Sega Nomad

The Sega Nomad was a wonderfully ambitious idea executed at precisely the wrong moment. Released in North America in 1995, it was, remarkably, a complete Sega Genesis reengineered into a portable form, one that played the vast majority of the enormous Genesis cartridge library directly, with no ports, no compromises, just the actual home-console games in your hands. It could even be plugged into a television to serve as a regular Genesis with a controller port. On concept alone, it was thrilling.

The machine was chunky and handsome, with a bright color screen and a proper Genesis controller layout built into its face. For a fan of Sonic, Streets of Rage, Gunstar Heroes, Phantasy Star, and the hundreds of other Genesis titles, the appeal was obvious and immediate, a beloved library made mobile with a catalog already numbering in the hundreds.

But the Nomad was crippled by the same demon that haunted so many color handhelds, power. It devoured six AA batteries in only two to three hours, making genuine portability an expensive fantasy. Worse was its timing. By 1995 Sega was a company at war with itself, having launched the Sega CD, the 32X, and the Saturn in rapid, confusing succession while its resources and focus splintered. The Genesis, the very platform the Nomad depended on, was being wound down, so the handheld arrived to serve a library its maker had already begun to abandon.

Sega gave it almost no marketing support, and it sold poorly, around a million units, before quietly disappearing by the end of the decade. It was less a strategic product than a way to squeeze a little more life from aging inventory.

The Nomad's legacy is that of a beautiful, doomed footnote to Sega's chaotic 1990s. Collectors adore it for exactly what it was, an uncompromising portable Genesis, and lament that it emerged from a company in disarray, at the tail end of a generation, with a battery appetite that no traveler could satisfy. It is remembered as a great idea that deserved a healthier Sega to give it a real chance.