The only time I ever saw a Nomad was when some guy who worked at a parking lot had one while on the clock! I was jealous of both the Nomad and his job!
My older brother bought one I believe from a KB or a Funcoland in Daly City when they were already heavily discounted and trying to move them out of retail stores. Loved it, except it didn't have a reset button, a QA oversight which made X-men impossible to beat on it afaik. I miss that nice window when retro game collecting was a frugal adventure vs. navigating shark and pirate-infested waters
I got the Nomad on day one and to this day I have three units the last one I got it from Woolworth for $20 as they were clearance them out before the Woolworth stores closes down.
@@GTV-Japan Its very sad as we dont have much time on this world and seeing our childhood items from video games, toys and even sold albums and comics are going way too much way TOO FAST and some point being marked up for no other reason than greed. Worst are scalpers are holding items hostage and can't do anything about it as by the time games go cheaper you too old or the hardware are long dead or lost ton play them.
It might not have been the best financial decision from Sega but the Nomad still just seems so crazy impressive to me. Just imagine in 1995 instead of the Gameboy Poket we would have gotten a portable SNES you could also connect to a TV from Nintendo. Would have blown my mind and seem just nuts thinking about it. Impressive on Segas part though.
@@GTV-Japan When one looks at how and why the Game Boy (and GB Color in 1998!) sold so well, making the Game Gear II an optimised, cheaper Game Gear around 1995 and releasing a less power-hungry Nomad in the late 90's would have made sense...
I know right! Nomad is one of the things missing from my collection. There are good videos about how Sega was stuck with Genesis stock in 96. Why not make a portable Genesis as the budget option to the Saturn.
Nice video. Love your presentation style. I think the Dreamcast is what finally closed the gap between arcades and the living room as titles like House of the Dead II and Crazy Taxi among others were just as good as the arcade originals if not better. I love the Dreamcast and SEGA. They innovated a lot in such a short period and burned out. "The light that burns twice as bright, burns half as long.." -- Blade Runner. That girl in the clip might not have known what she was talking about but I don't think any of her viewers care, whoever she is. She's fine af lmao
I always thought of it as the current arcade board became the next gen at home but really all the way to the 90s there was a huge gap on Atari and NES. One of my favorite Sega arcade games was the snowboarding one with a real board! You can never recreate that at home
Great review! This was pretty cool but the portable Turbografx-16 was much better, because the game cartridges were small, which made the system itself more portable.
And now here in Japan when you find one even loose and scuffed it's over 50000 yen, but a new clone portable Mega Drive is one fifth the cost with better battery life and screen😅 But I do sometimes get tempted to get a Mega Jet when I see them for slut 15000 to 20000 yen... Maybe one day I'll just bite the bullet
A buddy of mine lent me Nomad back in the summer of 98 to play Shining Force 2. It was so difficult to play in handheld mode I had to hook it up to a TV so I could read the text lol
I got the Nomad on day one and to this day I have three units the last one I got it from Woolworth for $20 as they were clearance them out before the Woolworth stores closes down.
Mine's still almost as good as new! Biggest issue I have with it (that you didn't mention) is the way the battery and mains power couldn't be switched seamlessly, so if your batteries were dying you were out of luck. Ghosty screen and mono speaker (stereo only on output ports) are my second biggest. By the way, parlance (1:15) is pronounced with an unstressed second syllable, mostly rhyming with varmints. It's not parLAYance. (And it's usually found with the, not a.) I hope that helps!
I think you're right, that Exodus would have been better than Nomad. It's a portable that lets you "exit" your house while still playing the same games!
Where should we send the games to the girl dressed as a stewardess? I want to know more about kawnsulls!, for some reason, that part made me remember Isekai Ojisan. Do you know it? It's a manga that apparently takes publishing since 2018, but that I met recently, when it began to be adapted to anime, Which is what I have seen, and I really liked, especially for its references to old school Sega, which as "seguero" (a Sega fan), I really enjoyed. Probably, you are up to date with the manga, but if not, I recommend you checking it out.
Nomad and Game Gear both feel like they were WAY ahead of their time for the portable market. And they got punished for it only because battery technology hadn't caught up.
I love your little digs at AvgRetroGamerOnDaTubes in your videos. I miss not having my Mega Drive in Japan, but at least it's still safely tucked away in the UK. I don't have many games for it so I've held off on ordering the mandatory overloaded Billy of doom from Ikea.
