DF Retro: Sega Nomad - The Original Switch-Style Hybrid Console? 

Sega does what Nintendeventually will do

Sega had so much potential, it would've been amazing to see what they would do if they kept making consoles Also thanks again digital foundry for the amazing content.

“The Switch works with every Switch game”, John Linnemann 2018.

I miss SEGA as a competitor in the console market.

FULL FAT CONSOLE EXPERIENCE

Damn Sega really was ahead of the game back in the day.

I retract my comment on the last Switch video these guys did where I said Sony did it before Nintendo. Clearly, SEGA was waaaaaay ahead of both of them. Touche SEGA.

3.5 mm jack! You hear that apple!! 🤨

Sega really deserved more recognition and success for their amazing products. It was a sad day when they stopped making hardware.

Yo guys i love all these retrospective videos, keep up the GREAT work!

It’s nice to see the PSP Go getting some love, I was always very pleased with mine and still charge it up for a blast every so often. I’ve occasionally toyed with the idea of getting a Nomad (and I’m thinking about it again now, especially as my latest MegaDrive has died), but they’re pretty pricey. I also really want a McWill GameGear with its sharper, brighter screen...

I still have my Nomad sitting here right next to my Lynx - and a giant pile of batteries.

Someone please recreate the goofy Nintendo Switch reveal commercial (with the rooftop party etc) with the Sega Nomad and cool 90s kids!

The Gunstar Hero theme fills me with nostalgia and happiness.

I always thought SEGA was way ahead of it's time and died for it... most of the recent revolutions in gaming were tried by them long time ago.

SEGA, as allways, way ahead of it's competitors

Hang on, the console is connected directly to the screen, and it still uses composite video!? WHY

You've come a long way, John, your videos are very high quality. Good stuff

Sega does what Nintendon't. Or didn't.

Man I still own one of these. Sega was so ahead of their time. They even came up with a streaming service before it was the norm.

Man it might be nostalgia speaking but music in the 16-Bit era was THE BEST. Mega drive had a more electronic, metallic sound than the SNES but both were awesome.

I love sega wish they never stopped making consoles

I really want to go back and get a PSP Go, but looking at prices it seems like people are starting to catch on to that potential. 😛 Great video as always!

I demand a shot-for-shot remake of that Nintendo Switch trailer with the Nomad and the DF crew.

Yay new DF Retro!

I agree, it flopped when introduced... however today? I love it! Modded screen with battery pack = 5+ hours of gaming and an Everdrive? Not to mention the Nomad controls are soo comfortable, if I can consider it a controller it would be one of the highest ranked I have ever used. I almost beat Streets of Rage on my subway ride back from Seoul in S. Korea, I don't think anyone knew what I was playing lol.

Having the Spark the Electric Jester OST in the background was a nice touch.

SEGA always doing what Nintendon’t...SEGA was too ahead of their time.....

Video about the Sega Nomad. "Switch, Switch, Switch, Switch, Switch, Switch, Switch, Switch"

Sega was always ahead of the curve with their hardware.

Damn Sega, i respect you a lot more now. Risking all or nothing for innovative ideas. (Even though some were pretty bad) Even now, they support their passionate fan creators. Too bad their consoles went under

More people should support Sega, they're not perfect but they had offerings that pushed gaming.

Some interesting stuff, handhelds are always fascinating. DF should do a video on the GPD Win 2, technically not a console being a PC but it is a handheld and needs no dock either. It's Core i3 CPU can do some impressive AAA on the go but at a hefty price tag.

Dude: with that title you owe us a Turbo Express review.

That's the official DF Retro Gray Jacket.

Still have my Nomad after all these years!. I play it more than i do with my switch. Dont see the switch having an Everdrive.................

If you have one, upgrading the LCD is a must!

Did not expect the Spark the Electric Jester Soundtrack there, pleasant surprise!

I guess PSP is not retro enough for an exclusive episode, love to see one xD. PSP personally is my emulators machine back in the day.

Would be nice to see similar or even better and deeper analysis of Dreamcast. That console was also really creative and innovative piece of hardware and surely deserves much more attention than it gets.

The only reason Nintendo gets away with these "crazy" consoles is because of the games. There's not a single time Nintendo releases a new console that it doesn't come with a ultra hyped, ultra quality game.

