While I'll admit I always loved the Sega consoles over the competition, this is a bad idea. The market is has too many consoles of any kind and, in case Sega didn't notice, the economy is bad worldwide. Your biggest market, the US, is really suffering. Because of that, Americans have changed the way they lived by spending less. This thing is doomed to failure and Sega will once again be an afterthought. Focus on your games, because if you try again, you may lose everything.

Its Sega, after the 32X and Sega CD, anyone who decides to buy *any* Sega console needs their heads read. Their monster cockups are one of the reasons that Sony were able to attack the market and go straight to the top, if Sega had built quality systems, with support, and games and not the terrible ones they did make, maybe we'd still be playing Sega consoles today.

It plays Java mini games.

It's worth mentioning from that youtube video that the "games" that is plays are described as "Java mini games" so not quite the PSP beater that the article title implies.

I would say that this is first a portable TV, and second a media player, but with only 2Gb of memory its going to be limited at that.

So Sega are going to release a new handheld console, despite having been out of the hardware market for the last two generations of consoles? The same Sega that basically admitted their hardware business died on its ass because they tried to over-saturate the console market with too many options, and then failed to properly support and promote the one console they'd come up with in years that people actually wanted to buy?

It's got less chance of beating the PSP than the Pandora, I'd say...

Ah, this sounds like the glorious Game Gear, although I hope it will not be as chunky.

Suprised the Sega are getting back in to the hardware game though...

I would put down money that this is going to be shit.

It's trying to be too many things, and will most likely end up not being very good at any of them.

I think the Journo must have one pint too many over lunch.

PSP beater? original Game Boy beater maybe, it can run Java minigames when was the last time you played a really good one of those!

I'm now saving my pennies for one of these.

If it has Alex Kidd in Miracle World, I'm sold!

That really is butt ugly. While I'm not a huge PSP fan (more of a Nintendo man), the PSP is a nice piece of kit. Oh, and the 1990s called, they want their 4:3 screen back.

I doubt that Sony's eBook division is quaking in their boots. Simply no comparison with the Reader. Just because the iPhone has a camera, doesn't make it a competitor to Canon and Nikkon.

Paul

It looks like it can do little more than your average smartphone, only without the actual phone bit.

"Mini java game", so its not actually a portable Dreamcast then, its just plays mobile phone games if we're lucky.

Screen looks wrong for movies too, and i hope that 2GB memory is expandable.

No threat to the PSP if you ask me, this is a very niche device. The phone world has learnt that portable live TV is one thing that sounds great but few people actually need, especially with our 5 crappy channels.

Sega pulled out of the hardware market because they lacked the capital to continue viable ventures and now this comes along? Is this gonna be the Game Gear all over again?

Still, can anyone say "Game Gear"?

A pirate, because I'm fecking obsessed with them for some odd reason. Still, a new ninja icon might be nice...

I must be getting really old, senile or stupid or something.

Why am I seeing something that comes out of a Christmas Cracker?

Looks fake.

I can't wait to ditch my PSP and play a portable console where all (4!) buttons are on the right hand side. I didn't need a d-pad, analog stick and 6 functional buttons that are positioned for gameplay anyway...

MP4 player.

Sounds like the kind of term dodgy far east manufacturers like to describe their knock-off products.

If this is real, then utter fail.

Sega's last memorable entry in the hand held market was the battery munching and yet oh-so-very good Game Gear. Granted it was huge, and ate batteries faster than a taser set on 'extra crispy'. But it had a nice back-lit color screen, which compared to the dinky and rather dingy Nintendo of the time was a triumph. Sadly it was expensive and Sega simply couldn't compete with Nintendo.

In fact the PSP is the natural successor to the Game Gear, it's structural form is similar. It's build around the screen, you hold it at the sides and the controls are at each side of the screen.

But this 'new' device from Sega looks for all the world like a souped up handheld TV. The TV is presumably analogue so it's not like that will sell well in the US come Feb 2009. But come on, java based minigames? Between ElReg and the INQ the amount of pointless, heavily spun articles always picking away at Sony is just plain tiresome. This device from Sega is not and will not be a PSP beater. For a start it's not a game console, it's a pocket TV that also plays JAVA based minigames. The PSP is a handheld game console that also plays movies and music. These devices aren't even aiming at the same market.

I wonder when it is that small minded fanbo....er...journalists can put their bias away and start reporting facts and providing real analysis. Honestly the standard of journalism here is no better than the partisan journalism seen in the US analyzing the vice presidential debate.

Perhaps the author of this piece can look once again at the information being reported and do the factual and objective analysis, and edit this piece into something that actually reports without applying the author's own personal anti-Sony bias?

Not a games machine either, with those controls.

It's not a "threat" to the Sony reader, it's a LCD screen, not eInk. (There's just no comparison for reading).

It's not a "threat" to the PSP either - it does a few flash games, ohnoes!

It does have a built-in TV tuner and a digital VCR though, which is nice but hardly unique.

It's an old VHS style video cassette. WTF?

This is the Game Gear?

I know the economy is getting bad and all, but digging up stories from 1992?...

If you want a pocket portable with Alex Kidd in Miracle World, import one of these, it runs on 3x AAAs, TFT screen and has TV output!!!111eleven!! (NTSC, looks terrible though) I got one for mainly playing Columns on:

http://www.gamersquad.com/category/Gadgets/Coleco-handheld-console-at-Target-(US)/

Oh and has anyone told Sega that they're turning off the analogue TV transmitters? Their new device better have a Freeview tuner, not that it'll be able to pick up that signal in most areas of the UK anyway...