Part of the original concept of the channel is to present things from the point of view of someone who was just a little too old and missed out on the internet / UA-cam gold rush and is exasperated by a younger generation of “celebrity” I’ve never heard of!
@vix_in_japan well I’d say if you were born after 1974 you missed out on the early internet boom because all those start ups happened in the early 90s by college kids or maybe older. When the mainstream public finally got online it was already set up and carved out. And if your born after I don’t know 1983 then you really had a chance to get in on UA-cam at the start because you were a young kid with infinite time. While anyone older was busy working away and not paying attention. For the most part.
@@GTV-Japan I was a 1983 kid but had to start working at the age of 16 in 1999 (technically I'd be working before that but multiple paper rounds wasn't work proper) so I never had time to be doing UA-cam, never even crossed my mind even when it was brand new, and even if it had I wouldn't have had a video camera. I only started UA-cam because in 2018 exhausted from working essentially two full time jobs, a full time salaried job and my own business (wedding photographer, traveling all over the UK, France, Italy etc. working evenings and weekends, using annual leave to travel for further destinations) I suffered nervous exhaustion and had to lay low for about 6 months in which time I decided to start my haphazard shambles that I call a channel. That's how the time came about. But I don't do it for any real gain other than I have things I enjoy talking about now that I do have time.
@vix_in_japan yeah I hear yah! In 1999 I already had a career in radio going. I never really got into online because the dial up was a long distance call for some reason so I only used it certain times when the charges were low. Then in Japan as you know, you can’t install a line unless you own the house! Besides I was enjoying the real Japan and real LIFE anyway. I didn’t even use UA-cam until 2015! But my channel is just and outlet to have fun. That’s all it needs to be for everyone!
The Nomad is such a nifty gaming piece. It wasn't until decades later that we got our own, and scored one for a friend too. It's too fun of a piece NOT to have in a collection!
The Sega Exodus _IS_ a cooler sounding name, but Sega never came up with the Genesis name, right? Didn't an Atari employee came up with the name for Sega? I swear I saw a UA-camr cover this.... hold on... *I'm sure it's someone really good...* Oh yeah, some channel called GTV Japan 😄😄😄 I guess Sega America just couldn't get on that Biblical wavelength when it came to hardware names. I have to say, the whole "evolution of Sega engineers shrinking the hardware" format here was fascinating. A couple years ago, I went to a Gaming Expo and saw a Geneis/Mega Drive 3 outside of the box and _could not identify it for sh**_ without asking the booth attendant. I also discovered a Turbo Grafx/PC Engine Shuttle and some other hardware I've never seen before, so I find this kind of thing super interesting. Though I DO remember the Nomad - and the Pico! - from this era from Sega. Just thought it was baffling as a kid; it was the 32 bit era, these games are old! lol. I wish we weren't so dumb as kids sometimes 😄
I remember in the summer of 2000 it was about the most broke I ever was. Working in radio making near zero and a good friend of mine lived on the other side of town he had a Genesis 3 and I had an original and we traded games and hung out all summer. Then we made a short lived comedy radio show which was hilarious but eventually got us thrown off the air. Good memories
90s Sega (as opposed to Sammy's Sega) didn't really know what to do with their success back then. First they got paranoid with the 3DO and Jaguar (resulting to the underpowered Saturn) then having no real roadmap after the Genesis. Played a friend's Nomad for half an hour once and found it uncomfortable to use. Thanks to the boxy design.
Although battery life was just okay and you had to bring your collection of Genesis cartridges along with you (which weren't as neatly and easily transportable as Game Boy or Game Gear cartridges), the concept of the Nomad always intrigued me. Being able to play the same games on the go as at home, almost like an early version of what the Nintendo Switch would eventually become. Fitting considering that Genesis games are playable through the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack. Creating novel and interesting hardware was always something Sega did very well
I remember seeing a commercial or reading an ad for the Nomad in my youth in the 90s - after being enamored by the concept of portable TVs and the like (thanks Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego on PBS), being able to play my Genesis games portably was a pipe dream. Alas, I never encountered an actual Nomad and, still to this day, have never seen one in person... So, while I could attempt to buy one secondhand to actually fulfill that long-held dream, in my adult life, I amusingly have no need for it... *sigh*
I saw one on clearance in the late 90s along with the TV tuner and briefly considered asking for it. If I was still watching cartoons on broadcast TV then I probably would've been more interested, but I'd moved to watching cartoons on cable. Plus I didn't have any Genesis games, so I'd have to start a new collection, probably from used game stores.
