The Mystery of the Scorpion 16 | Nostalgia Nerd
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 เม.ย. 2024
- Try sponsor Readly and get 2 months free! readly.me/nostalgianerd ~ Think back to Bad Influence Series 3, episode 13. It was aired on CITV, on 1st December 1994, and it featured an array of things; a 32X, Sega Saturn, but most curiously a Scorpion XVI, otherwise known as a Sega Scorpion or Scorpion 16. This Sega Mega Drive & Genesis clone console was such an unexpected and mysterious artefact, that it stuck in my mind for years to come, and I wasn't the only one. But just as suddenly as it appeared, it vanished, without a trace. So, let's get to the bottom of this mystery and take a look at a Scorpion console, in the flesh.
Huge thanks to the excellent Violet Berlin and tremendous Steve Keen for helping with this episode.
🔗Video Links🔗
Scorpion XVI 32X Compatibility Test: • Scorpion XVI 32X Compa...
Sega Scorpion 32X Mod: • Sega Scorpion
90s High Streets:
• Aberdeen, Union Street...
• Bolton Town Centre1992...
• 1990s Oxford Street, L...
Bad Level 10 (with Violet & Steve): • Bad Level 10: Atari Fa...
Details of the KW501 at Sega Retro: segaretro.org/KW-501
TristaBytes: / tristabytes
Larry Bundy Jr: / larry
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Thanks for watching folks. I hope this cleared up any intrigue you've held for the past couple of decades! Also, if you'd like to try sponsor Readly and get 2 months free, then the link is readly.me/nostalgianerd ~ much obliged.
Sponsor page dont conect.
Funny outro struggling to get the neckless off, though if rights would have permitted it a song from the band the Scorpions would been very fitting to that.
didn't Hong Kong based businesses use Ltd. suffixes?
I'm not into this streaming stuff, but I can appreciate how space is a premium and physical mags takes space that big box PC software and cartridge clam shells could be occupying instead. This *Readly* sponsor bit was interesting to watch, especially _The Ultimate 90s Collection._
@@sergeleon1163: Scorpion reminds me of NOD from the original _Command & Conquer._
the necklace gives you:
+3 poison resist
you mean +3 blood poisoning and green skin
Is that a Gaunlet ref?
@@xyzconceptsYT no a cheap necklace reference
@@PaulBadman Geez got me excited there for a sec. 🤣 I was thinking of the Amulet buff in gaunlet.
@@xyzconceptsYT I'd say a Diablo 2 ref (very timely given the remake)
Shout out to Andy Crane, Violet Berlin, and all the people who brought us Bad Influence 🤠
Better yet, bring it back. Gamesmaster is being bought back later in the year night as well go all the way
I had a massive crush on Violet back in the day. Remember her being on another games show much later and still had the crush on her..
@@Trollhammer0210 Yeah I think the show was Gamepad on bravo or something..
@@Trollhammer0210 back in the day... Glad I'm not the only one
Oh wow, Violet Berlin. There’s a name I haven’t thought of in many years.
I'm in awe at just how much detail you have found for this video. I was impressed at the backlog info found in magazines but going to Violet and Bad influence team is simply astounding. You sir are a legend of the gaming scene and I take my hat off to you!.
Yep
Gary Smoke, Golden Scorpions…this episode has it all including a genuine 16bit banger of a tune.
Here in Argentina, they sold a clone identical to that one there, but it was called SONGA, the only difference was the front label, few of my friends still have it, tested sega cd and virtua racing on it and they work fine.
Aguante la Songa 2 vieja
Jugemos La SONGA Playstation
I saw it, but never thought it was actually a Genesis/MD clone, rather a "family" with SEGA looking casing at the time
La Songa era de los mejores clones, aunque se que también se vendía bajo otros nombres
@Alejandro Javier Asenjo, honestly, it would be far easier to get a Tech Toy made Sega Genesis/Mega Drive than it would be to get a Songa Sega Genesis/Mega Drive clone console.
That console gives an opportunity to see the secret message in Mickey Mania, when the console somehow turns into another region.
2:33 The presense of Sega via Tectoy here in Brazil didn't stopped Dynavision (a well known Atari 2600 and Nes clone manufacturer here in the past) to sell the Megavision, a Mega Drive clone that probably shares the same hardware of the scorpion one.
