The other day I was watching ASSEMbler's YouTube review on the Mega Jet… A couple years ago I actually purchased a boxed Mega Jet from Japan (w/ Japanese ac adaptor btw unlike the one in the YT video). So that review got me thinking. Naturally, I'd like to know if the stories about Indonesian pirates selling the units to a shop in California (acc. to the YT video), and about a video game magazine "recovering them from a warehouse" are true… But I am more interested in the variations (three?) of the game system. I couldn't find a lot of information, apart from various online sites with the same copy&paste general information. So, apart from the home user version released by Sega in 1994, there was a version bundled with car entertainment monitors from Alpine, thus labeled "ALPINE" instead of "MD" on the console. According to this site, the unit came bundled with Sonic 3, a car AC adaptor and a longer A/V cable (compared to the original A/V cable). Any additional information on this unit? Edit: Okay, so I should check those ridiculous "super rare" eBay auctions more often I guess… I just found a decent scan of the back of the box here. It seems the Alpine version was bundled for promotion with the Alpine TVE M015 in-dash monitor: And what about the (presumed) in-flight version mentioned by another member in the forums a couple years ago? I couldn't find a picture of that version at all… Perhaps this guy is holding on of those in-flight units? Could be props for the photo/advertisement though: I imagined to find those units in the usual Japanese mom and pops throughout the past years, or to see them on Yahoo! auctions… :/
The only one I had came in a similar box to that seen in ASSEMbler's video but with Virtua Racing as the pack-in game.
I was part of the magazine recovery (as in I was one of the people who was offered a unit). It was organized by the EDGE Magazine forums. We each paid £50 and after about three months we all received our units. Man that was a long time ago now, the unit I received was the same as you have pictured although without the Alpine logo.
There is a reason why this is called "Mega Jet". It was originally used by JAL on their flights in Japan. Best Denki once had a crap load of Mega Jet units back in 1999 / 2000 that they were selling off at 12'000 yen each. They came in a standard brown card box. I have no idea if these were airline extra stock models, old demo units (doubt it since they all looked new) or some sort of pack in that they couldn't use. The stupid thing is that I never bought one becuase I had a Nomad at the time. Big mistake that was. I should have bought them all because now they go for quite a nice price.
@all: Thanks for the infos! I've found another magazine scan from a Taiwanese website. Finally, a photo of the actual in-flight unit provided by JAL back in the days: View attachment 12150 The little sticker shows the "JAL" logo actually. @Twimfy: So you're saying the offer by EDGE magazine was something like a group buy? This got me thinking as to whether or not their own "pirate story" was made up in order to promote that offer? @Yakumo: Best Denki? I was more of a Yamagiwa Soft guy back in the days, but JPY 12.000 is about what I paid for my Japanese unit. However, it is one of the few systems I bought way after their production run and I must have missed a couple of great deals back then, too.
On a lighter side, how about adding some MEGA JET icons for the forum here? (http://yspixel.jpn.org/icon/game/ico/md.htm)
Yes it was a group buy. The story was they'd all been found as surplus supply in a warehouse belonging to a Japanese airline which was moving or no longer in operation or something. They guy selling them wanted them all gone in one go, there was no mention of it being illegal, we even saw photos inside the warehouse. The guy didn't have the time to list them all individually. If I recall correctly there were around 100 units. £45 covered the unit and £5 covered the shipping. Sadly other than a brief mention in the magazine (I have the copy I'm sure somewhere) there is no record of the transaction due to the fact that the EDGE forums were pretty much always in Beta and got pulled down about a year after the incident. It was the forum I was most active in before I came here. Quite why EDGE kept pulling it down and putting it back up again will always be a mystery to me. Anyway the buy was a success and everybody got their units, it was all orchestrated by one guy in the UK and I remember it being nothing short of a nightmare for him to make sure everyone got their unit. I wish I could tell you more but this was in either in late 2002 or early 2003 (I was just at the end of high school so not 100% sure on the actual year) and my memory of the incident is fuzzy. I no longer have that unit as I sold it with everything else when I went travelling. It's a shame I never kept it but just as is now I had nothing to prove where it came from. At the time it didn't seem like a big deal, it was just a straight forward group buy, quite how the story got twisted the way it did we'll never know.
I was the person who organised the group buy on the Edge forum. But I originally found the seller here on Assembler. He had a whole load of units that he wanted to sell in bulk so as I knew more people on Edge I started the group purchase on there. The seller was sketchy about the source of the units but I know Indonesian sea pirates were mentioned elsewhere! They were shipped in bulk to another Edge member in Ireland and he did the hard work of packing them and sending them out to the individual buyers. I bought two, one came with a football (soccer) game and the other came with a Dragonball Z cart (I think). I still have one of the units which I've never used except to test it works. The purchase was mentioned in one of the Edge magazine Retro special editions which I also still have somewhere. Twimfy is right, the Edge forum closed before the sale had completed so we moved the thread to an arcade forum. I can't remember what it was called. I remember I kept a spreadsheet with all the buyers addresses and to keep track of the orders. They were good days and the Megajets were a bargain.
@Twimfy & mr-monday: Wow, great! Thanks for the decent replies and for shedding some light into that EDGE initiated group buy! Perhaps the member who initially offered the bulk units and/or whoever received that shipment in order to forward each set can elaborate on the actual source/story behind it... The Mega Jet shown in ASSEMbler's YT review came with an EU power supply, whereas mine (from Japan) came with the Japanese SA-190 ac adaptor, just like most (all?) Mega Jet units advertised on eBay these days. What about the power supply of the Mega Jet's from the EDGE group buy though? Perhaps this could hint to the actual source or intended market for sale. After all that pirates story always suggested a bulk shipment of Mega Jet's to another Asian country, although the Mega Jet box would state "For Sale And Use Only In Japan". AFAIK, the Asian market NTSC/PAL units would usually feature English and Chinese text with the Japanese box art...
JAL version was different. Instead of A/V and power connectors on the top it had a hard-wired cable on the left, which would plug into the monitor. That makes sense, they wouldn't want to mess around with separate cables which could get lost. In addition to the standard headphone socket, it appears to have also had an airline headphone socket next to it, so you could use either your own, or the airline's headphones. The six games initially available in-flight were Sonic 2, J. League Pro Striker, Puyo Puyo, Tel Tel Mahjong, Super Monaco GP 2, and Top Pro Golf 2.