I also heard that, since the game kind of stuck out of the machine, that it was easy to jostle the cartridge and it would cause the game to crash during play. Now, true or not, I'd imagine harder core game players back then wouldn't have wanted to get involved a machine that would constantly ruin your play. The only other thing I remember about the Nomad was some very annoying TRU commercial during the Christmas season saying they were the only ones that had it in stock or the only ones that had it at an affordable price. And I swear they played up a false sense of scarcity ending with stating if you try and look for it anywhere else you would "go mad."
Yes! Exactly! The flush game gear setup was much better. Hey I threw and Easter egg in where one of the games froze up to make fun of that. Did ya see? 😂
I received a Nomad for Christmas as a kid and I remember being somewhat upset that I didn't get a Game Gear, I hadn't even heard of the Nomad at the time. I felt like such an ungrateful idiot once I realized how freaking awesome it was. Loved that thing so much, took Streets of Rage with me everywhere.
I always appreciate a good mobile console. I even consider a good laptop with decent gaming hardware to qualify. Really wish I could mess around with these older handhelds.
In the 90s, I would have given a kidney to have a Nomad. I saw the pictures in some magazines, and it was the thing I wanted more in the world. I'm a big Sega Genesis fan to this day. Having a portable Genesis would have been the peak of my gaming life. Another amazing video. Thank you very much for releasing it. In my case, the thumbnail has a Nomad on the left, a girl on the right, and a lot of Genny games in the background.
@@GTV-Japan The hurdles must have been significant back in the day. Going forward, though, it should be a breeze due to HDMI, and the Switch is a great example of a handheld that you can play on the TV (although it's not as simple as plugging the handheld part in). Still, I foresee...to either sell a home system, too, or simply to save a few cents during manufacturing...many companies not following suit in the future.
I played this once in high school and once as an adult. For some reason i recall it using 8 D batteries and it lasting a half hour!😂😂 I'm wrong, I know, but thats how I remember it! I think its a cool idea, and love how you can still do a p2 and connect it to tv. I wish it couldve connected to everything.
I want to say that Sega sold external battery packs that used C or D. I know one for game gear existed. Lynx and gameboy had some too. So maybe nomad did too?
Oh man i remember getting my nomad at toys r us in the clearence bin for 20.00, for the time it was a awewome piece of kit and i bought phantasy star IV for also 20.00 and life was good. I bought another nomad acouple years later for 60.00ish as my first one died. Good times!
@@GTV-Japan yeah!, it was the TRU in Phoenix,Az. damn i miss that place, anyway they had a huge bin of them, i wish id have bought acouple but as i was poor, the 20.00 i spent was a extravegant buy for me, lol. my thinking then: um... i can eat ramen for a week! lol
I still have my Sega Nomad, and it still works! ...Well, somewhat. The volume wheel fell into the console after the first year of owning it (used a LOT), and the screen stopped working eventually. But the AV out function still works, so while its not worth full value, it is usable. It was a great example of a high upfront cost, low long term cost portable- $180 upfront, but with the included NiMH battery pack, you didn't really need to buy batteries for years to come. By the time that the NiMH battery pack finally died, rechargeable AA's were more readily available. This is a feature we take for granted nowadays- burning through alkaline AA's back in the 90's and early 00's added up.
I got a Nomad for a road trip down the Atlantic Coast back in the day. Loved that thing. Funny thing is, I use my Nomad today plugged into a Retrotink 5x Pro, mainly because hooking up the Gen1 Genesis/Sega CD/32x is such a pain!
@@DontKnowDontCare6.9 yeah. But you gotta love how sega took risks...for better or worse. They were ahead of the curve for a lot, which later became the norm.
The problem with Sega selling the Nomad back then was that they market it to the wrong audience. They launch and sell the thing exclusively in North America when they should had sell it for Japan and Brazil instead. The Japanese audience are known for wanting small portable hardware and the Brazillian market are known for buying anything and everything Sega. At the time of Nomad's launch in NA nobody care about 16-Bit anymore, most just want 3D graphics and some also don't want to buy a handheld that is close to console price. Had Sega market the Nomad correctly and sell it to the right audience, the Nomad could take off with no issue.
I personally love the name Nomad, probably my second favourite console name after the Dreamcast. But Exodus does sound very cool too; "Let my people game!". ...But it'd probably would've been bad timing as Sega lost popularity on the West. "They had an exodus of player" would be the biggest joke in all console war retrospectives.
