Time Extension | News Comments

Re: Please Stop Buying Unofficial "Saturn Mini" Consoles

Mon, 23 Sep 2024 11:45:40 GMT

More than 9 million Saturns were sold...! Its unreasonable to discourage people from buying one of these.

If you want to argue about issues with the Saturn's legacy... I suggest you take it up with SEGA directly.

How many sodding Mega Drive consoles/collections/remakes/licensed "knock offs"! Licensed! It's unbelievable what's out there that SEGA themselves have approved and encouraged!

The same games... over and over and over and over again. Golden Axe. Sonic. Streets of rage. Ecco The Dolphin.... over. And. Over. Again.

Yet the Saturn? Diddly squat. AliExpress are not the problem... SEGA are the problem.

By nocdaes

Re: Please Stop Buying Unofficial "Saturn Mini" Consoles

Sat, 21 Sep 2024 10:31:11 GMT

Hmm, I can see both sides to this. On one hand, its good if they're taking broken Saturns, and giving them second life, I like this. On the other hand, the issue is that hypothetically if this continues long term then eventually 'traditional Saturns' will be harder to come by in the future.

This doesn't affect me personally since I own 4 Saturns (2 US, 2 JP), and I have a Fenrir, so I'm set. But if you think of the worst case scenario, this could sort of be an issue. But then again, if they aren't making a lot of these, then it could be nothing in the end.

As the years go on, I can see many people using FPGA replacements instead of original hardware. I myself am heavily considering the upcoming portable MiSTer device, where I can play Saturn on the go.

By Chocoburger

Re: Please Stop Buying Unofficial "Saturn Mini" Consoles

Fri, 20 Sep 2024 18:23:30 GMT

@knight0fdragon I think perhaps you underestimate the cost of items and the cost of labor/time/overhead to make something like this. The proof you're looking for is the basics of capitalism. Amazon or Walmart are not selling you products for $3 that they paid $1.50 for, they paid maybe .10 cents and sell it for $3.

It would make little business sense to buy working Saturns at retail prices and then put all the time/energy into something like this(3d printing, sourcing chips, soldering, designing the console, testing, etc.). That's a lot of work for something that sells for less than $200. And they are selling so people want them.

The only way this Aliexpress seller makes a profit is if everything they get is dirt cheap in addition to the labor and overhead costs(employees, rent for work space, utilities, shipping supplies, what ever safety regulated requirements/supplies they may have, etc.) . The odds that they're get working consoles so they can permanently turn them into something else is slim to none. It's possible, sure, but I would bet they got a pallet of "junk" consoles for maybe $10 each.

Also the $28 Saturns on eBay(if that's what you're referring to with $20 Saturns) shipping is $40 so after taxes you're paying over $70 for console only. That's the catch on eBay, the seller can charge any amount for shipping, make a profit that way and keep the item price low.

By Hexapus

Re: Please Stop Buying Unofficial "Saturn Mini" Consoles

Fri, 20 Sep 2024 12:34:38 GMT

@city952 yes that is what i thought too..

and to be honest, i do not agree with the stance... why is 'their'us eof a saturn inherently better than the enjoyment of someone else....

By romanista

Re: Please Stop Buying Unofficial "Saturn Mini" Consoles

Fri, 20 Sep 2024 11:54:25 GMT

Less than 200 sold.

If you're still finding 20 dollar Japanese Saturns, then there are loads of them still kicking around. This isn't affecting the market for original hardware in any meaningful way, and again, in such small quantities, the use of faulty units is entirely plausible. Even if your margin is only a couple bucks more by using faulty units, you're going to use them; the goal of a business is to make the most money possible, not "enough" money. And seeing as you can sell one of those functional 20 dollar Saturns for nearly or as much as these Slims are going for, while a parts unit goes for about 30-60 bucks, why would anyone put the work into modifying a fully functional Saturn when they could just flip it with virtually no labour, time, or material cost?

By CocktailCabinet

Re: Please Stop Buying Unofficial "Saturn Mini" Consoles

Fri, 20 Sep 2024 06:12:20 GMT

It is not just what they are doing. It is the next person that does something similar, and the person after that, and the person after that.

You can get Japanese Saturns for $20 still, if you are paying $200 you are not looking in the right places.

That margin you are thinking of, is a few dollars at most.

By knight0fdragon

Re: Please Stop Buying Unofficial "Saturn Mini" Consoles

Fri, 20 Sep 2024 05:19:26 GMT

@knight0fdragon Even assuming that they are taking fully functional Saturns, how many of these things are being made? They could make thousands of these and not deplete the overall supply meaningfully. Going through AliExpress, they tell you how many have been sold. It's 135 units currently across all the SKUs a search brought up for me. That's not a number that's going to impact the supply or price of unmodified Saturns in any way. It's also pretty plausible, in those quantities, that they were machines with bad drives. They're selling for about $200-300 CAD right now, seemingly depending on if they come with a monitor. Unmodified Saturns with working drives are going for similar prices, if not more, so it wouldn't make any sense to use those. Even if they were getting a good price, they'd get a much better price on faulty machines and higher margins as a result, so that's what they'd use to do this.

