I got to go to E3 this year and found the Video Game Museum! Much to my surprise, they had a Sega Neptune there. I still wonder if there are any working prototypes out there sine this one seems to be a mock-up by Sega. "Sega announced this combo Genesis/32X console but never delivered. It's believe that this was the actual mock-up shown at trade shows."
afaik it's just a shell. Still kicking myself for losing that ebay auction, it went for something real low the first time like 200....
I could be wrong but think I remember seeing some shells on ebay a couple of years ago from a french seller. They were white and didn't have the 32x or Sega logo on them so I assume they were reproduction molds. They contained a MegaDrive modded with a region switch inside. It would be awesome to get one of those now and do a Neptune mod, although looking at the size, I'm not sure everything would fit inside.
You're thinking of the replacement Atari Jaguar cases. After Atari and the Jaguar died, a medical equipment maker bought up the injection moulds for the system. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qCtiRu-G_M
No. I'm definitely not thinking of those. The way I remember it, i was killing a few minutes before I was about the head out when I saw them. The seller was french and and the units were white and shrink wrapped with cheapo plastic. It wasn't listed as Neptune or anything, just MegaDrive. At the time I didn't think anything about it and just assumed that someone had managed to get a Neptune shell and copy it or at least recreate a close facsimile. With that said, wasn't there a pirate console of some sorts that uses a Neptune looking shell? It could have been something like that but I remember it looking every bit like the pictures of the Neptune I had seen albeit white. ****edit**** 7Forces' vid makes me question my ability for recollection and how I perceive reality. I could have seen that and thought I saw something else BUT I remember being shocked at the site of a white Neptune case. "The more I see, the less I know for sure." -John Lennon
That console isn't just a shell, those front controller ports are real, and they need to be mounted to something, so there's definitely some kind of board inside there. I'm betting though, it's probably just a Mega Drive 2 main board inside the concept a Neptune case. You didn't happen to see the back did you? Were there real video/power connectors there? Looking closer though, it looks like the shell on the underside is a standard Mega Drive 2 bottom shell that's been slightly modified to make it a bit longer, so only the top of the plastic shell has been fabricated. I suspect that's basically a Mega Drive 2 with a custom top cover.
The thing was locked in a glass case, so I couldn't see other than the front and side. I personally wouldn't be surprised if they just took the ports of a Genesis board and stuck it on the front to look complete. It could be the skeptical part of me, but I think it's just a hallow case.
Don't they take the time to clean it? The grills looks to be full of dust and that looks like white paint dropped on it.
Shell or not, I really like the Neptune's design. If SEGA had released an all-in-one 32X instead of that ridiculous attachment, perhaps the Genesis could have become an incrementally upgraded series of hardware like the Game Boy. What might have been. :/
It was too late by the release of the 32X to be doing anything like that. When the Sega CD was being released, that's when they should have done something to keep the Genesis technically competitive with the competition. Really what Genesis needed most probably wouldn't have been implemented in existing hardware easily, but quite simply a graphical upgrade with the number of color palettes available. Other than that the Genesis could keep up well. I suppose if you released an upgraded version of the Genesis back then with some sound and video upgrades that could have worked. Maybe a better YM chip, a VDP with more color sets, higher palette bit depth (more total colors available), and more sprites per scanline would have been very nice. The 32X was interesting but probably a bad idea no matter what.
I think it's only a shell. This guy who used to work at Sega (forgot his name) found it in a dumpster there, I think. He's also found some handheld mockups or something.
The GBC wasn't a clean break like the 32X, you could still play games on the regular GB, it wasn't until 1999-2000 that some GBC games were GBC-only. My point is there was a transition. As you say a Genesis with more colors and better sound might have worked: games would still play fine on the regular Genesis, just low-quality. Eventually there would be "Genesis Plus"-only games that like with the GBC take advantage of the upgrades to the max, and those wont be able to run on a regular Genesis no matter what. But then again Nintendo wasn't doing that back then either, it started after the GBC, then with the GBA (although those were extra features like backlite, not true upgrades) and then the DS (lite, DSi, XL). Tech-wise the Wii its a Gamecube plus: new case, faster chips, more memory.
