If you thought the SuperSega saga had finally come to a close, then you're wrong.
Alejandro Martin is back, having seemingly admitted defeat in the face of legal action from Sega over the use of its name. A new revised "Supercónsola" is being proposed that will apparently ditch the expensive AMD Ultrascale+ FPGA chipset in favour of the cheaper alternative found in the MiSTer FPGA project.
According to Martin, Sega's legal approach resulted in "about 300" of the original SuperSega units being destroyed. Out of those 300, all but ten units have been refunded.
"Through a partnership venture to be decided among a few known asian companies, the superspga team is negotiating mass production of a cheaper, non 100% fpga device with same idea and components of the original concept, but without the expensive AMD ultrascale+ chipset," says an email sent to Time Extension earlier today. "Target price will be around 200 - 250 €."
The team says that by combining the cheaper FPGA chip with "the power on Linux done by an ARM core," the new device will have a better chance of success. "The intended release is to be open source, so coders or third parties may be able to reprogram existing cores to the new Supersega cheaper console," adds the PR.
Should this "SuperSega Mini" actually happen, Martin says:
Some prototype units will be released worldwide, between 10 and 20 in order for popular youtubers can testify on their hands this new release, and then, after initial reviews launch via Kickstarter on a 1111 units basis batch limited edition, with a maximum of 3.333 units to be ever released.
Bizarrely, Martin is attempting the sell the phone number which is being used to help contact those ten people who have yet to get their refund:
Martin has the number three being one of his favorites, not only 3 represents Barcelona (prefix 3 after the national 9's) but in honor of the Gold phone number, +34 933333333, said 933 33 33 33 that Alejandro still have from his taxi era, who will be for sale soon (note that if someone want that spanish numero gold, interested company must pay 333K for it and contact him via Whatsapp at +34933333333).
That number were used by Alejandro to assist the people who were not able to recover the 375€ paid for the early version of original supersega scale+ never released series.
If you are still one of the people who paid the 375€ + shipping for an early version and still did not received your money, contact Alejandro via above spanish gold number throught Whatsapp) and / or post your comment here in this media with some verfification to prove you are you one said you are, say with your name and one surname.
Confusingly, the email sent from SuperSega features an image of the circuit board used in the Multisystem FPGA project.
Given that the original SuperSega venture crashed and burned quite spectacularly, with few people being convinced that a working system actually existed, we can't imagine many people will be fooled into supporting this new, less-powerful version—but maybe we'll be proven wrong?