It probably does seem like a nightmare to an American

I’m not sure what being an American has to do with anything. Is the need to change one’s BIOS screen somehow an American problem? It seems like a self induced non-issue.

The impression I had of the Saturn in Europe was pretty much the same for Laserdisc. That is, local support was so bad any real enthusiast will end up importing a bunch of NTSC stuff anyway so you’d be better off just going that way from the beginning.

I had a TurboDuo when it was new. I had already been through the experience of a domestic publisher trying to get me to buy some of the tiny number of games they had planned but in 1993 I just stopped buying TTI and went import %100. When it was obvious Bernie was killing the Saturn in the US I switched into that gear again. I was importing LD from day one, imports were actually why I got the player.

It’s a lot easier and nowadays also much cheaper as an American to just pretend the Saturn and the PC Engine never came out here and buy all Japanese releases. I have a switch on my Saturn but I don’t actually use it that much because the American library is quite small...all in huge cases, mostly broken, and costs...for some reason...a ton of money even though I can’t imagine why you’d ever want at any price US titles like Guardian Heroes or Street Fighter Alpha with their horrible cover art. I sell my US games when people ask me to because I always thought of them as just the junk I bought cheap or close by when I didn’t have a day to drive to Die Hard and back for a JP version that was $20 more but almost always better.

So you have a Japanese Saturn and Japanese games?

I have a US Saturn (oval button), and a Japanese Saturn (“no danger” era white), both switched. I have most of the real cartridges, controller variants, taps for it and I don’t think I have any 3rd party HK stuff anymore. Most of my games are Japanese now but I still have US versions of things like Azel because it’s an RPG and I’ll never know Japanese well enough to enjoy the game in that language as much as I do the very well localized US one. I eventually sold games like Saturn Bomberman for $$ after getting a slightly superior JP version for ¥50. I guess I’d like to trade my US Street Fighter Collection for a JP one but since nowadays I have the arcade PCB for Street Fighter Zero 2 Alpha (personal all time favorite fighter...) I guess it’s sort of academic.

anybody hear of this device ? it uses the VCD slot.

It seems to be good, but is very expensive.

it'd be nice for hassle free mod that is more stock than the others since its just using the VCD port. I wonder if that ever gets messed up like the cartridge port does.

I think it’s roughly PCMCIA style in which case it’s easily damaged but otherwise perfectly reliable. This is a way better place to put a cart since it’s apparently possible. The MPEG/PhotoCD functions are presumably duplicated by it so you’d never need the slot for anything else.

Most of these things are expensive, some more than others though.
The designers cry foul whenever their stuff gets cloned, sold cheaper and/or really easy to purchase instead of going through bs (eg genuine GDEMU orders nightmare) to obtain a "legitimate" item.

I'm pretty sick of the idea that spending hundreds of dollars on such things is perfectly ok.

So now our piracy devices are too expensive? OH LORD, please save us from full price Doctor V64s!

The world awaits your extra cheap version of a cheap version of a expensive hobby because a lot of other people also erroneously believe that makes sense.

This company should do R&D for free, use pirate chips, child labor, and sell tax free on eBay because you want to play $2 for Batsugun and dink around with Saturn BASIC for 17 seconds, right? You probably want it to not die in a year either.

Don’t get me wrong, I have loads of pirate stuff, that’s not the issue. This isn’t an out of print video game it’s a newly developed product being made right now and it seems very good. Do you want them to make something similar for...I don’t know, Cube or Atomiswave or something? Well their wives won’t let them of they lost their asses on the Saturn version because they let their price be dictated by a guy who fills his pockets with soup at the buffet. Pay up! It will eventually sell at twice the price if its as good as they say. .

For me, I'd rather just burn CDs.

My luck's always been hit or miss when it comes to burning CDs, and I can't speak for the Saturn but the Sega CD was so touchy with ...well, CDs that I just got a Mega SD. Has its own share of annoyances, but no moving parts and is certainly more reliable than my actual Sega CD. Makes playing imports a breeze, too.

I'm fine with the cost, though. I got burned once by a cheap clone, never again. Low supply (for quality versions of niche hardware) plus obsessive idiots like me equals higher cost, just the way of things.

Can't wait for the OSSC Pro to come out!

At $0.08 per disc, yes. That’s my way to go as well. I don’t need 1000 games in my Saturn at all times. I can only play one at a time. The other 999 of them are just sitting there.

I’ve never had an issue burning a Saturn CD but I’ve made most of the copies from originals. Anything that’s packaged on the internet and has to be converted from one thing to another...I refuse to risk wasting a night on that.

For some platforms they are, but it also depends on where you are in the world (availability of the console itself).
It's also not just about cost but supply and demand. In some cases also the attitude of "developers".

Saturn isn't an abundant console here, so if you burn discs and your laser dies fixing that sort of scenario isn't a cheap case of "I'll just buy another console".
Dreamcast is cheaper but the cheap ones available usually have dead laser and/or other issues. Non VA1, faulty PSU, a cheaper console imported from Japan so it needs step down or swap in different PSU.

