MD The SEGA Venus Prototype (sorta revealed)

[Greg2600]

https://www.retrorgb.com/sega-venus-prototype-revealed.html

 

[T_chan]

I also like the 4 reasons for the name "Katana" (16:16):
1) because it sounds like "katana akan" (dialect for "We need to win")
2) because it included the meaning of "cutting the US rival console in two" (the blackbelt project)
3) because it was the name that least sounded like a game console of all the candidate names
4) because the development library was called "NINJA"

All reasons existed, but the final reason for choosing Katana was 3)

 

[StevO9389]

They just "denied" the existence of a prototype in which two examples are known to exist in private hands after doing "a lot of searching". Someone must have really wanted that thing buried.

 

[8bitplus]

I think it looks better than the final Nomad. Its clear that the Japanese and US designs were very different. I wonder if the Nomad was released in Japan and Europe if it would have looked like this..
Its a bit like a larger NeoGeo Pocket

 

[takeshi385]

They just "denied" the existence of a prototype in which two examples are known to exist in private hands after doing "a lot of searching". Someone must have really wanted that thing buried.

He said he can neither confirm nor deny it at 15:42. It’s entirely possible that it was the brainchild of Sega of America. I think the 32x may have been the brainchild of Sega of America, but I may be misremembering.

 

[PrOfUnD Darkness]

I was hoping for some information about the GigaDrive, but it was a surprise he spoke about Jupiter. Pretty cool video.

 

[MetalliC]

I also like the 4 reasons for the name "Katana" (16:16):

4) because the development library was called "NINJA"

original names of Videologic's libraries was different, trivial English names. but was renamed later by Sega to "Ninja" "Kamui" "Shinobi" etc. why ? probably one of reasons was to make people think this thing is 100% true Japanese product (so people will buy it ), not gaijin made as it in significant part is in reality

 

[la-li-lu-le-lo]

original names of Videologic's libraries was different, trivial English names. but was renamed later by Sega to "Ninja" "Kamui" "Shinobi" etc. why ? probably one of reasons was to make people think this thing is 100% true Japanese product (so people will buy it ), not gaijin made as it in significant part is in reality

Videologic primarily developed the CLX2, but I think NEC and Sega had some involvement too. NEC's involvement probably was about trying to design it in order to maximize the efficiency of the manufacturing process. Sega was clearly at least somewhat interested in PowerVR even before the CLX2 likely started development, since they ported Virtual On to it. I think the link between Videologic and NEC was definitely one of the things about PowerVR that appealed to Sega, considering they'd developed PC Engine games in the past. There was also a connection between all of those companies and Virtuality (a British company, like Videologic), so that might've been a factor too.

Whether the Venus is real or not, I think it definitely looks better than the actual retail Nomad.

 

[Druid II]

He said he can neither confirm nor deny it at 15:42. It’s entirely possible that it was the brainchild of Sega of America. I think the 32x may have been the brainchild of Sega of America, but I may be misremembering.

32x was Japan ordering SoA to counter the Jaguar with some expansion, originally something like the SVP chip with extra polygonal power, but then SoA said they could boost the sound and video too if they are already doing that, and they sketched up the 32x on a napkin in a hotel room where they were saying. IIRC they may not have known that the Saturn was coming at the time, but then I wonder how the choice was made for using the same SH2s.
Note that the guy said nothing of this entire history. Does he even bring up the Nomad by name, or just that they were doing a portable megadrive?

For the Pluto, we know nothing of its origins, but the machine is clearly Japanese made, it uses sega of japans board numbering, even had a Japanese label on the inside. The boot rom and region are set to USA but that's a trivial detail (you can swap it in like ten minutes), and it could be that they sent one prototype to the USA while they had others in japan.

Mega Jet (predecessor to the Nomad) and Mega CD were also strangely absent. I always thought the Mega CD was the moon, but that was just a rumour because the cd player had a picture of the moon; the Japanese version just had some clouds.
I suppose neither of those had planet codenames. But then they did miss out two other planet codenames, Titan and Janus (moons of Saturn).

 

[la-li-lu-le-lo]

But then they did miss out two other planet codenames, Titan and Janus (moons of Saturn).

They didn’t miss Titan, that was the ST-V (Sega Titan Video), which was a Saturn-based arcade system.

 

[Druid II]

They didn’t miss Titan, that was the ST-V (Sega Titan Video), which was a Saturn-based arcade system.

I meant that they didn't mention it in the video.

 

[la-li-lu-le-lo]

I meant that they didn't mention it in the video.

I thought that might've been what you meant, but I couldn't tell from the way you phrased it.