SuperSega explains why it produces such “shitty” videos, saying it's afraid the analogue might steal its ideas

You'll have to forgive us for posting so much about the SuperSega FPGA system, but it's so dramatic that we honestly find it hard to look away.

Announced earlier this year, the system aims to run games on all of Sega's major home consoles. The Spanish team behind it – led by Alejandro Martin – had to grapple with difficult questions from day one, including the use of “Sega” branding and the legitimacy of its demonstration videos.

The latest problem surrounding the project arises from the fact that people who pre-ordered the console for three euros are now finding that the entire cost of 420 euros has been charged to their payment method.

The SuperSega team has already given us a statement on the matter, but also provided us with more information before Martin appears on a “popular” Spanish channel to discuss the project.

We've reproduced the provided Q&A session below. The only thing we changed are a few spelling mistakes (at SuperSega's request). We made it clear where changes were made; Otherwise we left the text unchanged.

WHY DOES THIS PROJECT NOT LOOK THAT GOOD AT ALL?

We are not rich people, we are just enthusiasts, developers and so on. We are currently working on implementing the schedule.

WHY [CAN YOU NOT] DELIVERY A SUPERSEGA PROTOTYPE TO SOMEONE?

We only have 2 boards, which costs us 15,000 euros per unfinished board.

When we ship a device, it may be damaged, loose, etc. and it may also be taken over by another company, such as Analogue, etc., and they can then return the cores and design to us and copy it.

WHY [DOES] NOT THE BOARD [SEEM] COMPLETE?

It is not finished at all, just 1 HDMI output, a USB input, the 5V auxiliary power, the FPGA, Bluetooth and minimal things are designed to display working videos.

We [do not have] enough money to complete a full board with all supplies starting today.

But the 3-4 layer board works, you can't say that functional traces are missing because you can't see the intermediate layers.

Why these crappy videos?

Not [enough] Resources.

STORY

In the last 2 years we got a working DC core, then we started the project and created and showed a schedule, which has been maintained to date and has not failed.

We use an FPGA chip that is 50% faster than Cyclone V used on Mister FPGA. Mister FPGA and similar chipsets cost around $50, ours costs around $200.

We used a 3K EVO board with 350-400K logic cells. In the videos that showed DC games (Crazy Taxi, etc.) a 3,000 euro Evo board was used. Then when we published a PR showing a board with this Ultrascale+ chipset, we failed to get a (random) image of a board that cost 20,000 euros, then the problems begin [a] bad reputation.

Some channels, like Pixel Cherry Ninja, said we would try this with a 20K board [sell] a console for about $500, we replied [to] He shows the target FPGA model, but hasn't changed the image or updated a new video about it [it].

CURRENT ERRORS

There are some as pictured [in the] last video.

First video, [there] They were cuts that tried to hide these small, very small errors, because if someone plays the videos back, the cuts on the video with me on the floor in front of the TV are about less than half a second long.

After many reviews, we started another video on another 4K TV (with current sound issues on 4K TVs) but nothing happened [shown] behind the TV and people start commenting on that something [was] attached to [it]instead of [the] SuperSega.

Then in the last video we show the back of the TV; We [show] that the rear USB port is too needy since it's just a prototype board.

WHY ALL THIS?

Basically [because] We would like to agree to the published schedule, unlike other projects that are still doing so [are] stacked over months or years.