I was so spoiled as a kid. My mom bought me one of these, and I loved it... until I dropped the power supply on the screen and broke it. I should find the old unit and get it modernized. There were no real options for repair back in the day. The battery life was horrendous, I remember that! I could only really play it "on the go" in the family car with a power adaptor. One of your comments reminded me of how jealous I was of some random kid I saw with a Master System adaptor running on his Game Gear. I had witnessed someone with a Master System (Alex Kidd in Miracle World, IIRC) years before, but I had never gotten to play one. I didn't have a GG either, so this was mind blowing to me at the time.
another great video. so interesting! Growing up in the 90s where kids older siblings would have game systems, I believe I saw this and was explained it could play home console games but I never saw it on so I didn't fully understand. We had an intellivision so my view of what a home game would be was skewed.
It's so bizarre--the Mega Jet has a controller 2 port, as does the Nomad. However, the Mega Jet has a reset button, but as you said, the Nomad doesn't. You would think the Nomad would've gotten one, since the Mega Jet birthed it, but Sega took it out.
I had the Sega Nomad. Loved bringing my games into school and playing at lunch. But the batteries died way too fast. But if you found yourself near a outlet you were good.
"Because games reworked for a smaller screen were better than taking a TV game and shrinking it down." [Nintendo Switch and Steam Deck bulldoze into the chat.]
The only time I ever saw a Nomad was when some guy who worked at a parking lot had one while on the clock! I was jealous of both the Nomad and his job!
My older brother bought one I believe from a KB or a Funcoland in Daly City when they were already heavily discounted and trying to move them out of retail stores. Loved it, except it didn't have a reset button, a QA oversight which made X-men impossible to beat on it afaik. I miss that nice window when retro game collecting was a frugal adventure vs. navigating shark and pirate-infested waters
I got the Nomad on day one and to this day I have three units the last one I got it from Woolworth for $20 as they were clearance them out before the Woolworth stores closes down.
Wow that’s an awesome bargain!
@ash2dvst I know! I often wish the internet and UA-cam were never invented so our favorite hobby wouldn’t be wrecked and overpriced!
@@GTV-Japan Its very sad as we dont have much time on this world and seeing our childhood items from video games, toys and even sold albums and comics are going way too much way TOO FAST and some point being marked up for no other reason than greed. Worst are scalpers are holding items hostage and can't do anything about it as by the time games go cheaper you too old or the hardware are long dead or lost ton play them.
It might not have been the best financial decision from Sega but the Nomad still just seems so crazy impressive to me. Just imagine in 1995 instead of the Gameboy Poket we would have gotten a portable SNES you could also connect to a TV from Nintendo. Would have blown my mind and seem just nuts thinking about it. Impressive on Segas part though.
My brother had a nomad. In the days long before the switch it was impressive
Yeah it truly was. Hard to bite that bullet though when you already had a genesis and/or a game gear. But a clearance sale dream for sure!
Sweet short,GTV. I still have my Nomad, which I got on X-Mas on 1995.
Awesome! Santa paid full price!
Another awesome video Great job all these years and never seen one in the wild
Same!
Its crazy that Sega didnt replace the game gear with the Nomad and the Genesis with the Saturn. Great as always!
Yeah that’s my argument of the video. Make a “game gear 2” sell new carts. Sell them for 39$ Make a Genesis adapter. Oh well!
@@GTV-Japan When one looks at how and why the Game Boy (and GB Color in 1998!) sold so well, making the Game Gear II an optimised, cheaper Game Gear around 1995 and releasing a less power-hungry Nomad in the late 90's would have made sense...
I know right! Nomad is one of the things missing from my collection. There are good videos about how Sega was stuck with Genesis stock in 96. Why not make a portable Genesis as the budget option to the Saturn.
Nice video. Love your presentation style. I think the Dreamcast is what finally closed the gap between arcades and the living room as titles like House of the Dead II and Crazy Taxi among others were just as good as the arcade originals if not better. I love the Dreamcast and SEGA. They innovated a lot in such a short period and burned out. "The light that burns twice as bright, burns half as long.." -- Blade Runner.