By CocktailCabinet

Re: Please Stop Buying Unofficial "Saturn Mini" Consoles

Thu, 19 Sep 2024 23:57:33 GMT

@knight0fdragon if I were to buy a Saturn today, this is absolutely how I'd want it to be out of the box. You don't see value, I do. I'm sure all 5 people that want to buy a pristine Saturn today as it was when it was relevant are going to cry themselves to sleep over this non-issue.

By duffmmann

Re: Please Stop Buying Unofficial "Saturn Mini" Consoles

Thu, 19 Sep 2024 23:56:44 GMT

@SlangWon aww capitalism at work. What a shame.

By duffmmann

Re: Please Stop Buying Unofficial "Saturn Mini" Consoles

Thu, 19 Sep 2024 22:18:18 GMT

The "Sega Saturn Slim" Is Now Our Most-Wanted Hardware Of 2024. "Won't require any board trimming"
by Damien McFerran Tue, 1:30am

And then the next day...

Please Stop Buying Unofficial "Saturn Mini" Consoles. Hacked consoles are "far more destructive than they are useful"
by Damien McFerran Wed, 9pm

Pick a side, Damo!

By cragv

Re: Please Stop Buying Unofficial "Saturn Mini" Consoles

Thu, 19 Sep 2024 21:34:24 GMT

@SlangWon no they are not and you have zero evidence to even support this claim. JFC the lengths people go to spread delusion.

By knight0fdragon

Re: Please Stop Buying Unofficial "Saturn Mini" Consoles

Thu, 19 Sep 2024 20:49:16 GMT

@knight0fdragon They are taking what they can get for a low price. Mainly defective ones, especially ones with a defective or broken disc drive. Of course they are raising them from the dead because these drive-less Saturns are doing exactly the same thing as the original ones - they play Saturn games on real hardware. The only thing this is truly killing are the obscenely overpriced second-hand game discs. And this I welcome.

By SlangWon

Re: Please Stop Buying Unofficial "Saturn Mini" Consoles

Thu, 19 Sep 2024 17:18:49 GMT

@SlangWon didn’t say supply goes up but regardless manufacturing is not the only way supply goes up. Manufacturing is how the overall supply increases, but what is on the market always fluctuates by who is buying and who is selling.

What makes you think they are raising systems from the dead? These folks are taking working Saturns with working drives and turning them into these “new” consoles. It is killing the overall supply, not the market supply.

By knight0fdragon

Re: Please Stop Buying Unofficial "Saturn Mini" Consoles

Thu, 19 Sep 2024 15:37:15 GMT

@knight0fdragon "Supplies of the system are high"? How does that work? Given the facts that Sega stopped producing consoles long time ago and the circulating hardware dies eventually, supplies go down, not up. I can tell you from experience that the drive usually dies first. So if you can play games without it, get rid of it. Anybody who repairs used Saturns and sells them is raising the system from the dead. Whether it's an individual or AliExpress.

By SlangWon

Re: Please Stop Buying Unofficial "Saturn Mini" Consoles

Thu, 19 Sep 2024 14:29:41 GMT

@plorp I very much agree it's a gatekeeping YouTuber circle. They can't have Aliexpress doing what they're doing. 😆

By slider1983

Re: Please Stop Buying Unofficial "Saturn Mini" Consoles

Thu, 19 Sep 2024 13:42:41 GMT

@SlangWon This hurts people who want to buy Saturns in the future and have to pay jacked up prices instead of affordable prices because supplies of the system are high.

By knight0fdragon

Re: Please Stop Buying Unofficial "Saturn Mini" Consoles

Thu, 19 Sep 2024 13:41:20 GMT

@duffmmann they aren't making Saturns useful again, they are making Saturns less useful. This isn't done by some ethical group looking to give new life to broken Saturns.

By knight0fdragon

Re: Please Stop Buying Unofficial "Saturn Mini" Consoles

Thu, 19 Sep 2024 09:57:23 GMT

@duffmmann The issue is that collectors jacked up prices for second hand copies in order to resell with profit in the future. Consoles without drives hurt their "business-tactics".

By SlangWon

Re: Please Stop Buying Unofficial "Saturn Mini" Consoles

Thu, 19 Sep 2024 07:03:49 GMT

I don't understand, they're making Saturns useful again and that's a bad thing? Like I get it, you want to preserve history or whatever, but selling the devices in the form they're now in gives those old systems new life and allows the owner to play the entire Saturn catalog without fear of the system slowly dying and unable to read discs anymore.

Sure, it's a little sad to not be able to play the actual physical discs anymore. But what's the big deal? Keep the physical games you have and display them how you please. And just use a digital copy to play. I truly don't get the issue here.

By duffmmann

Re: Please Stop Buying Unofficial "Saturn Mini" Consoles

Thu, 19 Sep 2024 05:08:52 GMT

The only mini Saturn I'd ever buy would be a handheld Saturn system crammed into a 3D Saturn controller. I've even thought of a whole design for it. It would have a chargeable battery, a circular lid covering all of the buttons, a screen on the underside of that lid which even comes with simulated CRT shader setting, then lastly, a second release button below the start button that lifts up the whole front face plate, revealing an ODE disc drive. The catrige port would be on the back.

By RandyButternubs