Producer of Genesis Flashback consoles claims review units have early, buggy firmware

Nintendo recently flared the microconsole craze with NES Classic Edition. This spurred nostalgia amongst gamers of the 8-bit era and with that, Nintendo has another console coming preloaded with more games this September. But, they aren’t the only game in town, there’s another preloaded console on the way from AtGames, the Sega Genesis Flashback.

However, early reviews haven’t exactly been kind to the console, coming preloaded with 85 games. With the name “Sega Genesis Flashback,” you’d think that the system would come preloaded with 85 Genesis games. But, that is a misnomer, the console itself comes with a mixture of Master System, Game Gear, Genesis and 28 unrelated Sega games akin to shovelware.

While many like myself wouldn’t mind the non-Genesis content, the extra 28 games just add a the “ugh” factor already surrounding the poor reviews coming several outlets. Many reviewers haven’t been kind to machine, saying that it’s interface is clunky and disjointed. Even worse: that the emulation (which the system uses to play cartridge games) of Genesis games is poor. AtGames claims that most of these issues are do to review units containing outdated system software, but are working to resend newer units with an updated version.

Kotaku writes:

“A batch of our review units were accidentally shipped out with early software builds that do not represent the final version,” AtGames said. “We are working to get updated and correct final products in the hands of reviewers in the coming weeks.”

Systems like these get gamers who grew up in the 1990s a sense of remembrance and a reason to revisit those consoles and games with ease. Many might not care for minor bugs or glitches, but enthusiasts will certainly avoid it if they can’t play it the way they remember it.

AtGames is no stranger to producing Sega Hardware, they’ve been doing it for a long time now, producing a considerable number of Sega and Atari microconsoles. So, it’s a surprise to see something like this happen just before its release in late September.

Rare copy of Super Mario Brother sells for over $30,000

The original Super Mario Brothers cart for the NES is not in short supply, but a print run sold individually and not bundled with the console? Mint and sealed? That can fetch a worthy price, and in this case: $30,100.44! The copy was sold on eBay.

It even has the original price tag of $26.99. And if you were to calculate the value of $27 in 1985 to 2017, you’d have the price of a full game now retailing at about $59.99. Regardless, there aren’t that many games that sell for such a high price (the elusive US release of Stadium Events for one).

The same seller, DKOldies, also auctioned off a sealed copy of Kid Icarus which had a winning bid of over $11,000.

Rayman SNES found after more than 20 years

The creator of Rayman, Michel Ancel, recently found the long-lost prototype ROM of the original Rayman. It was slated for release on the Super Nintendo, but never officially made it out of production.

 

Rayman was initially developed for the Atari ST by Ancel alone.[6] When Frédéric Houde joined the project, they intended to produce a SNES-CDversion[6] and the developers hired animators from a cartoon company that considerably improved the graphics;[citation needed] however, the Super NES CD-ROM Adapter was canceled and the SNES version was cancelled in favor of systems with CD support,[8] leaving this version of the game unfinished but playable.[9] The team felt that the Atari Jaguar was the first system that could handle the graphics they wanted and moved development to a Jaguar version,[6] and advertisements in late 1994 announced the game as a Jaguar exclusive.[10] Focus was later shifted to the PlayStation version due to the system’s greater power, ease to program for, and CD technology.[6] The Saturn version came later in the development.[citation needed] 32X and 3DO Interactive Multiplayer versions were also announced,[11] but never released. -Wikipedia