That girl in the clip might not have known what she was talking about but I don't think any of her viewers care, whoever she is. She's fine af lmao
I always thought of it as the current arcade board became the next gen at home but really all the way to the 90s there was a huge gap on Atari and NES. One of my favorite Sega arcade games was the snowboarding one with a real board! You can never recreate that at home
Great review! This was pretty cool but the portable Turbografx-16 was much better, because the game cartridges were small, which made the system itself more portable.
yeah i think they had the GT in the cards (ha ha) the whole time
And now here in Japan when you find one even loose and scuffed it's over 50000 yen, but a new clone portable Mega Drive is one fifth the cost with better battery life and screen😅
But I do sometimes get tempted to get a Mega Jet when I see them for slut 15000 to 20000 yen... Maybe one day I'll just bite the bullet
Yeah. Ouch! Too much money
Not only would Exodus fit with the naming scheme, but what happens in Exodus? The Jews leave Egypt and become nomads for forty years.
It’s very true!
The Sega Nomad is even better now with modern battery and screen replacement mods.
I didn't know before that there's a screen replacement mod! So it can use a 3.5" TFT LCD screen sometimes used on car DVD systems, interesting...
yeah but those cost as much as the consoles, if not more
I have to get that done to my old unit with a busted screen.
I had a Nomad when it was $99. It ate $20 of batteries in a day, and my mom returned it the next day for a normal Genesis 2.
The kinda revision it needed it seems
You didn't get the AC plug?
A buddy of mine lent me Nomad back in the summer of 98 to play Shining Force 2. It was so difficult to play in handheld mode I had to hook it up to a TV so I could read the text lol
Yeah I can imagine. PS2 is impossible because the font is not blocky enough.
I'm a simple man, I see GTV upload, I watch it until the end, I see a SEGA video from GTV uploaded, I watch it, twice.
Fighting the good fight I see! 🍺🎂
I got the Nomad on day one and to this day I have three units the last one I got it from Woolworth for $20 as they were clearance them out before the Woolworth stores closes down.
Mine's still almost as good as new! Biggest issue I have with it (that you didn't mention) is the way the battery and mains power couldn't be switched seamlessly, so if your batteries were dying you were out of luck. Ghosty screen and mono speaker (stereo only on output ports) are my second biggest.
By the way, parlance (1:15) is pronounced with an unstressed second syllable, mostly rhyming with varmints. It's not parLAYance. (And it's usually found with the, not a.) I hope that helps!
Yeah I know! I think mal-propisms are funny! 😄 in a way though slim models do parlay a companies earnings 💰
THE SEGA DEUTERONOMY
I think you're right, that Exodus would have been better than Nomad. It's a portable that lets you "exit" your house while still playing the same games!
I’d quite happily wander the earth for 40 years with one!
@@GTV-Japan I Lent one for 40 days and nights, once.
@CarletonTorpin zing!
Where should we send the games to the girl dressed as a stewardess? I want to know more about kawnsulls!, for some reason, that part made me remember Isekai Ojisan. Do you know it? It's a manga that apparently takes publishing since 2018, but that I met recently, when it began to be adapted to anime, Which is what I have seen, and I really liked, especially for its references to old school Sega, which as "seguero" (a Sega fan), I really enjoyed. Probably, you are up to date with the manga, but if not, I recommend you checking it out.
Know it?! It was based on my life story!!
And I thought my Game Gear was a battery whore...
wow! so that's why he's called ' nomad'? 😱
I am much too pleased to listen to sonic or PSIV OST.
Great job as always
I chose them because the titles remind me of Nomad. Machine center and flying battery!
The Sega Exodus sounds like an all in one portable machine.
.
.
Nomad and Game Gear both feel like they were WAY ahead of their time for the portable market. And they got punished for it only because battery technology hadn't caught up.
My cousin had a nomad and his mom threw it out due to all the batteries it drained so quickly
What a waste! 😭
The Nomad was a cool idea. But the screen was so blurry when you tried to play a game that somewhat used blast processing you couldn't see anything.
I love your little digs at AvgRetroGamerOnDaTubes in your videos. I miss not having my Mega Drive in Japan, but at least it's still safely tucked away in the UK. I don't have many games for it so I've held off on ordering the mandatory overloaded Billy of doom from Ikea.
Part of the original concept of the channel is to present things from the point of view of someone who was just a little too old and missed out on the internet / UA-cam gold rush and is exasperated by a younger generation of “celebrity” I’ve never heard of!
@@GTV-Japan Haha I hear you, maybe I am part of that younger demographic (if 41 counts as young) but I know where you're coming from!