Actually the Megavision and Scorpion are different clones internally as they copy different Revs from the Megadrive.
A more similar if not the same clone as the Megavision is the Nasa New 16 bit or other Model 1 replicas that use the same bootleg chips.
Come to think of it, systems like these did not harm profit of the companies like Sega or Nintendo. Console manufacturers usually do not make much profit from machine itself, instead they milk customers on games. So, if Scorpion did not come with bootleg cartridges, they actually helped Sega to penetrate more market, especially late in the game when 16-bit consoles became somewhat obsolete (mid 1990s) .
Damn, Streets of Rage has amazing music
That drove me crazy owning a Genesis. So many games had awful music, and there was a good explanation. I forgot who made the video. There was an audio converter/maker of some sort, and the result was that awful "rrrrrrrrraaaaannnngggggg" that the Genesis often had. The SNES version often sounded better.
When they fine-tuned the audio, the Genesis's music could actually sound better than the SNES (example: Maximum Carnage) since it had an actual synthesizer chip instead of the SNES's wavetable.
Update: Game Sack mentioning Gems in his video "The Worst Sounding Sega Genesis Games"
@@JoeStuffzAlt It's not that the GEMS driver was incapable of making good music, but that most composers didn't know how to use it well. Earthworm Jim is an example of a GEMS-driven game with awesome music.
That being said, almost all of the games on Genesis that had great soundtracks did not use GEMS.
Yeah, er, I got completely distracted. We were supposed to be comparing something, I think?
@@JoeStuffzAlt Funny thing about that wavetable - the reason SOR sounds so good is that it _isn’t using the synth chip_ as much. Er, to be more specific, it isn’t using as much FM synth, but instead relies heavily on the PCM channel.
I.e., it’s using a software version of the sample-based system in the SNES’s SPC. ;-)
The SNES would sound a lot better if it had a bit more memory. The SPC was a complete processor that ran its own code and had its own RAM - but only 64KB. It was typical to use half of that for the DSP effects, so that left 32KB for all audio engine program code, the song data, and the samples. Which is just barely more than nothing, so you ended up with very low quality, short, tightly looped samples. It is possible to stream sample data, in which case the SPC can sound like a slightly crippled CD audio player.
The Genesis can stream PCM as well, but there’s a fundamental issue with the way data is transferred by the Z80, which means it’s really hard to have sampled audio playing for more than a few milliseconds without interruption - which is why so many games have that scratchy broken-up sound to them.
TLDR: FM is the dog’s breakfast. Samples are sweet. But both SNES and Gen/MD had their musical hands tied behind their back by lackluster architecture.
that street of rage intro. OMG how good it is! my eyes teared up.
Always a good day when a new Nostalgia Nerd video drops. Bought the Master System when it was released here in the UK. Same with the Mega Drive and they hold a great deal of nostalgia for me. Indeed, I have just done a shop around Waitrose with the Streets of Rage soundtrack on my headphones, longing for simpler times. Never heard of the Scorpion 16 so looking forward to watching this tonight!
I watch some of his videos but there are lots of good channels out there.
Mega drive crew!
Woke up feeling like death this morning, this is the first thing all day that has made me smile
I remember seeing a piece about these on Central News, I guess around 1994. A guy in Leicestershire was somehow responsible for either making or distributing them, I can't remember which. He was a proper garden shed empire, and he had struck a deal with Beatties to stock them. Indeed, they were on the shelves in my local store. They were retailing for an amazing £39.99 for a base unit without a game, don't know if it came with any controllers for that price. There was some hoo-ha over them, and they stopped selling them after a few months. But a nearby rebel indie store struck a deal to stock them, which featured in a second Central News report, and you could find them there for a couple of years or more.
"Guy in Leicestershire" makes sense since the unit in this video came with a Telegames branded PSU and Telegames used to be based in Wigston just south of Leicester. Was probably them that distributed it under a different company name in case of legal problems.
27:48 At that point most TVs sold in the PAL countries took 60hz just fine. Some didn't take NTSC color making it black and white, but that wouldn't be a problem if you used RGB anyway, and most of them did take NTSC color.
My TV couldn't take a NTSC signal, but I had a VHS player that could and converted signals on the fly, so I just ran import consoles through that!