I'll wait for an actual Sega press release before believing that they're launching a major handheld games platform. As far as I can see, you've taken a photo of a gambling machine that has as a prize a basic media player, that happens to be Sega branded, and happens to play basic games; and read into this that Sega is going to launch a major new strategy, going head-on against Sony, despite the fact that they have recently stated that they're concentrating on making games for other platforms, not making another console.

I'd like to know what you're on.

Oh, sorry, it's Friday afternoon - I understand ;-)

Why has no-one else commented on this? Am I the only one that can see the Walrus (hypothetically speaking)?

It is yet to be launched, but there are some sitting in an arcade machine in London? What?!

Hope that's DIGITAL TV tuner, or it's gonna be worthless in the states by the time it comes out. For that matter so's my Game Gear tuner cartridge...

I may have picked this up wrong but in the video the Sega is compared to the size of a credit card - does this mean that it is the size of a credit card? Along the short edge of the Sega are six buttons, now, go to your wallet and pull out a credit card. Imagine trying to press one of six buttons on that card.

Paris, as only she has fingers small enough to use the thing.

Which country has only five TV channels, then? Even in Britain, and living so far down a valley that I have to go uphill to reach the river, I can pick up thirty-odd. Admittedly most of them are crap, but it takes a surprisingly long time to scroll through thirty-odd channels of crap.

The selection over-the-air is pretty paltry where I live, and that's in a city. Thing is, most US television stations are non-broadcast (part of this is regulatory--being non-broadcast means the FCC can't touch them--for now). Barring a few Superstations, only big network affiliates and independent local stations broadcast.

6x4 inch lithium battery. so you can flip it on its front and fry a egg. and still have 6hrs of gaming left

It's small, easily lost, no doubt expensive, and if that vid's anything to go by fugly. The screens to small, the camera will no doubt be pathetic, as will video capture on something like that. And game play looking at the controls (again judging off the button placement on the vid) are such it will be nothing but frustrating (adding in java games thats even more frustrating). The screens too small for TV also. It's trying to be the next iPod, but its not. Don't even bother Sega, it's a flop waiting to happen.

To come up with a lack lustre product.

TV? What standard, and would it work on your travels?

Unlikely!

PSP has evolved into a pretty good piece of kit; all that's missing is touch screen, and then phone functionality to complete the geek requirements.

Too late to market in its current specification I'm afraid.

Must try harder.

3/10

Dreamcast Portable!

Wheres that arcade, I want to go see them.

http://www.rpgsite.net/news/281.html

a "non-game" product

Wasn't the last Sega portable actually the Nomad? I have one of these, and I quite like it. It plays the full-sized Sega Genesis carts with a built-in LCD screen and 6-button controller, with a port for a second controller. It also has a video output port capable of S-VHS output (IIRC, it has RGB on the port, too) and an RF adapter accessory.

You really need to use the NiMH battery pack, as the thing just sucks AA's in no time.

No TV tuner like the Game Gear, though.

Anyway, this looks like a paltry entry from a once-great console maker, and like some other people here, I want to cry "fake." I cannot imagine that the formerly great Sega would produce such a gadget which runs "the Java mini game" without a slew of titles to go with it, and great fan-fare.

No. Indeed, I call Shenanigans on this. Although I would love to see Sega introduce a PSP-killer... it would really piss off the console makers for which it develops software. Probably not a prudent move without a HUGE secret undertaking.

Paris, she has a second port so a friend can join in, too.

I just got back from the West End. If I'd read this earlier I would've gone an had a look.

Its bloody busy up there today.

There's no d-pad, it's credit card sized and it plays java games? Put phone functionality in to it and someone might buy it, but otherwise I doubt it

There's a Dreamcast clone which is kinda-portable, the Treamcast.

I know this is the 854838965th post comparing it to the gamgear but lets face it..

Gamegear = chunky device with (optional) tv tuner and some mini (by modern standards) games. What on earth is new here? Oh I see, maybe the batteries will last longer than 45 mins?

Screw you. Pull your damned finger out of your employee's collective bumholes and release a thing that I can play decent games on. Damn I miss the dreamcast... Well, I don't miss mine, I don't have to, it's sitting right here in front of me. However, I do miss its activity.

But yeah this does look like a fairly pathetic excuse for a piece of hardware. :(

Australia has 5 free to air analog channels (6 if you can get the community station).

The funny thing is that is what most people stick with (don't even bother with cable).

it's not a games console. It's the same as anyone of a dozen handheld devices coming out of China with a "name" stuck on them. I have a Wharfedale one, his similar "features" and absolute dog to use though.

I mean come on James, since when has Java Mini games been anything like PSP games? My £30 phone does Java Mini Games, and I rarely use it for that purpose. Also the PSP already does pretty much everything on that list, including eBook reading, if you know what you are doing. I think the onlt think missing is the TV tuner, but when you already have the PlayTV Slingbox style usage, it's not really that important to view LiveTV, when you can view LiveTV, including Satellite and pre-recorded TV on a PSP already.

This is just Sega and James trying to convince the world they are still relevant... James, go back to UKResistance...

Who watches Live TV any more anyway?

Come on guys, you must realise this is just a fake? Is just some dodgy media player using the Sega logo.

For god sake it's in an arcade machine that you can win it from, does that sound real to you???

This is an aftermarket knock off

The "Sega Vision" trademark that is shown in the picture died in 1985!

SEGA VISION----(CANCELLED) IC 009. US 021. G & S: TELEVISION PROJECTION UNIT INCLUDING A VIDEO PROJECTOR AND VIDEO SCREEN. FIRST USE: 19761019. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19761019

Filed in 1977.

Some back alley Hong Kong knockoff artist can use that "trademark" and slide through legal loopholes.

fifty thumbs down for posting this rubbish as news.