With less than 10 million units sold worldwide, the SEGA Saturn has not had the success expected by SEGA. The Japanese publisher’s 32-bit console, however, continues to enjoy a loyal fan base. And some are not lacking in cunning and talent to continue to benefit from the Saturn catalog in new ways.
A handyman gamer had fun building a functional portable SEGA Saturn. And there is no question here of a portable PC in console form running Saturn games using an emulator. The hardware of the 32-bit console from SEGA has indeed been transformed to make the home console a transportable model.
A portable SEGA Saturn barely bigger than a Game Gear
This feat is the work of “tzmwx, “a forum user from BitBuilt. It is on the latter that he detailed his process. In order to transform the Saturn into a portable console, the hacker had to reduce the size of its motherboard. This therefore required removing certain elements and repositioning others.
Of course, “tzmwx“could not fit a CD player in his machine either. Instead, he installed a phoebe card, a Saturn optical disc drive emulator. So this system only allows games to be played. But it has the advantage of allowing a large number of titles to be loaded from the start. Generally speaking, such a project cannot be undertaken by a novice. But the result is clearly impressive.
Little angel gone too soon
Finally, remember that this is not the first time that the SEGA Saturn has been talked about lately. Indeed, it was discovered last October of a compilation recently released on Switch contained a functional SEGA Saturn emulator. The latter was then used to run other Saturn games on the Nintendo console.
What do you think of this portable SEGA Saturn? Could such a product interest you? Would you be able to embark on such a project? Do you nostalgia for the 32-bit home of Sonic console? Give us your opinion in the comments below.