@@Larry My telly couldn't do NTSC 3.58 either, though you could gain the feature by having an 'option board' fitted by the dealer! There was even one that enabled analogue free-to-air satellite! Those were the days..
That’s our experience with PAL TV and signals here in the Philippines (we use NTSC). We couldn’t exactly discern the difference in resolution or the 50hz rate, but PAL signals being in Black and White has always stuck with me.
As an Aussie, the cheap mono-audio CRT TV from kmart I got when I was a kid did NTSC perfectly fine but my current 4k TV misses the colour signal which I get around via using a RGB to HDMI upscaler for anything that old.
At that point, TVs owned by most households were models they'd had for a number of years, or picked up cheap from Radio Rentals, and I can tell you now, most of my CRTs from that era will not take 60Hz.
I think the Scorpion was probably stopped at import rather than SEGA going out to meet them. They probably filed a complaint noting that their intellectual property was being violated and the company likely didn't exist in in the Companies House registry. The importer would have been required to show up and claim the goods in addition to making some legal statements that they aren't selling those products. They probably didn't do that, so the UK held onto them for some period of time and then sent them to be destroyed.
The 90's were such a great anything-goes-era. So much new exciting stuff being developed and talked about. Even those bootleg consoles, which always had this aura of mystery surrounding them. It simply was an amazing time to become a videogame fan.
Greetings from Germany :)
20:22
I never get tired of that theme, goose bumps every time, even with this uh, oddly mixed version lol
Its been so long I don't remember the music in the sense that I could hum the tune, but as soon as it started I could *feel* it
I have Sega to thanks for me liking industrial/electronic music.
Yuzo Kushiro (spelling ?) made some great music.
@@Gatorade69 Koshiro
Funny, here in Brazil we had a strong official Sega presence... but before that, my first videogame was a DACTAR. Basically the same thing but cloning an Atari 2600.
I have a Scorpion in the original "simple" box, so this story is interesting to me.
I'll give you a hundred million rupees for your scorpion medallion! Or ten deutschmarks
The distorted bass sound was a very commom problem with all Mega Drive clones.
The sound of the original, with the headphone port is unbeatable. I still have mine, and love it dearly. I used to boot the Mega Drive just to hear the soundtracks!
Such a good sound.
YM2612 a.k.a. OPN2 is a legendary chip
@@mantizshrimp Yep it is surprisingly capable, Yamaha developed it alongside the famous DX-7 keyboard though it isn't completely compatible. It has four operators instead of 6 if I'm not mistaken, but fully multitimbral, which is awesome. People still build DIY FM synths with it and sell kits.
Eh, the headphone jack has an annoying buzzing sound on all models I’ve teated
@@malachigv never had such issues.
Incredible, I actually remember watching (and still have on VHS somewhere) this episode of Bad Influence. This really was a trip down memory lane :)
I gotta give it to Sega, I always liked the design and color scheme of their consoles much better. However, I owned a NES and SNES due to the exclusive games and better controllers but I still absolutely love the Genesis, MD and Saturn look
I remember seeing the Bad Influence episode at the time, and then saw a Scorpion 16 in the flesh in a game shop outside Glasgow, circa 1997. Couldn't quite work out what it was, but really wish I'd bought it at the time.
The second connector in the Kw-501 was allways unpopulated when it was fresh from the fabric, actually King Wei never put the second cart connector to make the console for cheaper, if the retailer wanted to sell the console with built in games, they had to solder the cart slot by themselves, thats why is very uncommon to see the second cart slot, aslo the Trap door was a later feature, aswell as the hole in the back, these where implememted later for future board revs that had the switch for the 50hz/60hz mod and to make the built in games feature easier for the retailer.
Interestingly, the internal board (which is actually a 503 from '95) suggests that the console on Bad Influence (with trap door) is an earlier model than mine (without)
@@Nostalgianerd Thats a yes and a no actually, the shell of your Scorpion is actually from an older rev that the one seen in Bad Influence, but the board is newer.
The Trapdore was the second last mod done to the mold, the last one being a second hole next to the MegaCD port for a redesing all in one Region Switch, but this was never implemented in the Kw-501 family and the hole is left unused, in their 520 series (wich are just model 2 copies) they have the all in one Region Switch that was meant for the 501.
