If you are like me, you will buy old computers and consoles for a whim off ebay. It’s a treasure trove for us retro gamers. One essential (in my eye) purchase is the Sega Saturn, Sega’s earlier launched but ultimately commercially troublesome rival to the Sony Playstation. It was completely blown away by Playstation’s marketing to the mainstream. Which is a shame, as the Saturn had some good games.

One piece of advice to you would be don’t bother buying a backup cartridge, the internal memory does just a good enough job, however – if you are buying it on ebay, you may find that this greets you every time you boot up your machine.

This basically means your battery backup is screwed. So you’ve lost all the unlocked characters on Fighters Megamix, your high score on NiGHTS and your 30 yeard screamer on Sega Worldwide Soccer. Don’t worry though, as – surprisingly – the battery backup is really easy to replace.

All you need is a standard watch battery, but not just any watch battery, you need a CR2032 3V battery like this off Amazon . Don’t get one off ebay, as they turn the price up immensely, marketing it as a “Sega Saturn Replacement Battery”.

Unplug your Saturn and turn it so that the controller ports are facing away from you. On the back, you should see a little flap on the right hand side, this is easily taken out, where you will see this.



By placing your fingernail under the battery, and with not much pressure, you can lift out the battery no problem. Dispose of safely.

Finally, slide the replacement battery in grooved side down, replace the cover and switch on the Saturn.

Simple, it takes 3 minutes, costs less than a pint and you can once again save your games again.