Yearning to play some good old-fashioned 16-bit games? There's no need to hunt for the actual 16-bit consoles of years past, because Blaze managed to come up with a portable version of the Sega MegaDrive, with 20 gaming favorites built-in. The specifics and the video of the handheld in action in the full article.

Ever had one of those days where you just wanted to shoot your alarm clock? You might want to take a look at this little how-to guide on how to do just that, and let your alarm clock survive to boot. Follow the "read more" link below for more.

We previously reported on Tectoy's Sega Mega Drive portable. Now it's available on Play-Asia for US$ 39.90. You'll be able to play games such as Sonic and Knuckles, Golden Axe, and Kid Chameleon. If you're not satisfied with the screen sizes of portables devices, you'll be happy to know that this gadget also has a TV out connection.

If you're interested in learning to know more about this device, click on the "read more" link.

Official Brazilian Sega distributor TecToy has just announced a new portable gaming device for the region. This is not an entirely new platform, however, as the gadget is based from Sega's fourth-generation console Mega Drive.

It will become available on December 5 for roughly around US$ 100. TecToy's Portable Mega Drive comes in a cool blue finish, reminiscent of Sega's most beloved character and mascot Sonic the Hedgehog. To know about its full details, check the "read more" link below.

Back then, before Sony and Microsoft joined the console wars, Nintendo was up against Sega. PlayStation came around, and big companies turned tail like SquareSoft's Final Fantasy and Konami's Metal Gear Solid moving to the more powerful machine. FF: Crystal Chronicles: Crystal Bearers is going out on the Wii, and Snake is giving Super Smash Bros Brawl a visit, but the dark past still remains.

One would say that a heavy rivalry has sparked between these two Japanese companies (Nintendo and Sony) now, as both vie for market supremacy. Now for those who don't know, despite that, the two actually had a partnership to develop the Super Disc, circa SNES era. Working on an SNES CD-Rom add-on, Sony went further than what Ninty requested and changed even the console's chipset.

200 units of these somewhat mythical machines were produced, but never made it commercially. Licensing issues and legal problems tore the project apart, and the companies went their separate ways. Sony kept the technology they developed and included it in the PS, while the rival could do nothing 'til N64 came out.

Website Game Rave posted images of what they claim as the "real" prototype version of the PlayStation/Super Famicom. Site owner Jason Dvorak called it "the biggest monumental success story of the video game industry since the NES" even if it was never released.

According to Console Database, it was supposed to be called "SNES Nintendo Disk Drive" - a product of Sony, Nintendo, and Phillips. Sony contributed to the chipset, while Phillips owned the CD-ROM.

It's probably difficult to salvage what's left of the failed attempt. How anyone would get a hand on the prototypes, we may never know. Are these pics the real deal? You decide.

  

 

Some endings are meant to be bitter. As much as a lot of us loved and still love Sega, the ultimate end has finally come. Last Friday, the company announced that it will no longer offer repair services for the nice but short-lived Sega Dreamcast.

The company stopped the manufacture of the machine six years ago but games were still developed and published long after. The Sega website apologized to the consumers who will be left hanging on to the systems and thanked their hardware fans for the loyalty through the years.

These users will have to find someone to fix their machines or do it themselves if they ever bust the old consoles. The Dreamcast was the world's first 128-bit system. There was even talk of a comeback, but we know better now, don't we?

We all know that before we get to enjoy the next-gen consoles being marketed today, their models undergo a lot of revisions. Prototypes are made and approved or disapproved, according to how the makers think they're going to sell; because no matter how cool a gadget may seem, its most important consideration is its marketability. The next-gen consoles that we enjoy now all evolved from the former models that picked up, but wouldn't it be interesting to know the consoles that could-have-been? 

TechBlog enumerates 5 unreleased video gaming systems that we never knew about. In a parallel universe, the next-gen consoles evolved from these, so read on.

1. Sega Neptune - When the Sega Saturn became a hit, this was scrapped. Only two non-functioning prototypes were made. An interesting trivia: Electronic Gaming Monthly once entertained their readers to an ad selling these babies on a website. When added to the cart, the would-be buyers were greeted to an "April Fool's!"

2. Atari Jaguar Duo - A whole warehouse full of these consoles do exist, they say. Production's been cancelled when its sales flopped after a year in the market, debuting three games. It's an Atari Jaguar and CD combined.

3. Nanogear - A handheld able to play PC games, the idea for this console never took off from the conceptualizing stage. The website is sometimes up, harboring talk that this might still be released someday. We'll see...