Ten sam model występował w Polsce w połowie lat '90 pod nazwą "Power Pegasus" 👍
@@zdemolowanyrabin You don't say!
@@zdemolowanyrabin Kup teraz!
Dude, your video topics are incredibly meticulously researched. Being well presented doesn't hurt either. Thanks for the work you put in.
Really enjoyed the video. I must be getting old and jaded because I’m far more interested in this stuff more than the legit console themselves. I recently tracked down a sega flashback HD console after watching your in depth review. I stopped myself asking why would I not just buy an original mega drive for the same price. I came to inclusion that the emulation from cartridges excited me more than to re-experience the original software and hardware itself
Save states are a bloody blessing for the 8 and 16-bit era when stuff was still Nintendohard and you might not even have a save option.
I loved this throwback to a lesser-known retro device. I started out with the OG Sega Master System 1 here in Aus, oh the memories.
Love this. Reminds me of childhood trips to 1990's Hong-Kong where addon's for the SNES were common at street markets. These add-ons allowed you to play pirated games stores on floppy disk. I thought that was the coolest thing I'd ever saw as a kid, especially when you looked on jealousy at mate's massive games collection (me and my brother's could only scrape together enough money for a few cartridge games)
Damn that music on SoR2 gets me, I still love listening to it, but when compared to the VA4 it doesn't sound good enough, I'm glad you tested it.
I'm the kind of guy that usually cannot tell the difference between original and emulated sound, but this I could certainly tell, the Scorpion was unbearable, and to think that the Mega Drive 2 is even worse than this.
Its very strange actually because in my Kw-501/Scorpion XVI the stereo sound is allright without the muffle and distortion problem.
My best guess would be that is because the one from the video is a Kw-503 one of the last revs made around 1996, wich maybe could explain the worse sound as the console got cheaper and cheaper compared to my 1993/17 Magic 2 Kw-501
Yeah a little more static then I'd like
@@souljastation5463 Some model 2's are worse, but not all.
This was a fantastic video, watched it from end to end and you certainly put my mind at rest since watching that Bad influence episode all those years ago. I did look them up on ebay from time to time and like you said its normally 350GBP + now for one.
Quality stuff! I was hoping one day you might cover the Scorpion! I'm shocked to find out the hatch in the bottom for the built in game never worked!
Great video. I always wondered about the console after seeing that episode of Bad Influence. It's amazing you managed to get Violet involved too!
I absolutely love this channel. I remember going into computers shops every Saturday morning to play on the Sega Mega Drive when I was 12/13. Absolutely a 90s Nerd 🤓😁
I used to envy the blokes that worked in my local one. I remember playing Sonic just after it was released; along with Space Harrier 2 and Altered Beast; wishing I had access to a collection of more than 8 games.
The research and time you’ve put into this, added up to something fantastic fs. I’m from the U.S. and have never heard of the Scorpion systems til this video.
Same here, I'm from the UK 🇬🇧 and never heard of it.
Yeah I'd seen the Scorpion famiclone before but I never saw this bad boy, and I cannot believe just how much information he dredged up over such a obscure topic.
I had a Scorpion 8, and was later given a still-boxed Scorpion 16 (which I've still got sat in it's box in a cupboard). When I bought the Scorpion 8 from our local games shop (the now sadly defunct "Chips" computer store) I remember being told about the next Scorpion console - the Scorpion 32 which would have been a SNES and Megadrive all-in-one system (presumably named the 32 because two x 16 bit consoles = 32). I'm not sure that would have even been possible at the time, and I've never found anything online about it so chances are it never existed - but would have been cool at the time if it did :)
The best content you create are these documentary type of videos. Not saying that the other content is bad, just that you are good at doing research and then putting together these videos. Well done! I'm from Argentina and here we had lots of Famiclones and Genesis/MD clones. I happen to own a MW-500 one, and I've seen a lot of similar Scorpion clones, mostly under different names, one of them being "Pegasus" as you mentioned. They also sold those big 6 buttons 3rd party controllers separately.
I got chills from nostalgia of late nights with cheap beer and even cheaper weed, playing Streets all night. That game's song slapped so hard, I went to listen to it after this video!
How old goes that make you ;) I’m guessing about 5-10 years older than me
3 cans of special brew on Friday night yeah? Meet you at town centre.
