Thought I'd share this sad story. I was going to get a working Neptune (i.e. a board that plays both Genesis and 32x games) prototype. The owner lost it in a move though.
I would definitely contribute, I always wanted to do that myself. I have lots of weird proto Sega boards and ICs.
Yep, unless you saw pictures of this "Neptune" or saw it with your own eyes, then it didn't exist. It's easy to say you have something then come up with a story when the item goes for sale or images are requested. Also, If I had something so rare and valuable I wouldn't dare let a removal company touch it. In fact when I moved home 3 years back I personally moved all of my electrical equipment and games. I once owned the original Sega Saturn before it was revised to support 3D but I sat on the board one day whiled drunk braking it in to many pieces. I ended up flushing the parts down the toilet. Yakumo
Feel free to not believe me. It was a 1st party Sega producer that I reached out to. And I spent a while researching this. Oh well. I thought it would be interesting to mention but I guess my word means nothing.
If you said who you were buying this off then people wouldn't have said what they did. As you know too well, there are many who say they have something that suddenly vanishes when more questions are asked or an offer to buy is given. Yakumo
Say you got it in the post, plugged it in and nothing happened. You contacted the seller and he would reply "it worked when I had it" I doubt this guy even had it.
I know my word doesn't mean much, but I've seen pictures of the Sega Neptune and I think a prototype was shown at some type of gaming/tech expo. Unless I'm mistaken, a prototype(s?) model does exist, so it's not totally unreasonable to believe that someone at Sega had it, then unfortunately lost it. Of course, the guy could've been full of crap so who knows. Either way, it's a damn shame your deal didn't go through.
IIRC that was just an empty shell with a block of wood in it to give it some weight. And that's all that everyone had thought to have existed. So if drx found someone from sega who had actual working prototype hardware, now that is something.
Your word means something, this other guy's word means jack. Might have even been a 1st party producer but as I've discovered time and time again people's memories fade and get distorted even 5 minutes after the event has occurred. He may have thought he had what he had but ultimately we have just words.
After attempting to find out more about the Neptune, I seem to have found conflicting reports. Some say only two prototypes were made and neither one worked, as they were just empty cases. Others say that there were several prototypes, and at least one of them was working. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tAGCX3OvpQ&feature=player_embedded#! In the video above, at around 1:55, you can clearly see a Neptune right above the Sega Nomad. My speakers aren't working so I cant hear if anything is being said about it, but it would appear that it is either an empty shell, a working prototype, or a reproduction of some sort. There are also fan made Neptunes, so I'm guessing if someone was skilled enough, they could just make a working Neptune and claim it is a prototype. So assuming the guy actually had one, it could have easily been fake.
You're right about that, they were just case prototypes. I heard some where that there is ONE working prototype, no idea where or who has it. This information could also be false. I'm sure if it was true, there would be some sort of image of it on the net, just bound to be...
Guys, it's DRX. he knows his sources pretty well and can trust them. Tell him to keep looking, when we moved back when I was a kiddy we "lost" 30 gameboy games that I loved. Few months later digging through crap boxes (things we didn't need AS much and so stayed boxed up) I found them. Simple misplacement.
Interesting thread. I hope that drx provide more information about all this matter. Unfortunately maybe it's impossible to know if the seller was really telling the truth or not. These stories are really frustrating. I still remember when I bid on the Dreamcast ZIP Drive auction on eBay.
Do you guys not remember drx or something? Don't you think he wouldn't have posted this if he hadn't been reasonably convinced this item did exist? While it may seem impossible for someone to lose such a rare item, you should realize that alot of people have items that are really rare or valuable to certain people where as they don't hardly ever think about it. It's perfectly possible someone had such a prototype and ended up losing it. It's not like every waking moment someone would be latched onto such items. Sure some people will be, but you should really realize that not all people view items in "Holy Grail" goggles. Sure you can joke about how often there are people that say they have things that they don't and make excuses. That happens alot. But I don't see why you'd group drx with those people when he has actually released lots of Sega prototype material.
We aren't. We are saying the guy who said he had it could be full of shit. Come on, think about it. If you had something as rare as a one off hardware unit, would you let a removal company take care of it? No, right?
