The Mega 95: A Handheld Sega Genesis

Hyperkin, manufacturer of “clone consoles” like the Retron 5 that play video game cartridges from the 80s and 90s, is cooking up something new: a handheld device that will play those cartridges. Specifically the Sega Genesis, or Mega Drive as it was known outside America.

They’re actually the second company to think of such an idea…the first was Sega themselves, who released a handheld called the Nomad in 1995. Hyperkin is calling theirs the “Mega 95” (get the references?) Like the Nomad, you can take it on the go OR use it as an actual Genesis console by plugging it into the TV. Keep in mind: the Nomad had no Sega CD or 32X support and neither will this.

Is the Mega 95 for you? Well, that depends. Hardcore retro gamers prefer clone consoles with FPGA chips, which have the technology to reproduce the performance of the original perfectly (without slowdown or input lag). Hyperkin’s clone consoles don’t use FPGA…they run on emulation instead. They are not actually using the carts beyond the initial boot-up; they’re loading the ROM into the system memory and running that instead. They haven’t confirmed the guts of the Mega 95, but we’d be surprised if it’s not the same.

We can at least confirm this: it’ll have a much better battery life than the Nomad did. Hyperkin will sell the Mega 95 later this year.