Interesting, I watched this because I'd never heard of the Scorpion, but at the same time discovered I have a KW-501 in my collection. Always wondered why the badge was pink! Amazing detail as always :D
Streets of rage's music is still GOAT to this day 😍😍
THAT Streets of Rage opening theme..............The Mega Drive remains my all time favourite console. I love how that machine handled it's 16-bit graphics and sound. You can identify a Sega Mega Drive game immediately. Such a refined system.
20:36 omg that's my jam, SoR soundtrack is timeless.
The flash of the our price shop brought back vivid memories of squandering the a fast proportion of my meagre wages on tapes and vinyl in it every Friday
I remember seeing one of these in some random shop in Ireland in the early 90s. One of those shops that sells tvs, vcrs, hoovers, washing machines, and has a small games cabinet. Always wondered what exactly it was, and why I should want one over a proper Megadrive.
Because they were cheaper ? :D
I remember seeing this on the Bad Influence episode. It brings back so many memories of being a 9 year old sat in front of my TV watching CITV after school. I don't ever remember seeing or hearing anything else of the system after that episode.
At 26:18, when you mentioned the missing dip switches, you can see the capacitor on middle left with 2x3 soldering points on it's side. Those were the hardwired jumpers for region lock of the MgaDrive I. 2 switches, 5 wires a scalpel and a solder iron... and region free was available on all machines. And some needed a bit modification to the slot lids. Back in that time I modified about 50 machines in exchange for a game
I clearly remember watching that episode and thinking the trapdoor idea was good. We already had a Mega Drive 2 though.
Yeah. I remember too.
The Aito branding was definitely the best one, as "aito" is Finnish for "genuine".
Ha, that's funny. Looks like they just removed the T from the Taito logo.
I want to thank you for opening this machine up to show us the insides. I have been an astute Sega guy since I was a kid in the 90s. I first learned of this machine in 2006 and the 2nd cart it supposedly had. I then spent 7 years trying to both learn about this feature and get my hands on one to see how the 2nd slot functioned. I was unsuccessful. Not even ASSEMbler Games forum could help me. (You remember that place, right? RIP...) I had given up. Thanks to the shot of the PCB I now have my answer 15 years later. It runs in parallel with the primary slot.
Thank you good sir. Now I can rest easy knowing I no longer need to hunt this machine down to figure it out.
During 1994-1995, I'm just a kid from Malaysia living a tween life in sub city of Swansea, Wales, tried to convinced my dad to get me a Megadrive for my birthday, because being influenced by this kid from Brunei, who's I keep hang out at his place to play Mortal Kombat 2 & Eternal Warrior. Long story short, my dad knew about it & also ask me why Megadrive was better than my NES (which he bought randomly at Carboot sale). Eventually what I got was Scorpion 16 console (which I believe my dad bought this from Carboot sale too) with 2 controller plus Outrun & Sonic 2 games. At first I was skeptical about the console on why it's written 'Scorpion' not 'Sega' but still looks like Megadrive 1. Like any curious kid, it took me a weeks of research through magazine to know this console & even ask couple kids at school about it but most seems surprised to hear about it as well. It only went knowledgeable when I ask around this fellow from Action Console (can't recall his name btw) that he was explained about my console was about, which lead me to get my decent copy of Eternal Warrior afterwards.
Today I still keep it for years & recently playing again during COVID quarantine phase because after return to Malaysia in 1996, most Megadrive games in Malaysia were Japan region but since Scorpion was multi-region, it was a win-win situation for me beside not having to buy Japan region console but also got try more Japanese exclusive games that weren't available in UK.
yep i remember these my dad got me one from BHS when i was 7 he would have his friend come over to our house every month with a bunch of games and let me pick one to play for the month i always ended up with road rash 2 or mega bomberman i had a JVC Videosphere in my room so i spent many nights infront of a space helmet shaped black and white tv
When did TV designs get so damn boring!? Okay, I mean, I know it's when they didn't have to wrap their case around the enormous CRT, but still. They're all just black rectangles now. Bring back wild designs!
Did yours come with a scorpion necklace?
@@OldMan_PJ I don't remember I think it was one of the early boxs I don't remember seeing this box
@@TheRealColBosch When TVs became cheap commodity available to the masses.
