After being introduced to The Sega Guys Podcast over the Christmas break, I've been reminded how brilliant Sega were and I've found myself staying up late at night, looking into Japanese Saturn’s, PAL Dreamcasts and the Analogue Mega SG.
I had a Mega Drive back in the day and have revisited the console at least twice over the years, playing all the big PAL UK games but haven't delved into the Japan only games. I also had a Dreamcast on UK launch day and have had the pleasure of playing all the best DC games over the years, both home and abroad, and still enjoy using the wonderful emulator Redream on my PC. I feel that overall, I had my fun with these 2 great systems.
But the Saturn is different. In the late Autumn of 1996, I had a choice to make; Do I ask for a PlayStation with Ridge Racer or a Saturn with Sega Rally for Christmas? I could only have 1 and I plumped for the PlayStation. I don’t regret the choice at all as the PS was mana from heaven with loads of games, demos and all my friends had one. But because of that, I missed the Saturn in its heyday and didn’t play the classics till much later when I picked up a pre-owned model. However, my love affair with Sega’s 32-bit classic was short lived as my console developed a fault a few months after I picked it up and eventually, I chucked it out when it stopped reading discs.
I want to rectify this.
I would love a Japanese Saturn along with some new Saturn controllers from Retro-Bit along with some of the classic games in 60hz goodness. But I’m concerned about the following and was wondering if any Saturn fiends here had any suggestions, before I go all in or not!
Many thanks for any advice, and here's a tune I've had stuck in my head for the past few days as I've been obsessing over the Saturn.
I had a Mega Drive back in the day and have revisited the console at least twice over the years, playing all the big PAL UK games but haven't delved into the Japan only games. I also had a Dreamcast on UK launch day and have had the pleasure of playing all the best DC games over the years, both home and abroad, and still enjoy using the wonderful emulator Redream on my PC. I feel that overall, I had my fun with these 2 great systems.
But the Saturn is different. In the late Autumn of 1996, I had a choice to make; Do I ask for a PlayStation with Ridge Racer or a Saturn with Sega Rally for Christmas? I could only have 1 and I plumped for the PlayStation. I don’t regret the choice at all as the PS was mana from heaven with loads of games, demos and all my friends had one. But because of that, I missed the Saturn in its heyday and didn’t play the classics till much later when I picked up a pre-owned model. However, my love affair with Sega’s 32-bit classic was short lived as my console developed a fault a few months after I picked it up and eventually, I chucked it out when it stopped reading discs.
I want to rectify this.
I would love a Japanese Saturn along with some new Saturn controllers from Retro-Bit along with some of the classic games in 60hz goodness. But I’m concerned about the following and was wondering if any Saturn fiends here had any suggestions, before I go all in or not!
- Is buying an un-modded Japanese Saturn wise? I'm aware of CD drives dying / battery needs replacing etc and wonder if buying hardware in 2022 is a good idea.
- Are their any good solutions for getting a Saturn signal onto an HDTV through HDMI that looks good?
- Is their a guy or company who have an accepted mod I should take a look at and go through them instead?
Many thanks for any advice, and here's a tune I've had stuck in my head for the past few days as I've been obsessing over the Saturn.

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