@vix_in_japan well I’d say if you were born after 1974 you missed out on the early internet boom because all those start ups happened in the early 90s by college kids or maybe older. When the mainstream public finally got online it was already set up and carved out. And if your born after I don’t know 1983 then you really had a chance to get in on UA-cam at the start because you were a young kid with infinite time. While anyone older was busy working away and not paying attention. For the most part.
@@GTV-Japan I was a 1983 kid but had to start working at the age of 16 in 1999 (technically I'd be working before that but multiple paper rounds wasn't work proper) so I never had time to be doing UA-cam, never even crossed my mind even when it was brand new, and even if it had I wouldn't have had a video camera. I only started UA-cam because in 2018 exhausted from working essentially two full time jobs, a full time salaried job and my own business (wedding photographer, traveling all over the UK, France, Italy etc. working evenings and weekends, using annual leave to travel for further destinations) I suffered nervous exhaustion and had to lay low for about 6 months in which time I decided to start my haphazard shambles that I call a channel. That's how the time came about. But I don't do it for any real gain other than I have things I enjoy talking about now that I do have time.
@vix_in_japan yeah I hear yah! In 1999 I already had a career in radio going. I never really got into online because the dial up was a long distance call for some reason so I only used it certain times when the charges were low. Then in Japan as you know, you can’t install a line unless you own the house! Besides I was enjoying the real Japan and real LIFE anyway. I didn’t even use UA-cam until 2015! But my channel is just and outlet to have fun. That’s all it needs to be for everyone!
It's a shame the Nomad was never released in the UK and Europe
The Nomad is such a nifty gaming piece. It wasn't until decades later that we got our own, and scored one for a friend too. It's too fun of a piece NOT to have in a collection!
I misremembered the box being green for some reason. Thanks for watching as always!🍺
The Sega Exodus _IS_ a cooler sounding name, but Sega never came up with the Genesis name, right? Didn't an Atari employee came up with the name for Sega? I swear I saw a UA-camr cover this.... hold on... *I'm sure it's someone really good...* Oh yeah, some channel called GTV Japan 😄😄😄 I guess Sega America just couldn't get on that Biblical wavelength when it came to hardware names.
I have to say, the whole "evolution of Sega engineers shrinking the hardware" format here was fascinating. A couple years ago, I went to a Gaming Expo and saw a Geneis/Mega Drive 3 outside of the box and _could not identify it for sh**_ without asking the booth attendant. I also discovered a Turbo Grafx/PC Engine Shuttle and some other hardware I've never seen before, so I find this kind of thing super interesting. Though I DO remember the Nomad - and the Pico! - from this era from Sega. Just thought it was baffling as a kid; it was the 32 bit era, these games are old! lol. I wish we weren't so dumb as kids sometimes 😄
I remember in the summer of 2000 it was about the most broke I ever was. Working in radio making near zero and a good friend of mine lived on the other side of town he had a Genesis 3 and I had an original and we traded games and hung out all summer. Then we made a short lived comedy radio show which was hilarious but eventually got us thrown off the air. Good memories
90s Sega (as opposed to Sammy's Sega) didn't really know what to do with their success back then. First they got paranoid with the 3DO and Jaguar (resulting to the underpowered Saturn) then having no real roadmap after the Genesis.
Played a friend's Nomad for half an hour once and found it uncomfortable to use. Thanks to the boxy design.
I never thought of it but Sega has its own Van Halen moment. You either get Sammy or Dave (Rosen) 😂
Although battery life was just okay and you had to bring your collection of Genesis cartridges along with you (which weren't as neatly and easily transportable as Game Boy or Game Gear cartridges), the concept of the Nomad always intrigued me. Being able to play the same games on the go as at home, almost like an early version of what the Nintendo Switch would eventually become. Fitting considering that Genesis games are playable through the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack. Creating novel and interesting hardware was always something Sega did very well
That’s a good point! The carts are kind of big
I remember seeing a commercial or reading an ad for the Nomad in my youth in the 90s - after being enamored by the concept of portable TVs and the like (thanks Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego on PBS), being able to play my Genesis games portably was a pipe dream. Alas, I never encountered an actual Nomad and, still to this day, have never seen one in person... So, while I could attempt to buy one secondhand to actually fulfill that long-held dream, in my adult life, I amusingly have no need for it... *sigh*
I tried looking for commercials! I swear I recall seeing some but turned up nothing
Sega ‘Exodus’ - I don’t like it. I love it.
