This SEGA megadrive is fake or legit?

[Gameguy]

Hmm. Then what about its Japanese language mode? I thought no systems officially used Japanese with either 50hz or PAL color.

I honestly don't know. The poster was asked several times to post photos of the motherboard but never did, even after supposedly opening it up several times. Earlier in that thread he mentioned how he didn't want to open it at all or ever mod it as it was a new-in-box system, then by the end of the thread he ends up cutting the wire and region mods it. There's a pic of the finished mod with the switch being shown, but still no pics of the actual motherboard. Maybe he only had bootlegs which were altered slightly, which is why they always shown Bare Knuckle. He never posted pictures of the games either.

A lot of the stuff he says doesn't make complete sense. Why would it have been available from the Sega store at all? He says he's from Europe, why would the Sega store stock new asian Mega Drive consoles? If it was used, it's possible the guts were swapped at some point. I really don't know what he has, it's just that it's supposed to be a PAL console, the video he linked to in the first post shows an unboxing of the same type of system and it's PAL.

[zakthedodo]

Why would it have been available from the Sega store at all?

Did Sega service their own systems and maybe this is a refurb?

In any event, I'd like to see what this set up would go for on Ebay

[zakthedodo]

Yeah but this one the power button, reset switch, and cart doors are black.
As in North America. Not Japan.

First thing that came to mind was it was one of last runs of production and one color was cheaper?
So we have a Model 2 that has a Japanese housing, a North American FCC sticker, that is PAL.

FrankenDrive

[theclaw]

First thing that came to mind was it was one of last runs of production and one color was cheaper?
So we have a Model 2 that has a Japanese housing, a North American FCC sticker, that is PAL.

FrankenDrive

Worse than that. As I was saying the power switch is none of those.

[Ace]

Over 10 days late, but I might as well throw in my 2 cents here.

That's a definite fake. The connector on the Sega CD slot doesn't even match what you would find on a real MegaDrive motherboard. I'm guessing this is a clone that runs on a Russian clone GOAC. Show us the motherboard; if I can see what chip(s) this MegaDrive 2 clone uses, I could tell you if it's a good or bad clone.

[Parodius Duh!]

isnt it possible that the shell could have been frankensteined together from a US and Asian model? as far as the innards, need a pic...

[Ace]

Not possible. Just look at what's in the expansion slot for the Sega CD. No MegaDrive, no matter the region, should EVER have pins with that kind of layout on the PCB at that particular spot.

What I want to know is what kind of hardware is in this thing. Being as there doesn't seem to be any way to hook this up to a Sega CD, I'm sure it's using one out of several different varieties of GOAC, and if I were to guess what GOAC it is, I would say the SM801(-A1). A shot of the motherboard would be nice as if this GOAC is present, there may be great potential for this fake MegaDrive 2.