Everdrives are an example of something that should be cheaper. Early versions become cheap when later versions are released, sometimes the later versions offer little more than larger rom sizes (like for homebrew/hacks).
A Polish guy has made his own Famicom flash cart, much cheaper than the original basic Everdrive Famicom N8. As far as I know he uses recycled famiclone cart shells. Doesn't support all mappers but neither does the original N8.
I have several Chinese ED clones for different platforms, if I bought legit versions of all of them the costs would have blown out well over $1000.

GDEMU, the guy that makes it is completely disorganised as far as orders/stock are concerned. Actually getting a legit board is like winning the lottery. The clones are so much cheaper anyway and are bloody everywhere, you can buy 2 for less than the cost of legit and still have change. Sure, you can't update them but the 2 "broken" games I'm aware of have work arounds (one simply involves skipping intro).

GC-Loader PNP is easy enough to find overseas, but in the last 6 months I've only noticed one kit up for grabs locally at a reasonable price. A few others have been scalper prices and the rest were modded consoles for hundreds of dollars
If there was a Chinese clone of this I'd get one.

PSIO, the team makes promises about solderless solution that never happens. Final product can't play entire library and some "working" games have issues anyway. Updates don't necessarily fix anything. You have to buy this new and prove ownership with email etc to get updates... this means some people that have bought pre-modded consoles have been shafted because they aren't entitled to any support.

^At least in this last case there is an alternative now (not a clone). Xstation. As far as I know it isn't solderless either but alternatives are always welcome.

All of this is piracy. You are acting like you have a fundamental human right to affordable reliable flash cards that aren’t garbage when in fact it’s amazing that any of this stuff even legally exists. You’re very spoiled sounding. People have done actual jail time just for modding PlayStations and bootlegging Donkey Kong PCBs but if flash cards are still triple digits then we’re not happy? Until Nintendo/Sega/whoever start making devices like this you can count on them being flawed, meanwhile you save more money on a single title than what these things cost, even the most expensive ones.

If research and development were easy and free you’d make your own card. You’re probably as useless at that as I am though so these are the choices that exist for storing thousands and thousands of titles that you will NEVER EVER play on antique machines.

People don't go to jail here for modding PS1's
In that case the point is to make the console region free, it isn't about piracy.

I know I'm going to regret sticking my foot into this, but I don't see the point in conflating the issue of the cost of third-party modification/replacement of vintage hardware with that of what counts as piracy. The former is a matter of market forces and the latter is a matter of law and ethics.

In my book, as long as you aren't copying software/content for the purpose of letting someone (you or another) use software that they don't have a legitimate copy of, it isn't piracy except in the most legalistic, ethically innocuous definition of the term. Just because a tool makes piracy trivial doesn't mean it's intrinsically illegal or unethical.

That’s not really my point. 25 years ago these games were all $60-80 each, even the horrible ones. Now kids feel like their system is broken if it doesn’t have some flash doodad on it that stores every game ever made...and they don’t get played. They just don’t. There most be 10,000 collectards with a Saturn that has NFL Quarterback club on it and it’s NEVER BEEN BOOTED ONCE...but it’s too expensive? What? You don’t even use it! It’s like a bulimic complaining about the price of food.

Why should anyone work overtime so that some brat can have a full set he’ll never ever ever play even %30 of? Its not “piracy” I’m complaining about, it’s an insatiable thirst for the useless and being CHEAP about it at that. This isn’t a cool stance. It’s the whinging of the overly entitled. “I think, therefore this product should exist in my price range.” I’m not good at explaining it but it grosses me out.

Don't know if I'm posting this to the wrong place or not. But anyway.

I recently bought a Saturn for myself. Finally having enough of the 32x stopgap. (And definitely not because I'm afraid Segata Sanshiro is gonna kill me if I don't have one.)

Anyway the first game I'm planning on getting for it is definitely Virtua Fighter 2. The next game after that is going to be Tomb Raider. After that I'm planning on getting one of those action replay carts to make my Saturn region free. (the model that I got is the second European one)

Anyway what games should I be looking to get after that? Personally I'm mostly interested in fighting games (both 2d and 3d) and racing games. Off course I'm not just going to stick to those to genres.

Anyway hopefully I don't look like a dummy that posted this to the wrong place.

If you like VF2 you’ll probably find that no other 3D fighter on the Saturn was ever quite as good but Fighters Megamix is close. In general games made by Sega are a safe bet, Sega Rally, Sega Touring Car, Panzer Dragoon, Sakura Wars, etc.

In 2D fighting the Saturn has many great games. Vampire Savior is fantastic, Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter is super impressive and fun. There are a lot of SNK ports that were the best of the time but they aren’t as good as Neo ones or usually the PS2 ones either so I guess it matters what other systems you have. Astra Superstars is a very unique fighter, a semi sequel to Galaxy Fight and Waku Waku 7, it’s a fan art driven send up to Dragonball in a way, and uses little animation but a lot of sprite warping and other 32 bit FX, it was an ST-V game originally.

Saturn Bomberman and Guardian Heroes are better mutiple players games than anything...except maybe Death Tank (hidden on Power Slave) and Death Tank Zwei (hidden on Duke 3D, requires Quake to unlock).

The SS also rules at shooters but of course those can be the most expensive games. Layer Section, Radiant Silvergun, Darius, etc.

IMO, Saturn Tomb Raider is a bad version of a bad game but your tag says you’re from Finland and tastes vary by region I guess. I genuinely cannot tell what I’m even looking at in games like that.