I saw one on clearance in the late 90s along with the TV tuner and briefly considered asking for it. If I was still watching cartoons on broadcast TV then I probably would've been more interested, but I'd moved to watching cartoons on cable. Plus I didn't have any Genesis games, so I'd have to start a new collection, probably from used game stores.
It seems almost everyone got theirs on clearance!
One day I will get The Sega Nomad.😀👍🎮
I also heard that, since the game kind of stuck out of the machine, that it was easy to jostle the cartridge and it would cause the game to crash during play. Now, true or not, I'd imagine harder core game players back then wouldn't have wanted to get involved a machine that would constantly ruin your play. The only other thing I remember about the Nomad was some very annoying TRU commercial during the Christmas season saying they were the only ones that had it in stock or the only ones that had it at an affordable price. And I swear they played up a false sense of scarcity ending with stating if you try and look for it anywhere else you would "go mad."
Yes! Exactly! The flush game gear setup was much better. Hey I threw and Easter egg in where one of the games froze up to make fun of that. Did ya see? 😂
I received a Nomad for Christmas as a kid and I remember being somewhat upset that I didn't get a Game Gear, I hadn't even heard of the Nomad at the time. I felt like such an ungrateful idiot once I realized how freaking awesome it was. Loved that thing so much, took Streets of Rage with me everywhere.
Santa was looking out for ya! 🧑🎄
I always appreciate a good mobile console. I even consider a good laptop with decent gaming hardware to qualify. Really wish I could mess around with these older handhelds.
I’m waiting for OpenEmu on the iPhone! It’s going to be amazing I’m sure!
I never had a Nomad but I did have a Game Gear. Let me tell ya, I’ve never had a device before or since that could drink so many batteries so quickly.
Radio Shack rechargeables saved the day!
lol i can imagine if they did do a biblical naming theme, and we got a Sega Deuteronomy. Oh Sega Judges would be cool.
The could have has Psalm-ba de Amigo hey-o!
5:44 For once, we agreed...
I don't like it. Let's continue disagreeing.
Ok. Wait. No not ok!
Who’s the Imperial officer on the thumbnail?
Contessa Lustrum!
In the 90s, I would have given a kidney to have a Nomad. I saw the pictures in some magazines, and it was the thing I wanted more in the world. I'm a big Sega Genesis fan to this day. Having a portable Genesis would have been the peak of my gaming life. Another amazing video. Thank you very much for releasing it. In my case, the thumbnail has a Nomad on the left, a girl on the right, and a lot of Genny games in the background.
They good thing about giving a kidney is still have one left to give later! 😂 cheers friend🍺
@@GTV-Japan Amen!
I never knew that the Nomad could attach to a TV. I feel that all hand-held gaming devices should be able to connect to the TV (these days with HDMI).
I wonder what the expenses and hurdles are for that? I know the Lynx was impossible because the resolution didn’t match the tv
@@GTV-Japan The hurdles must have been significant back in the day. Going forward, though, it should be a breeze due to HDMI, and the Switch is a great example of a handheld that you can play on the TV (although it's not as simple as plugging the handheld part in). Still, I foresee...to either sell a home system, too, or simply to save a few cents during manufacturing...many companies not following suit in the future.
I played this once in high school and once as an adult. For some reason i recall it using 8 D batteries and it lasting a half hour!😂😂 I'm wrong, I know, but thats how I remember it!
I think its a cool idea, and love how you can still do a p2 and connect it to tv. I wish it couldve connected to everything.
I want to say that Sega sold external battery packs that used C or D. I know one for game gear existed. Lynx and gameboy had some too. So maybe nomad did too?
@@GTV-Japan they had to!
I always wanted a Nomad!! And the tv adapter for the Game Gear!!
The TV adaptor was the rich kids’ dream!
Oh man i remember getting my nomad at toys r us in the clearence bin for 20.00, for the time it was a awewome piece of kit and i bought phantasy star IV for also 20.00 and life was good. I bought another nomad acouple years later for 60.00ish as my first one died.
Good times!
$20?! Wow!
@@GTV-Japan yeah!, it was the TRU in Phoenix,Az. damn i miss that place, anyway they had a huge bin of them, i wish id have bought acouple but as i was poor, the 20.00 i spent was a extravegant buy for me, lol. my thinking then: um... i can eat ramen for a week! lol
@joshfacio9379 that’s good eating!!
Who was that youtuber you showed a clip of?