4. Sega VR - This was a child of the "Virtual Reality" trend. It's a headgear for , but the makers were afraid of having future users walking into traffic with this on their heads. Needless to say, the idea was cancelled but some claim that it actually got up to the production phase.
playing first-person shooters like Doom.

5. Nintendo SNES CD - Nintendo got into a bit of a legal trouble when it collaborated with Sony for this console but entertained Sony rival Panasonic for it, also.  Panasonic did get its Nintendo deal but Sony went on to make Playstation. What if...?

There you go - the unreleased gaming gadgets that we might not have ever heard of. What could have happened if these were released instead? Wouldn't it be cool to have these gadgets for show, just because? What if you guys could come up with homebrew games for these prototypes? Ah, the possibilities are endless, and the source link is right underneath for those of you who want to do a bit of sleuthing.  You'll never know if any of these could still sell, marketed  by you...

Nokia has been rumored to re-enter the handhelds game market for quite a while now. There are a lot of hushed talks about it, but the giant mobile phone manufacturer has been playing mind games with both the competition and consumers as well. Apparently all those end today.

Online site Pocket Gamer mentioned that Nokia actually held a top-secret workshop for publishers and developers in Santa Monica last week. Accordingly, the company unveiled N-Gage II for the first time in the said workshop and provided the attendees with its technical aspects.

A lot of analysts actually credit the original N-Gage's failure to lack of games but if these attendees are serious on making games for Nokia, then we're sure that there will be hell to pay for Nintendo and Sony. Those who were at the workshop are as follows:

Disney, Sega Of America, Sony Online Entertainment, Universal, Square Enix, Capcom, THQ Wireless, Glu Mobile, Digital Chocolate, EA Mobile, Tecmo, Namco, Vivendi Games, and first party developers Backbone Entertainment and Foundation9.

Furthermore, Nokia explained how next-gen N-Gage games will be distributed as well as something called the "N-Gage activation code system." Would-be publishers are also said to be able to track and manage their own games. The on hand publishers also got their own SDKs as well. And so, is 2007 going to be the year the handhelds console war begins anew? This is going to be exciting.

Are you familiar with Modojo.com? Not quite? Well, we're on the same page but it just so happened that we came across them today. Actually, it is a website dedicated to gadgets which include gaming handhelds. To our amusement, they have there a feature article that lists the top ten portable flops ever.

While we don't agree 100% and we're having some reservations ourselves, we thought it would be well to put it out in the open. In that way, we can all discuss it, compare notes and have the decision made among ourselves. It seems well to us that Modojo holds the Gameboy and the DS in such high esteem. The list furthermore, as their site claims, include noteworthy systems which either failed hard, or, well, failed really hard.

10. Atari Lynx - remarkably powerful with 16-bit graphics engine and a 4096 hue color palette; however it consumed batteries so fast, U.S. $189.99 entry price and the skateboard-like shape.

See the full list after the jump!

While we tend to take those "iPod killer" nicknames with a grain of salt these days, Microsoft's Zune probably stands more of a chance than the rest of the field. The prime reason is the fact that Microsoft is building the Live service to envelop every device of theirs. While it may take a bit of time to fine-tune and polish every aspect of it, I'm sure Microsoft has enough moolah to keep everything going just fine.

Computerworld has an article up which talks about how Apple might just be scared of the Zune. While they've "innocently" left out a few things and skewed a few statistics, I still think I'd believe them. When I was thinking about the Zune the other day, one of the few things which I found to be very cool was the fact that I would buy it knowing that it would fit seamlessly with the rest of the Microsoft devices in my home. Now that includes my media center pc, my Xbox 360, and probably a few more things which I might buy in the time to come.

One of the main reason why I'd buy this is the strong integration with Live, and consequently, Xbox Live. You see, the Live service has been one of the greatest things to have ever happened to console gaming. Even though other manufacturers like Sega had tried it with the dreamcast, Microsoft did a helluva job. The result was an unbeatable success. Getting the Zune to "talk" on Live might add a lot of great things. For example, you could probably buy songs from the Zune marketplace on your Xbox 360, play them on it, transfer them to your Zune, and God knows what else. The fact that Microsoft hasn't advertised it right now doesn't mean it couldn't happen in the future.

The other great thing about it is that you can share your music over Wifi among your friends. This concept can be great for new bands who want to be heard. There's no better way to get yourself known than the viral way. If it works, then nice bands could be overnight rockstars! The only grudge I have is that if I've received a shared song from my friend, I can't share it to other people. This means that a song can't hit big-time until enough people have bought it and are sharing it with their friends.

I'll probably buy the thing because I'm bored with the music capabilities of my PSP. Let's hope it goes well!