The hotel that I was staying at for the past three days (Awana Genting Highlands) had a convenience store which also stocked several video game consoles, no doubt for bored tourist kids who can’t be bothered with all the great outdoor fun Awana has to offer. The jungle trails which played host to Trailblazer 08 (read my race report here) are of particular interest, but anyways..
The shop had a couple of Sega Genesis for sale, but these aren’t your run of the mill Sega Megadrive consoles. One thing, not only do they support the usual cartridges, these have games pre-loaded. The price? RM 169, or USD 48.
It does sound like an expensive piece of kit, and before you Sega/retro loving nut rush off to get one, here’s an alternative, the cheaper and official Sega endorsed product, the Sega Mega Drive Twin Pad Player.
Loaded up with 20 Sega licensed games (including Alien Storm, Altered Beast, Sonic and Knuckles, etc), it also plays original Mega Drive and Genesis games. The console comes with a convenient NTSC/PAL switch, to switch the console between the US NTSC Genesis and PAL Mega Drive modes. Best of all, it is now selling at a discounted price of USD 29.90 over at Play-Asia.
Here’s the description of the console, taken from Play-Asia:
The Sega Mega Drive Twin Pad Player from Sega’s official China distributor AtGames brings back all the memories of Sega’s 16bit era. This official product does not only feature twenty hot built-in Mega Drive games, but also plays all original Sega Mega Drive and Sega Genesis games from all regions* (Japan, USA and Europe) as well as specially designed AtGames RedKid cartridges**. Further included in the package are two six-button joypads, an AV Mono cable, a multi voltage power supply as well as an instructions sheet.
The Twin Pad Player features standard Mega Drive joypad ports, so other official or third party pads can be connected in exchange of those ones that are supplied with this bundle.
*Note: The Twin Pad Player features an NTSC/PAL switch to switch your console between US NTSC Genesis and PAL Mega Drive Mode. Japanese Mega Drive games can generally be played in US NTSC mode, however some newer titles (such as Comix Zone) are not compatible due to region protection code. Incompatibility of some other titles may also occur.
**RedKid cartridges are officially licensed Mega Drive cartridges distributed by AtGames. Various game cartridges, including multi game compilations are and further will be made available in the future.
Interested? Click here for purchase details or to find out more about the pre-loaded games in this console.
