The Genesis on a Chip (GOAC) Thread!

Hi guys,

I have been thinking about this for a couple of days, since I started up the Megadrive X thread, and was thinking it may be nice to have a place to share, and discuss the various unofficial GOAC’s. Eg The Megadrive x and the Radica consoles ect.

Things I think should be included.

Name/Model Number:

Pics:

Compatibility: 32x? Audio or Video mods etc?

Video Score: 10 being highest (Short description)

Sound Score: 10 being highest (Short description)

Review: Write what you think about it. Design, durability etc…

Availability: How easy are these to find, and where are they? EG Asia, Europe, Global, on eBay ect.

Price: Rough guideline price:

Please feel free to share as much or as little as you like.

REVIEWS:

GenMobile (Emulator on a TitanARM Chip) - by djshok - http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...l=1#post519691

TecToy-580G by Ace - http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...l=1#post522043

Expect a long writeup of various GOACs I've had personal experience with (and the clones they're used in) in the coming days. *gathers information collected from GOACs tested*

Here's the only one I've had any serious experience with.

Hyperkin GenMobile

http://ep.yimg.com/ca/I/ddrgame_2229_150813393.jpg

Compatibility: Not compatible with 32x or Power Base Converter for obvious reasons due to size. Most likely not compatible with Virtua Racing or other problematic carts ie: Gargoyles, EX Mutants, etc... Although I was unable to test these due to the fact that these things are so poorly built it was impossible to fit an actual Genesis cartridge into the cart slot. (yes you read that correctly, the carts don't fit into this POS, more details below)

Video Score: Surprisingly the video quality on this thing isn't all bad. For the 20 games that it has built in (ESWAT, Golden Axe, Columns, etc...) the video looked pretty decent on the small screen (except Sonic 3D Blast which looked bad). Some of the sprites had missing pixels, but it wasn't overly terrible looking. 7/10

Sound Score: The sound is crap. A sad combination of low quality speakers and poorly emulated sound. Not good at all. 4/10 There's sound there, and it sort of sounds like what the games are supposed to sound like, but it's just generally unpleasant and you'll want to play with the volume off.

Review: If you want to spare yourself reading the following paragraph, then just know this: this product is a useless piece of shit. Here are the details. The build quality is just complete shite. I'm not sure how they designed this thing to take Genesis cartridges because they clearly do not fit into the cart slot. You can try to jam them in there as hard you want but they won't go in deep enough for the cartridge PCB connectors to make a proper connection with the system. The only way I was able to get a cart in there was to take the shell off of it and plug in the bare PCB. That was the only proof I got that the cartridge function on this thing even works. The next problem was pulling the PCB back out, the cart connectors are so tight that trying to pull the cart board back out was something of a feat of strength. That can't be good for the pin connectors (good thing I used some lame sports game to test this system). Once I finally managed to pull the cart PCB out, I heard something inside the system crack, and after that it never worked again. All this happened within the first hour of unpackaging.

The 20 built in games work ok, but it's not really the best selection of games. This thing doesn't even come with the mandatory Sonic The Hedgehog, instead you get Sonic Spinball, Sonic 3D Blast (which btw looks terrible on the small screen) and Sonic & Knuckles (the best of the bunch but less cool without Sonic 3).

The TV out works, but that's about the best that can be said of it. The quality of the composite cable, and/or of the video output looks about as good as what you'd get from the RF connection on a standard Genesis minus colour sharpness (all the colours look washed out), and the sound is just awful at that point.

I've tried 2 of these systems a black one and a blue one. The only difference is it was a little easier to get the cartridge back out of the black one, but they are both equally shitty. Avoid this thing at all costs. It'll likely damage whatever game you're trying to plug in there, and even if it doesn't, the cheap plastic and poor soldering on this thing means it'll probably break within a week of use anyway. 0/10 for an absolute piece of junk that wouldn't even make a good paperweight (the shit quality plastic case doesn't weigh very much).

Availability: Easy enough to find online. Just google it. Thankfully they're less popular than they were a year ago, but there are still enough online retailers trying to hawk these turds.

Price: $30-$60, which is $30-$60 more than it's worth.

I *think* the GenMobile is a Firecore = emulation based handheld, not a GOAC.

You might be right, I'm not 100% sure myself, since it's a Hyperkin, and I'm not sure what exactly they do. Either way, I thought people would benefit from the review in case anyone ever got the urge to buy one of these things.

If a Geniclone says AtGames on its, it's not a GOAC. It's software emulation via a Titan ARM core, which I believe should not be considered in this thread at all.

Just found the AtGames logo so it's definitely a Firecore based device.

That's something I always wondered about, is AtGames and Hyperking the same thing?

No, AtGames is a North-American company founded by "industry veterans" (i.e. Acclaim?, ex-SOA?) and located in the Bermudas. AtGames owns the exclusive distribution rights to all things Sega in Greater China. They came up with the Firecore concept. They are to blame that hundreds of millions of customers ended up with an inferior product to even the worst clone imaginable.

Hyperkin simply owns the North-American distribution rights to one or two AtGames products. That's it.

Then why is AtGames shitting on the Genesis name

From their perspective they did the right thing: Come up with a way to make the hardware even cheaper to produce and sell it for big money. I am sure they made more money with Sega's IP than almost anyone could have anticipated. Much more.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Christuserloeser

No, AtGames is a North-American company founded by "industry veterans" (i.e. Acclaim?, ex-SOA?) and located in the Bermudas. AtGames owns the exclusive distribution rights to all things Sega in Greater China. They came up with the Firecore concept. They are to blame that hundreds of millions of customers ended up with an inferior product to even the worst clone imaginable.

Hyperkin simply owns the North-American distribution rights to one or two AtGames products. That's it.

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So Hyperkin is just the distributor while AtGames is the actual developer of the hardware?

AtGames produce the hardware. They're not the actual developer of the ARM based "Titan" chip nor the software running on it. That'd be "Digital Media Cartridge", a Taiwanese company hired for the job. Involved in the final stages of development were ex-SOA engineers like T. Morita.

So it's not AtGames fault for there systems being shit, It's the Taiwanese company

Interesting. It's a shame that's where Sega engineers went after the fall. I guess they had bills to pay. It's pretty sad though, it's like seeing a popular musician become increasingly less relevant until one day you catch them playing a solo gig at some sleezy dive bar with 3 sad drunks in the audience. :(