo 64 that streams from a server into the LodgeNet box when requested by the customer, when the customer was finished they'd press menu I believe and these games were timed as well. If the customer wanted to play more, they then press Menu or Order depending if they wanted a different game or to continue. I remember my dad reading the instructions and it had something along the lines of: "25c per 10 minutes.." so this would be more of a luxury for the rainy days. If that doesn't make sense, well you try remembering when you were 5 about something you've forgotten about for over 10 years ;).

More about the LodgeNet, just as I was about to go to bed, I spotted these images on my favourite forum. A user named "wills82" managed to get a hold of the LodgeNet Nintendo 64 system and a controller for $5, and to my knowledge it might not be functional.
Previous to that post, another user, "grap3fruitman" got a hold of a bunch, yes a bunch! Of LodgeNet Systems and controllers a total of 5 units, complete with a PSU, but not as many controllers one of the units is missing one.

These boxes are rare and the controllers even more harder to find, and were only found in hotels around the USA (from my memory) but the server side of the hardware pretty much thin air, you'd need to be able to walk on water to find one, that's how rare the hardware is.

The owners of these are very lucky, the value is unknown.
I did a little bit of research as in looked on eBay and see how much they're going for. I only found a Super Nintendo Controller by Lodgenet, but it's actually not licensed by Nintendo. So maybe hotels later used Super Nintendo Boxes much like Japan Hotel's which is know by "SuperFamicomBox".

Some very HD images can be found below, of the controllers, stand and the boxes. You can enlarge these images.

You'd hate for your finger to slip.

So many N64 collectors think they have every controller, think again. ;)

I knew I wasn't dreaming, I've held this controller!

Looks like the system could of had RAM upgrades for the ROMs. Maximum memory is unknown.

As you know, this is HeXiGON signing out!