The Super Nintendo was kind of like the Nintendo Switch in a way. And by that, I mean the Super Nintendo had the Super Game Boy and Super Game Boy 2 add-ons. The Nintendo GameCube was the same way because it had the Game Boy Player add-on, a third-party monitor attachment add-on which made the GameCube portable, the Game Boy Advance series, meaning that you can either play your existing Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance games on your TV or third-party attachable GameCube monitor via the GameCube's Game Boy Player add-on or take your Game Boy Advance (Original, SP or Micro) and play your Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance games (Except for the Game Boy Micro, because the Micro lacks the ability to play Game Boy and Game Boy Color games) on the go. The Sony PS1 Slim (AKA the Sony PSone) was the same way as well. And by that, I mean you can play your PS1 games on your PS1 Slim (The PS1 Fat wasn't portable because it didn't have an official Sony monitor attachment for it) via your TV or take your PS1 Slim with you on the go and play your games on your PS1 Slim's attachable monitor or play your PS1 games on your PS1 Fat via your TV and after you're done playing your PS1 games on your PS1 Fat, you can turn your PS1 Fat off, pop your game disc out of it, remove your PS1 memory card, pop your PS1 game disc and PS1 memory card into your PS1 Slim and take your PS1 Slim with you and play your PS1 games on the go. Same goes for the PS TV/PS Vita TV. You can play your PS Vita games on your TV or take your Vita games with you on the go. Need I go on? It's such a shame that other countries never got their very own Sega Nomad.

Traded in my xb1 for a Switch, holy crap it was a great choice, some of the games on Switch like Zelda / Bayo / 2 are really fun

Sega's hardware died, But they have still huge legacy in console market. It died, but at least was not just an ondinary company in this world.

Game Gear FTW! :)

Ahead of its time. Nomad was a great name for marketing the portability of it.

PS vita is de last real handheld

Man, if it wasn’t for the bizarre sloping top panel, and the abysmal battery life, and the screen, I’d want one of these. Someday I’m going to take one of these, and rip out the screen, replace the battery compartment with a massive rechargeable battery, and somehow correct the slope, and use it as a portable Genesis.

John is my bae

I don’t understand why the screen would use composite video, converting the video from digital to analogue and then back to digital to run the LCD is madness and would be a giant waste.

I loved my Nomad. Had to carry a backpack of batteries though.

Sega walked so Nintendo could run

Turbo Express says hi 👋🏻

A lot coments about Psp Vita the vita fail my friends

I had no idea the Nomad even existed until this video

TBH if we had 2020 battery technology in 1995, Sega Nomad would have been incredible. The fact that it consumed 1 AA battery every 25 minutes is what killed it.

Mega drive wins

Most may forget the psp go used M2 memory (a micro SD like memory stick). I always thought the psp go was a test for a digital portable system.... And of coarse the Vita comes out and it's running proprietary memory (still) and it is fully digital, no optical drive like UMD

I'm quite disappointed the way you constantly compare it to the Switch. I get why but this way, younger viewers won't understand what Nomad was like at the time. GameBoy Advance was 6 years away with similar power! Also, comparing the Nomad to the Wii U as a mobile device in 2017 is ridiculous - the Vita is a much better example since it ran PS3 ports AND the Vita was actually impressive. Basically, you miss the right notes with your video - the Nomad WAS technically impressive as a handheld at the time and most of the negatives you mention were actually pretty common back then so those alone wouldn't have put off people (except battery life - on the plus side, at least you can swap batteries out!). The real reason for Nomad's failure, is that it appeared at the worst time - when 3D was in huge demand and this thing offered none. I remember in 1995 when all the magazines had the same "2D is dead" line with PC's having games like Doom and Duke Nukem 3D and the Playstation just having appeared. Even Gameboy saw a drop in popularity at this time. Combine this with a rather hefty price and poor advertising (I didn't even see any Nomad ads in the magazines I read) and I'm not surprised it failed.

Nomad battery life may be comparable to the switch now but with the battery tech from 1995, it can eat through a full set of batteries in 45 minutes. Wasn't even enough for the full bus ride on a school trip.

Great. I love Nintendo Switch

@DigitalFoundry, thoughts on the SteamLink app coming to the switch?