I remember Beatties! They sold a lot of D&D books and I was always in there after school windowshopping...
Great department store, so many cool toys, games and electronics!
I can not believe the music sounded that good. I'm so floored right now!
Thank you for that amazing experience!
Madvizion from San Antonio Texas
Great video! Always wanted to know more about these after seeing the bad influence footage years ago!
In the post-Soviet countries there was also a memorable clone called Mega Ken, they even made their own video games-dedicated TV show.
MEGA KEN. What an incredible name.
@@Nostalgianerd The company or trademark was called Kenga. There were 8 bit consoles Kenga Ken Kid (typical NES clone) and Kenga Ken Boy (cartridge slot was in the joypad), as well. th-cam.com/video/mI7u4_qJVJI/w-d-xo.html
th-cam.com/video/AT7qNxlaTsI/w-d-xo.html
th-cam.com/video/DJUWSFJQcEw/w-d-xo.html
Exactly, Mega Ken was my first gadget
@@vladdx There was a TV show on Ukrainian TV circa 1995 on, I suppose, the national UT-3 channel. They directly said that "now we would be reviewing the games for Mega Ken" and I always used to wonder back then whether those were the same games as for Sega Mega Drive or some other ones.
The new " Mega Kenski"
It's pretty nice there were options on the UK's High Street; growing up here in the States it was all but impossible to find clone systems anywhere until the early aughts/mid aughts due to US Copyright laws. That said, I did listen to this on headset and as interesting a curiousity the Scoirpion is I do notice the Scorpion's sound was not great compared to the Mega Drive. It sounded like it has the same issues a headset might before one earpiece goes out, and I find that disappointing. This seems like a rather neat little clone!
Man. I had almost forgotten how banging the music from Streets of Rage was. I haven't played that game since I was in my early 20's, back in the 90's.
Yuzo Koshiro (and his SoR music) is on Spotify - if you fancy a bit more nostalgia
Just to say - I was exactly the same and have been aware of this through Bad Influence all those years ago! Wow, thanks for covering this rare pirate console on your channel! :D
We never had such hardware/gaming focused television here in the states. I'm frickin'
jelly.
There was that show on Nickelodeon though they didn't really talk about hardware and were more about games.
@@Gatorade69 Nick Arcade
There was one before school show I remember that was a game show. At the end, the winner (winning team maybe, it has been close to 30 years, maybe even more) got to run around collecting gaming hardware/software (which back then was also hardware). I wanted that NeoGeo so bad...
Just so you know in that article. that guys name is Dave. Yeadon is the name of the town. my home town in West Yorkshire it's in Leeds. Ps I remember as a kid finding lots of copy consoles in the leeds market crazy to look back now wish I grabbed one.
Very interesting video. I remember seeing this on Bad Influence too and was intrigued by it and wondered why I could never find it in any shops here in the uk. The addition slot for a built-in game and multi region capability made the 10 year old me think it was a possible Mega Drive beater. Very interesting about the additional cart slots.
I think that back then, a fully comparable system with minor sound differences and built in support for carts from around the world woudl have done the trick as the Mega Drive beater (or in my case the Genesis beater), even without support for a second cartridge.
Ah retro game tech, one of my favourite channels from yesteryear. Hope he comes back at some point
Aye; cracking channel.
I'm very impressed with your zoom and enhance abilities just like from movies. Well done.
I had a version of this but without the scorpion label but made in Taiwan. Bought it in South Africa in 1993 as I could not afford an original. Funnily the shop was Telegames (same as the power transformer label lol !). But it came with a seperate 4 in 1 cart. So being a clever bugger I told my mother to warn the shop about these fakes and to shut me up, they gave me a free game (also a knock off !) ps: was peeved when I got SF2 only to realise that the pads were NOT true 6 buttons!
I 've got to say that i absolutely love your channel! I am fascinated by the history of the videogame industry in general and i find your topics of research amazing!
Great Video, I too remember the episode of Bad Influence! with the Scorpion 16. It was cool that you spoke with Violet about it, she always seemed cool.
I've been waiting for a quarter a centaury to find out why my copy of SMGP went black and white 😂 A question I forgot I wanted an answer to looong long ago..
You should try get it to 60hz NTSC, is a very simple mod in this clone, and makes for a great multiregion Megadrive alternative.
