















After giving the high-end, HDMI-enabled aftermarket treatment to both NES and SNES hardware , Analogue is now setting its sights on recreating and upgrading Sega's classic game consoles. The $189 Mega Sg, shipping next April, promises full FPGA-driven, HDMI-powered support for a bevy of early Sega cartridges.

Out of the box, the Mega Sg will offer region-free support for Genesis/Mega Drive and Sega Master System cartridges, the latter via an included adapter. Other optional cartridge adapters (which should sell for about $10 each) will add support for the Game Gear and international Sega systems like the SG-1000, SC-3000, and Mark III. Users will also be able to connect a standard Sega CD/Mega CD hardware to play Sega's earliest CD-ROM games.

Like the Super Nt and Analogue Nt Mini before it, the Mega Sg is built on top of a Altera Cyclone V field-programmable gate array, now coded to perfectly mimic the Motorola 68000 chip that was at the heart of the Genesis. Building that FPGA recreation from scratch took an entire year, Analogue's Christopher Taber told Ars, a process that could yield additional benefits for Analogue down the road. "The cool thing is once we implement chips in FPGA, if another system or piece of hardware uses them, that's done now," he said.

Retro Sega fans may notice the 32X as the only pre-Saturn Sega system not supported natively by the Mega Sg. Analogue's Christopher Taber points out that the 32X's analog multi-link cables make it difficult to get a full HD-compatible signal from the original hardware. That said, Taber said Analogue is "exploring solutions for using the original hardware in conjunction with Mega Sg for post-launch." That includes looking into a direct FPGA implementation of the 32X hardware, a process Taber says should be possible with additional time after the Mega SG's release.

The Mega Sg will be able to use original Genesis controllers or optional wireless Genesis controllers that 8BitDo will be releasing alongside the system. The system will be available in cases mimicking the US, EU, and Japanese release of the original Genesis/Mega Drive hardware, as well as a largely featureless white case option.

We've been impressed with the quality and authenticity of Analogue's previous retro hardware revivals and are excited to see the company moving out of the Nintendo ecosystem. For Genesis fans that want to go beyond the limited library of the recently delayed official Sega Genesis Mini or the less-than-perfect emulation of other Genesis clone hardware, this seems like a strong option to keep an eye on.