You can play multiplayer PS1 games on the PSP GO

What kills me on the switch is no d- pad & no anolog triggers Dreamcast had those in 98 on plus of digital magnet anolog that console just started using, Sega should make Bluetooth Dreamcast and Saturn controllers compatible for all consoles and Pc

Love that Gunstar Heroes music

Love the enthusiasm and love poured into this series. Thank you DF.

john have my babies

Sega always seemed about 5-10 years ahead of the curb on the hardware front. Who cannot agree that while a financial failure the Dreamcast was also incredibly ahead of its time shipping with a modem for online play, chat rooms, browsing etc. RIP SEGA CONSOLES.... Also wanted to say always love to watch DFRETRO!

SHAME ON YOU SEGA how dare you copy Nintendo Switch :)

Ok i gotta admit the intro was kinda strange and weird but then i realized you were mirroring the Switch commercials. Well done.

super jealous of that PVM in the start of your video.

I still have my psp go though I don't know where I put my charging cable

Sega was good at coming up with innovative ideas but bad at executing them.

Love the work that went into recreating the Switch pitch in this video. And the epic Gunstar Heroes music to set the scene. Great work.

How innovative is the Switch really when you think about it? It's basically a tablet with tactile controls. This sort of setup have existed in the form of various 3rd party addons since the first iPad. I mean, the execution and support is a lot better with the Switch, but the underlying ideas are not new. Also, all the hardware "magic" comes from our good engineers at Nvidia, it's 1:1 spec wise compared to a Tegra essentially.

Had NO idea the psp go had a dock!? I wish I'd known that back when it first came out :-(

Nomad was a portable Genesis. Switch was made to be portable, hence the very reduces power consumption. The Nomad could last maybe 2 hours if you were lucky.

You should had mentioned the potential to use a Mega everdrive to hold up the entire library of games in a single cart :0

Hey John ever thought of doing a DF Retro ep on Just Cause or STALKER?

As an owner of a Nomad unit since the 90s, this sure brought back some memories. ...Maybe I should look into getting mine modded. Also, I didn't know Genesis Virtua Racing worked on the Nomad. I guess I just assumed it wouldn't. Ah, X-men. Bane to Nomad units and Genesis units with broken reset buttons alike.

At least with the Nomad, you could plug it directly into a TV, didn't need huge dock that is three times the size of the console to plug it into a TV.

DF Retro on TUROK xb1 remasters please!!!!

Nintendoes what no one else can.

I would argue that Sega got the idea from the PC Engine LT/TurboExpress.

Was this video made because Sony fanboys were claiming that the ps vita was original switch?

Wtf I didn't even know the psp-go had a dock for playing it on tv where the hell have i been?

a handheld console will never surpass a full fat home console

It’s hard to see the screen on the Nintendo switch outside I went outside with it a the screen was hard to see

Hm, I have a PSP Go. I'm going to have to look into this dock...

Nintendo steals alot of ideas and calls it innovation! Even Wii was "inspired"

Is the music at the beginning from gunstar heroes?

I hadn't realized you parodied the Switch TV ad LOL. Great.

I still have my Nomad and Phantasy Star 4 is still inside it.

I have NEVER heard of that PSP Go feature... I've got every PSP version except the Go, but now I'll need to get one.. and that dock!

Lol funny how this was recommended to me after the news broke of the re-release of the Nomad coming

I just installed Unreal 2 and it looks totally asotnishing; it's surprising how well it manages the new harware and how well it looks at native ultrawide 1080p(yes, the game does support it) with all settings maxed out. Would definetly see many times a DF Retro talking about it.

The sound selection for this episode makes me happy.

Full Fat!

The Sega Game Gear in Europe had an adapter to play Master System games and the hardware inside was basically just a Master System, with many games coming out for it being direct ports from the Master System. I think Sega just continued that idea of having their last generation console hardware be used for their next portable system. The Nomad just cuts out the middle man of an adapter and advertised itself as a portable megadrive.

Sega is STILL a great company overall. They regularly release some of my favorite games every year like the Yakuza series and Atlus RPGs. Granted, they should be doing a lot MORE though. With all the AMAZING IPs Sega owns, there's NO GOOD REASON they shouldn't be a bigger 3rd-party publisher than EA, Activision, etc.