No way would I mod a rare console and damage its value. There are tons of ways to get a cheap 60hz chinese console or just emulate them.
@@alexojideagu Well the Kw-501 isn't a rare console by itself the only thing that makes it rare is the Scorpion badge.
@@Unnamed1990 yeh but this IS a Scorpion Console lol and very few exist. One on Ebay right now is going for £750.
@@alexojideagu Well i mean the mod is just like in the original and all parts are compatible with the original, so i don't see why it would be any risk
@@Unnamed1990 Collectors are very very anal, they want things exactly in original condition. That's why with many antiques you should not get them restored. I gaurantee if you mod this the value would plummet. One of the only exceptions are things like Atari Lynx and Game Gear with new screens and capacitors, due to the difficulty.
Come to think of it, systems like these did not harm profit of the companies like Sega or Nintendo. Console manufacturers usually do not make much profit from machine itself, instead they milk customers on games. So, if Scorpion did not come with bootleg cartridges, they actually helped Sega to penetrate more market, especially late in the game when 16-bit consoles became somewhat obsolete (mid 1990s) .
Another excellently produced game history video.
It's funny how past cheap knockoffs are now pricey collector's items.
This wasn't a cheap knockoff though. It was an unlicensed hardware clone.
Speaking of, "licensed clones" were absolutely a thing back in the early home console generations. The console companies would license the hardware out to companies that could distribute products to countries they basically didn't want to bother with.
They would often have proprietary cartridges and accessories that would be incompatible with other systems.
I saw that episode on TV and here we are, almost thirty years later and the mystery has finally been solved! Thank you!
Interesting video. I vaguely remember the Scorpion from Bad Influence but have never seen one in the flesh.
have that second cart slot soldered on, plug in a cart to sdcard reader that would be awesome !! switch on the huge games collection or plug in cart to play a single game
That's pretty much what an Everdrive is, a cart with an SD slot and a menu.
RIP Sir. Clive Sinclair.
Ha ha, a shot of my home town Bolton at 5:45 (alas what a dump it is these days). That's exactly how I remember that view of Dixon's and Muckdonald's from back in the 90's. It was a booming town back then, but sadly these days there's just nothing here any more, and we've not even got a GAME store now I noticed the other day!!! Great memories from Bad Influence though, from a far better time in my life at least!!
Cheers NN!!
The Game is inside Sports direct now! Absolutely bizarre. I came into the comments because I recognised my home town too. Agree it’s a dump now sadly :(
Dude, that old photo of One Step Beyond...spending hours in the SNES queue, that Amiga area upstairs, buying my first Master System, the colour-coded stickers for different prices, mega nostalgic!
Just to make it perfectly clear, there are some legit good clone consoles out there that do provide major quality of life improvements to the original hardware.
Native HDMI inputs, better input latency, an AC adapter that doesn't take up an entire power strip...
You just need to know where to look.
It's awesome that you contacted Violet Berlin about the Scorpion, though she couldn't remember much about it. :) However, what isn't so awesome was the shout out to Larry Bundy Jr. Channel Awesome is not so awesome as we all know following allegations of sexual abuse against women with the channel. :(
Come again?
@@Thekalistor Look up 'Channel Awesome Not So Awesome' controversy from 2018.
What I love about this is the six full size button joypad, that's really cool. A version is being released soon, but the top buttons are smaller.
I still have mine, here in Argentina. In my case the brand was "Kowi" written bellow a little crown in gold lettering above the cartridge port, with a "KW-II" stamped where the golden scorpion is in this one. Still works, but there's something wrong in the player 1 port, so it's basically unplayable. Although I don't remember mine sounding so distorted (I used headphones most of the time), I gotta check it out again. It has the switch for playing on PAL-N or NTSC TV's on the back, with no need to crack open the console, don't remember if it has a switch for regions on the inside. Mine does have the back panel door, with no cartridge port inside. It was bought for me in 1995. Great video!
21:00 This theme song is clearly an homage to the song Sadeness by Enigma. Same key and the percussion is identical:
th-cam.com/video/4F9DxYhqmKw/w-d-xo.html
a bunch of koshiro's SoR stuff cribs really really heavily from other music, often unapologetically - it's really good stuff (and fantastic use of the sound hardware), just clearly stolen hahaha
King Wei Electronics made around 5 different models in the Kw-501 family, that is not including all the variants with different mods built in.
