That was one of the reasons I wanted to have one.
this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2025
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One kid on my bus had it, we were all SUPER jealous and kicked his seat
The whole union of kobolds kicked his seat!? That must have been miserable for him!
Poor guy only got UPN like who were the real bullies 🤣
I did too, but my Dad ended up buying me one of those tiny handheld TVs with a 1" screen instead. It was more a novelty that anything, it sucked down batteries faster than an actual Game Gear.
I never saw a game gear last 5 hours. The one guy I knew who owned one seemed to have it run out of battery everyday on the school bus which was only like a 45 minute ride.
I got one for xmas one year, probably it's last year when Sega was clearing inventory, because I didn't ask for it. All I ever had was the pack-in Sonic title. I wish I kept it so that I could modernize it, but who would have seen that coming? I remember playing it and then seeing the battery light flash and I was like, "I wonder what that means, that can't mean a low battery since I've not been playing it all that long!" Yep, it was a low battery :(
It probably wouldn't have been a big deal IF Sega bundled a damn AC adapter with it instead of charging separately for it. It was hard to convince my parents to get me video game stuff as a kid.
He should've bought the official Game Gear AA battery bandolier
That was great to watch TV for exactly 8 minutes.
Conveniently carry around 20 or so AA batteries and you could probably get through an episode of Benson and the intro to TNG.
I had that thing! It was really cool to watch a football match while camping!
And I gave it to my father when he was in the hospital... Eurocup was at the time.
It wasn’t that good. The system already drained AA batteries like virgin sacrifices but imagine fm radio dials to sync for tv channels… That being said.. chefs kiss…
I had the AC adapter when I got mine as a kid, which helped a ton with that. It was definitely hungry.
Yep!
An every time I was in Toy r Us, Babbage's, Children's Palace or looking througu the JC Penny's Christmas catalog, I thought it was the coolest thing in the world and oh so desperately wanted it....despite not owning a Game Gear...😅
they really did have it all on uhf
That would have been so baller back in the day.
I gotta get my gamegear fixed. It’s too bad we switched over to digital OTA signal because I would love to mess around with this tuner.
Yes! I remember wanting one and envying the kid on the bus with his!
I wonder whether it digitised the video signal and sent digital RGB data over the connector, or whether there were analogue video channels provided for such a device.
Also, in any case, whether any hobbyist hackers have built adapters to use their Game Gear as a monitor for anything else through the same mechanism. (A HDMI in adapter would be cool, if slightly ridiculous.)
it's fascinating, the game gear itself actually has a "TV Mode" that's activated by holding down a certain signal on the cartridge bus which bypasses the z80 and VDP and chucks a digital RGB signal and some kind of custom timing information straight to the screen
TIL
I saw this once or twice. Taxi driver had it mounted on his panel to watch something on break. Somewhat solved the power draw problem with a car adapter...
I had one. And a TV sender (totally illegal where I was) to broadcast my cable internally to the game gear. I even played my mega drive (genesis) on the small screen.
What a waste of money, but at least I have memories!
This is the handsomest piece of analog gear I have ever seen. Absolute peak max sexiness, holy shite
Bubble-economy Japan led the way for an insane amount of features, aesthetics, and innovation for personal electronics. Most of it was dead-sexy stuff.
One of my favorite examples, the Sony MSX HitBit F1XD:
Is this a computer in a keyboard ? Staggering beauty. Magnificient arrow keys
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Everything is a rectangle now 😭
I had a cdx with an x32 attachment. It was not recommended but it worked
I wish I didn’t lose my gamegear
It was incredibly high tech at the time. SciFi Stuff. Unfortunately the Game gear also had incredibly bad battery life, and back then, batteries life literally meant "Battery", not "rechargeable Battery"
My Dad took 16 rechargeable AAs and ran a small circuit board to them with an adapter cable coming out. The zipper cases they made for GGs had a large cavity behind the storage area that was perfect for hiding them. I could play for an extra 16 hours with those things. Had to recharge them with a huge wall wort but it was the best gift my Dad ever made for me. I loved that damn system.
World best dad award
Seriously all I got was crippling alcoholism but some people's dads were cool as shit
I got alcoholism, physical abuse AND a Game Gear! Yayy! 🥲
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That is amazing
Had a Game Gear and really wanted one of these as a kid.
Still have that Game Gear and still really want one.
Unfortunately it would still be able to pick up the signal but the Tuner wouldn't be able to convert the newer digital format.
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I remember the Italian TV commercial for that.
It's times like this I wish I had a bigger house. There's so much of this old tech I just want, or at least I want to see and hold them. Basically I want a hands-on retro gaming museum.
It doesn't take up that much space. You sound like my wife lol
It does when you're collecting multiple retro consoles, all their cables, any adapters you need for modern TVs. I've had to make do with a Series S in dev mode running Retroarch for my retro gaming needs, and even then I can't get it to use anything other than an Xbox controller.
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Xbox ONE, PS TWO, PS THREE as well
Back in the day I had the portible TurboGFX with TV tunner. Seemed so cool but rarely got that much use.
I yearned for one of these TV tuners for years and never got one cause they were too expensive.
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