A lot, apparently. To actually play games on this SNEGENES P portable, you have to jam actual cartridges into the back of the portable.

It's not an issue for collectors, obviously, but in this day and age of cheap emulators it seems a bit excessive. Let's see a lite version.

Note: The modder recorded the demo video incorrectly. This system doesn't actually play games in reverse. [Ben Heck Forums via Technabob]

I want to recount the story for you here—I really do. The feeling of running down the stairs that morning, tearing into a tower of gifts balanced on one of the tall, pink chairs of our formal living room. I want to tell you about almost opening a small, rectangular box just two gifts into the unwrapping (one with an eerie resemblance to the size and shape of a Sega Genesis game box), before my parents recommended I work my way through the the pile in a different direction to save the pièce de résistance for last.

But to tell this story again, the pinnacle of my Christmas experience, one properly softened by a Vaseline-coated lens while simultaneously sparkling with double starburst filters, feels disingenuous.

You see, I wrote it all down on paper once before. I was 10, putting me in fifth grade. Still obsessed with my Genesis, this tale of Christmas morning 1992 (late adopter) would be the perfect narrative for the English portion of Mrs. Lustig's class. And I have little doubt that my adultish perspective—one that has difficulty tuning out today's culture for a time when kids only got gifts for big holidays, one that is so spoiled it can call in any toy at any time from any company—has clouded the importance of that Sega Genesis to me. I'll simply never recapture the unbridled love placed on paper via number 2 pencil with this clunky Macbook keyboard I'm typing on now. And an LCD does so little justice to childhood memories when compared to a piece of looseleaf, pulled without regard from a spiral notebook.

The Sega Genesis was my Red Ryder BB gun. It offered me the elation of its receipt, the disappointment of Tazmania and the eventual perspective that memories will forever be altered by the ones that follow. I'm not sure I'll ever relive a moment quite like ripping through paper to find, in complete shock, that I'd gotten exactly what I'd wanted that Christmas. But there's always next year.

The Retro-Gen (branded Sega, though we can't imagine Sega actually had anything to do with it) features a USB-rechargeable battery and comes pre-loaded with 20 "classic" games (we're not sure what they are, hence the quotes). It says it'll only play licensed ROMs, though who knows what that means; we'd imagine you can just load it up with whatever you've got. It doesn't look like it has an extra port for another controller, which would come in handy for multiplayer games using the handheld's TV-out, but you can't have everything, right? It's available for pre-order now, for a $50, $10 off the usual price. [Video Game Central via The Mirror]

The 2.8-inch QVGA screen may be quite tiny to read the entirety of Final Fantasy IV on, but they're going to be doing it in the back of a moving car. That helps, right?

SD card, mini USB, NTSC/PAL TV out, FM radio, voice recorder and stereo speakers round out the rest of this fantastic package. If I don't have kids in the next few years I'll just get this for myself at $88 each. [Chinavasion via Oh Gizmo via Uber Gizmo via Retro Thing]

Emulating NES/Famicom, Gameboy, Gameboy Color, Super Famicom and Sega Mega Drive/Genesis titles, the GAME-800 is a crudely controlled but effective looking pocket emulator with a 3.5-inch screen and 4GB of expandable storage. It also doubles as an MPEG4 player, eBook reader (with Chinese/English text to speech) and a low fidelity camera.

The GAME-800 is available now for an $80 import. [China Grabber via technabob]

To me, wearing the Genesis pin is akin to having a full Schutzstaffel Death's Head/Sig Runes combo—you are on the side of evil. These will run you €18 ($23). [Supermandolini - Thanks, Emanuel!]

The controllers are offered in proper scale with each set of hands sized identically. And we see, while controllers have gotten more complicated, they've also grown larger—though we look to have peaked back in the last generation (if you discount arsenal of peripherals you'll find in Rock Band or GHIV).

One trend we found interesting: The ill-fated Atari 5200 represented the early height of how-many-buttons-will-this-thing-fit engineering. And I don't think that it was before two successful generations of consoles later that the arms race picked up again. [Chewing Pixels via Offworld]

The controllers look only tolerable and they use proprietary connectors (so no plugging in your own), but that lightgun appears to be a fantastic recreation of the original. [eBay via Unplggd and Videogame Central]

Blast processing! What did that mean, anyways? And doesn't it seem strange for them to be ragging on Mario Kart, a game that turned into one of the most popular games on the SNES?

Is there a crappier marketing line than "Genesis does what Nintendon't"? Coupled with the song, it's kind of tough to make it through this entire ad.

Oh, and Sega's answer to the Madden franchise? Signing up Joe Montana to be in its ads. Look, Joe got distracted by a fat guy! Haw! Not surprisingly, EA is still making Madden games, but Joe Montana is kept a safe distance from any football franchise. (Pat Riley was benched from basketball games, too, I might add.)

Then there were the ads starring Chill E.B. that promoted Sega CD, the crappy video-based hardware add-on. Concept: Angry guy yells at you for not buying console accessories. Brilliant. Also of note is the message that Sega CD game footage will have a similar effect on people as opening the Arc of the Covenant (if the first Indy movie had had just 10% of its special-effects budget).

Clearly, Sega was trying to be a more edgy alternative to Nintendo's family-fun image. It's not a crazy idea, and you can see shades of it in Sony's sort-of-edgy, sort-of-artsy ads for the PlayStation 3. But in the end, no amount of in-your-face MTV-style ads could save Sega from itself, as it put out gimmicky hardware add-on after gimmicky hardware add-on, pissing off its customers who were then reluctant to buy the arguably awesome, but sadly short lived, Dreamcast.

