The Sega Saturn Has Been Cracked… and It Only Took 20 Years
The Saturn, for those of you unfamiliar with it, was Sega’s console that went head to head with the PlayStation and Nintendo 64, and completely flew under the radar of most gamers outside of Japan. Thanks to some questionable decisions by Sega, the Saturn never managed to find its feet in the West, and has since been relegated to a system loved by hardcore Sega fans and retro gamers, and nearly forgotten by everyone else.
The Saturn is also home to exclusive titles that have never been ported anywhere else, and the console is notoriously difficult to emulate—essentially locking its games to the original hardware. Worse still, CD drives don’t last forever—meaning that’s it’s entirely possible for a Saturn’s drive to die and permanently lock its owner out of playing. For archivists and retro gamers, this is a serious problem but, luckily for us, it’s one that has now been solved.
A user going by the name of Dr. Abrasive has figured out how to finally crack the Saturn wide open. Using a custom board that he developed, which plugs into the console’s VCD port, it’s possible to run Saturn games off of a USB drive. Now, even Saturns with non-functioning CD drives can be played—and these games are no longer in danger of being lost forever.
Instead of trying to explain how it works and what it can do, have a look at this video created by Dr. Abrasive:
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So excited that this news came out. I really hope this helps to spark some homebrew software. I can’t wait for whatever card/kit Dr. Abrasive releases.