Shhh. She’s not real. It’s just AI generated!🙋🏽♀️
You bring up a good point about the name of the Nomad
It’s still a clever name! I wonder what names never made the final cut?
Sega Exodus would sound cooler. In retrospect it'd have also been ironic given their ultimate fate lol
We need the Sega Revelation!
@@GTV-Japan Considering how woke Sega is now it'd probably be lots of suffering for us, so maybe Sega Job would be more appropriate 🤣
@Vulpas ouchie
I still have my Sega Nomad, and it still works! ...Well, somewhat. The volume wheel fell into the console after the first year of owning it (used a LOT), and the screen stopped working eventually. But the AV out function still works, so while its not worth full value, it is usable. It was a great example of a high upfront cost, low long term cost portable- $180 upfront, but with the included NiMH battery pack, you didn't really need to buy batteries for years to come. By the time that the NiMH battery pack finally died, rechargeable AA's were more readily available. This is a feature we take for granted nowadays- burning through alkaline AA's back in the 90's and early 00's added up.
I got a Nomad for a road trip down the Atlantic Coast back in the day. Loved that thing. Funny thing is, I use my Nomad today plugged into a Retrotink 5x Pro, mainly because hooking up the Gen1 Genesis/Sega CD/32x is such a pain!
I owned one back in the days.
Lots of people coming to tell their stories! I’m surprised!
Sega did what nintendidnt back then. I always wanted a nomad.
Yeah definitely. Nintendo never went nearly bankrupt thanks to their Zero Debt Policy.
@@DontKnowDontCare6.9 yeah. But you gotta love how sega took risks...for better or worse. They were ahead of the curve for a lot, which later became the norm.
Sega didn't do shit but lose. Nintendo better by far.
The problem with Sega selling the Nomad back then was that they market it to the wrong audience. They launch and sell the thing exclusively in North America when they should had sell it for Japan and Brazil instead. The Japanese audience are known for wanting small portable hardware and the Brazillian market are known for buying anything and everything Sega. At the time of Nomad's launch in NA nobody care about 16-Bit anymore, most just want 3D graphics and some also don't want to buy a handheld that is close to console price. Had Sega market the Nomad correctly and sell it to the right audience, the Nomad could take off with no issue.
I personally love the name Nomad, probably my second favourite console name after the Dreamcast. But Exodus does sound very cool too; "Let my people game!".
...But it'd probably would've been bad timing as Sega lost popularity on the West. "They had an exodus of player" would be the biggest joke in all console war retrospectives.
I’m sure Sega wasn’t imagining click bait wiki regurgitating grifters from the future when designing the nomad!
I was so spoiled as a kid. My mom bought me one of these, and I loved it... until I dropped the power supply on the screen and broke it. I should find the old unit and get it modernized. There were no real options for repair back in the day.
The battery life was horrendous, I remember that! I could only really play it "on the go" in the family car with a power adaptor.
One of your comments reminded me of how jealous I was of some random kid I saw with a Master System adaptor running on his Game Gear. I had witnessed someone with a Master System (Alex Kidd in Miracle World, IIRC) years before, but I had never gotten to play one. I didn't have a GG either, so this was mind blowing to me at the time.
Ouch I’m sorry to hear that!
another great video. so interesting! Growing up in the 90s where kids older siblings would have game systems, I believe I saw this and was explained it could play home console games but I never saw it on so I didn't fully understand. We had an intellivision so my view of what a home game would be was skewed.
Nothing beats fuzzy memories! Have a great weekend 🍺
I have seen the Nomad in Toys R Us to say it all it was the Rodney Dangerfield of the Sega Genesis consoles.
I bet the Nomad could do a triple Lindy!
It's so bizarre--the Mega Jet has a controller 2 port, as does the Nomad. However, the Mega Jet has a reset button, but as you said, the Nomad doesn't. You would think the Nomad would've gotten one, since the Mega Jet birthed it, but Sega took it out.
Such are the mysteries of life!
I had the Sega Nomad. Loved bringing my games into school and playing at lunch. But the batteries died way too fast. But if you found yourself near a outlet you were good.
12 Radio Shack purple recharge batteries and you were set for life!
As someone born in the early 90's, knowing that all the stuff we dreamed of to be portable back, is insane to think of as now being portable.
The idea that you’d get a DVD with 59 Genesis games on it for $20 🤯
"Because games reworked for a smaller screen were better than taking a TV game and shrinking it down."
[Nintendo Switch and Steam Deck bulldoze into the chat.]