In 1994 when the Scorpion XVI was allready out King Wei allready made a new clone to replace the Kw-501 named the Kw-502 wich had a different shell desing, and in 1995 the Kw-503 and Kw-504 where allready out.
For some reason it passed me by, but this version actually has a 503 board inside it. Would be interesting to know how many of these boards were swapped around different shells.
@@Nostalgianerd That actually doesn't happens quite often, is actually the first Scorpion XVI i see with a wrong rev inside, the Super Bitman is the best example that comes to my mind, but all of those had the last shell molds used.
Yours has a 1994 Kw-501V wich i think was a 50hz/60hz UCS model, but inside is a 1996 Kw-503 board with an unpopulated infrared receptor, is just very strange actually.
Actually it looks a lot like a Super Bitman, as they often sold both models at the same time, so they had Kw-503 and 504 boards with unpopulated infrared receptors for Kw-501 shells
@@Nostalgianerd Aslo that could explain the distorted sound issue yours have, as my 1993 Kw-501-II has no such problem, sadly i don't have a Kw-504 or a Super Bitman for test to see if all of these later models had such problems.
That photo of One Step Beyond brings back memories! Can't see Jarrold without wanting to nip behind it for a visit. Sadly, they haven't been there for decades now. I think they still run from one of the market stalls though?
Do you remember Software Emporium on Magdalen Street? I loved that place.
@@Nostalgianerd No, but I have followed Si from Swallow Games to Norwich Gaming Engine to Regen Gaming in Anglia Square.
Whenever I'm back in town visiting friends and family, it's always good hunting, especially Ed's shop Last Level Games on St Benedict's.
Hi, I'm Dave who wrote that letter to Mean Machines Sega. 👋
"you can tell the quality of a product based on the number of screws"
So that why all the Nintendo stuff come with a bazillion screws...
OMG! One Step Beyond!!! I remember many a time going to there. That pic of OSB was their second shop was on Bedford Street, the original started out on Castle Meadow, Norwich 😁 What a blast from the past just seeing that pic just brought back 😜👌
Just a couple of things to note, that first dip chip in the Mega Drive was actually the Z80 ram or sound ram chip and came in at a whopping 8KB not 64KB. One other thing that I really think should of had some attention was the CPU in the Scorpion was a 10Mhz M68000, which is or was more expensive than the 8Mhz equivalent in the Mega Drive. Great video, really cool bit of kit.
£69.99 for a “Mega Drive” plus two controllers and a game if they included the free game cart thing, would be an amazing deal. I seem to remember hearing you could even use Mega CDs on these, which would be even cooler.
Really enjoyed the flashback to Andy Crane, Violet Berlin and the Enigma, 'Sadness' lift that was Streets of Rage 2 music. All brilliant.
Cool product. Thanks for taking the time to put together the video.
Thank you for the great content!!
Now I am nostalgic for Bad Influence, but I have never seen it before.
I think all the episodes got uploaded onto a channel somewhere from vhs tapes
Great video.. I remember hearing about it on bad influence but never seen one in any high street or independent shops by me
I have 2 similar MD clones, one is a SX-900. Both use a CXA1145 and come with a Din 5 video socket you can switch for a Din 8 to provide RGB. Yours also have an unpopulated socket for a connector next to the CXA1645 so you can most definitley output in RGB. There's also an unpopulated crystal next to it, so you can switch between 3.57Mhz NTSC and 4.43Mhz PAL for composite video. This was very common in Asia as some countries run in PAL-60.
Dude, great video. I never even heard of this thing. Great research too.
Ahhhh it was Steve Keen that managed to get the cool Sharp SF1 Super Famicom TV on the show.
Excellent behind the scene info for Bad Influence.
That was fantastic Sir! Thank you!!!
That's a fascinating video, really well made and such an interesting story.
Kudos for that CSI-level image enhancement
Those connections that allow for the region mod switches on the Scorpion are present on the version one Mega Drive too, I’ve modded plenty of OG MDs to be region free, I think I even did a video on it a couple of years ago.
Yep - came here to say just this.
I learnt you could do this from a copy of Electric Brain (photocopy style fanzine, mysteriously available from my WH Smith in the 90s).