Tito from Macho Nacho Productions recently built a homebrew version of the Sega Neptune, using all brand new parts, other than the proprietary Sega chips. This was made possible by Cosam’s custom Neptune motherboard that he built by using the Sega Genesis and 32x schematics to combine them all on one motherboard, meaning this is all “original hardware” with zero hardware or software emulation. The board integrated the proper audio and video circuits found in the Sega Triple Bypass and even has an updated power circuit designed by Zaxour.
…and while that motherboard would fit in a Genesis 2 shell, a true Neptune wouldn’t be complete without using the latest version of the amazing Neptune shell designed by DVIZX. The end result is something that looks and plays exactly like a real Neptune would have and is exactly the way it would have been if Sega had done it in the 90’s. Actually, thinking about how 90’s Sega did things, I imagine this is actually a better quality product than we would have gotten back then ;p
Tito originally did a Neptune build last year, but that was created by sandwiching in all the boards into one case. While it worked, there’s a lot that can go wrong and it would still result in the same reliability issues that original 32x’s are plagued with. Transplanting chips from original consoles onto this board isn’t easy and extremely time consuming, but it certainly results in an overall better product. And hiring a modder to do this for you would be really expensive…especially if you also needed to buy all the parts.
People looking for the same look and feel might want to wait for GamesCare’s upcoming FPGA-based Neptune (the real one, not the scam), which will hopefully be ready to purchase later this year; Sales will only open after the consoles have been made and are in stock, to avoid any concern of ship dates. I’ll hopefully be able to take a look at all of these at some point soon and compare how they work.
Here’s Tito’s other Neptune video, if you’d like to see the way this used to be done:
