What happened to Retro-Bit's prototypes?

[M-S]

For a long time Retro-Bit has been partnering with Sega and releasing official controllers and accessories for their legacy consoles. Now, some time ago they started showing some prototypes and concepts for products they are releasing in the future, like a Dual Analogue Saturn/Genesis/Switch controller, a 6-button redesigned Dreamcast controller +VMU and a Sega Nomad re-release(?). But so far the only new releases we are seeing are alternate colors for the Mega Drive controllers and the BIG-6 that is releasing alongside the Genesis Mini 2. I know there is a chip shortage in the market right now, but what happened to these? Retro-Bit keeps saying these are going to release some time in the future, but it has been a long time since they gave any news for these products.

[+jgkspsx]

Some of them may have just been concepts.

[M-S]

The Sega Nomad was the only prototype, the Dreamcast controller and the Dual Analogue Saturn controller were actually advertised. Interestingly, Retro-Bit never released any Sega branded clones, they made an adapter to play Mega Drive on SNES and they also made the Super Retro Trio, but this Sega Nomad looks like it's going to be the first one.

[chuckwalla]

Yea, it's been 2-3 years since they announced the New Sega Nomad.

 

Looks like a case of vaporware (anyone remember the hyped-up SNES CD-ROM?).

 

Then again, maybe eventually it will happen... 

 

[Tanooki]

Exaggerations Gaming Monthly, always full of shit, before there were 'click bait' they were #1 in print bait, the Weekly World News of gaming.  I've touched, used that SNES CD for instance, and ben heck detailed very well what it was capable of once he got a handle on it, then repaired it.  That thing is a joke, made up to get attention.

 

I'm sure the retrobit stuff exists, but they likely have a vault for both failed concepts and mock ups, whatever they were up to is likely dead and buried, perhaps literally buried if they smash and trash vs save it.

[M-S]

9 hours ago, chuckwalla said:

Yea, it's been 2-3 years since they announced the New Sega Nomad.

 

Looks like a case of vaporware (anyone remember the hyped-up SNES CD-ROM?).

 

Then again, maybe eventually it will happen... 

Considering Sega is hyping us for the Mega Drive Mini 2, they are likely not allowing third parties to make plug and plays or anything that can play Mega Drive because they want to avoid competition, this is similar to what happened during the release of the first Mini, there's a time window of 1 year between the release date of the Mini and any other hardware made by third party companies, an I actually searched more and I discovered Retro-Bit actually gave a release date for that thing, Christmas of 2019, so I think there's no doubt about what happened.

33 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

I'm sure the retrobit stuff exists, but they likely have a vault for both failed concepts and mock ups, whatever they were up to is likely dead and buried, perhaps literally buried if they smash and trash vs save it.

The only product that didn't have an actual prototype was the Dreamcast controller, they only showed concepts, but they posted quite a lot of things, and some posts are quite recent, this is different from the prototypes they actually canceled by deleting posts and never mentioning again, the posts about the dual analogue Saturn controller are also still up there.

[M-S]

On 8/6/2022 at 2:10 PM, chuckwalla said:

Yea, it's been 2-3 years since they announced the New Sega Nomad.

 

Looks like a case of vaporware (anyone remember the hyped-up SNES CD-ROM?).

 

Then again, maybe eventually it will happen... 

Then you would be right, Roxolid Productions, one of the first persons to receive review copies from Retro-Bit whenever they release anything, has confirmed with them that they are still developing it, if they have been developing it for so long either they forgot the prototype inside some drawer and remembered about it recently or they want this to come out as a Mega Drive clone worth of the Official Sega Seal of Quality.