But still, it's funny to see how things have changed so much, yet haven't really changed at all. Nintendo is again the dominant force in the console market, and the tone of Nintendo's ads and image is still cute and safe for all ages. Sony and Microsoft try to be more hip and edgy, appealing to teenagers and adults who live on the cutting edge. I mean, just look at this PS3 ad:

Do you think this will look dated and ridiculous in 10 years? Hell, it looks dated and ridiculous already. But that's what happens when Nintendo sells a bajillion consoles by being the nice, accessible, family-friendly company. You've gotta appeal to the cool kids and the enthusiasts, which is what Sega did and is what Sony (and Microsoft, to an extent) are doing. We'll see if the approach ends better for the companies in the fray this time around.

Got a favorite old-school moment you want us to cover as a Retromodo? Email your ideas to me at adam@gizmodo.com.

The Blaze is loaded with Sonic and Knuckles, Golden Axe, Shinobi, Ecco the Dolphin, Alex Kidd - Enchanted Castle, Alien Storm Altered Beast, Arrow Flash, Crackdown, Decap Attack, Dr Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine, Ecco Junior, Flicky, Gain Ground, Jewel Master, Kid Chameleon, Sonic Spinball and Shadow Dancer. I said some. [Crowded Brain]

Jesús Díaz: Great mix and cool retro look. Are these regular motherboards you are using?
Richard DaLuz: The systems inside the Super Genintari aren't anything you have to special-order. They're all the same old systems myself and many others grew up with through the '80s/'90s and regularly find floating around at garage sales to this day.

I used the beloved old gray and white "toaster" NES board, a model 3 Sega Genesis, the smaller redesigned SNES and an Atari Flashback 2 for the 2600 portion, since it's much smaller and easier to work with than retrofitting the original board from the '70s. It's still official reworked Atari hardware and completely compatible as far as I know, so all is well. The basic rule was that if any of the systems couldn't play ANY game I threw at it, it was out. I tend to avoid the much smaller "pirate/clone" systems for this reason.

JD: You didn't have to do any modifications to the boards to make them fit?
RD: The only board I really had to do any "major" modification to was the NES, and that was just a simple A/V amplifier mod using parts that can easily be found at any Radioshack for pennies. Other than that, just a lot of tedious rewiring and soldering to relocate the cartridge connectors.

JD: You have any background in electronics?
RD: Believe it or not, very little! I took one class way back in high school that basically just taught me how to operate a soldering iron without burning myself and/or others. (I still can't even tell you what the hell Ohm's Law is without Googling it.) Other than that I have no official training. Just a lot of dinking around by myself, finding out what works and what doesn't. It's an area that I've been curious about since I was a kid and still have yet to pursue professionally. This should be inspiring news to anyone else that's interested in this kind of stuff.

JD: What was the final bill for this wonderconsole?
RD: Mmm. You'd have to shell out whatever the going rate is for the four different consoles, plus about $50 or so for the casing materials, adhesives, machine screws and whatnot. Easily a couple hundred bucks if you're starting with nothing. But that's assuming you already have access to the necessary tools you'd need. (Soldering/desoldering irons, screw drivers, clamps, wiring, etc.) I ended up spending much more than that considering how many changes I made along the way though and that's something you have to consider when you're doing this kind of work. Nothing ever goes according to plan and the ole' wallet ends up taking the hit.

JD: And for how long have you been working on it?
RD: As far as what it's cost me in time... my God, I don't even know where to begin. I've been working on this damn thing on and off since early 2002! Granted I've taken many "sanity breaks" for several months at a time during the process and changed many things along the way, but that's still a long freakin' time. It's hard to come up with a figure for the time I've put into this thing, but know this... I wouldn't allow myself to part with it for less that a few thousand. I'm pretty sure this thing literally has my blood in it somewhere!

According to Richard, the system is very easy to hook up. Just one A/V cable is needed and you don't have to depend on any external transformer: he put all the necessary power in the case itself. Playing with it is as easy as the video shows: just plug in, put the cartridges in, turn the Super Genintari on, and enjoy.

[Stupidfinger —thanks Jenn and Richard]

The device, packed with retro gaming orgasmic material, will retail for around $100, but will only be available to those lucky Brazilians. The 20 games that are loaded on it will include Alex Kidd, Golden Axe, Ecco and obligatory Sonic titles (among others). It is not all good news though; there is no way to add new titles, $100 is a little steep and you could probably get an emulator to carry out a similar task. What the hell, these novelty devices cannot but help to put a smile on our faces, and a little cheer in our cynical souls. We'll look past the non-rechargeable 3 x AAA batteries included and dream of all the good times, when we were 3"0' tall and battling a blue superhero hedgehog through the Green Metropolis. A blue superhero hedgehog...how high were they? [Retro to Go]

We're not sure how SNES games will be played with only four buttons, but thems the breaks. There's also only 512MB of space on the drive, which makes us suspect things are kind of tight over at Ainol.

In conclusion, we know all want Ainol, but we can't have Ainol—it's only available in China. – Jason Chen

Ainol Website [Ainol via Gizmologia via Oh Gizmo]

Take the QDOS Genesis vivre en musique portable speaker out into the world, and you'll be carrying 360-degree surround sound wherever you go. Plug your iPod into its dock connector, and its four AA batteries will power four amplified speakers, each driving 3 watts of power, for eight hours of continuous music.

Back at home, it functions as a dock, where you can synchronize and charge your iPod for your next foray out into the wide open spaces. It's $164. – Charlie White

Product Page [QDOS, via Shiny Shiny]