@@salvatronprime9882 Hahaha.Omg that is so funny. It was so funny, I rolled over the floor, laughing my f ing ass off, pooing and peeing my pants, it was that funny. ROTFLMFAOPAPMP. Know what I mean?
"oooohhhh, look over there. There's a Saturn in his natural habitat. He hasn't seen us yet so you can see he's comfortable enough to expose his inner security mechanisms. What a beautiful creature"
Having that ring data on the outer edge was an absolute curse for many game shop owners that dealt with used Saturn discs, at least from a rant I had seen in an old Acts of Gord entry. A lot of people didn't take care of their discs (no surprise there) but the outer edge was usually the first to go, resulting in many Saturn games not being able to boot.
This is very much the case. A friend of mine owns a retro game store and I used to visit his old store a lot. He always would complain when trying to clean scratched Saturn discs. He said a lot that come in are no good.
Also the cases were absolutely terrible, I know in the UK we had those terrible Cardboard ones and often the way it was done was the manual would be pushing very hard against the disk and they would very easily open, thankfully plastics snap ones came later
Can confirm that from all optical media systems, the Saturn is by far the worst to check for problems. Some scratched to hell would have to retry reading a fair bit but worked fine, others pristine except a small ding in the wrong place and would not boot at all. Didn't help both Euro cases are terrible and I once did a weight test (with a regular kitchen digital scale, so ymmv, not accurate enough to actually present as irrefutable evidence) on discs at random and they were often 1-2 grams lighter on average than Mega CD or PlayStation discs, and the reflective foil seems to get holes more often. Maybe one of their duplication centers was really skimping on quality, idk.
I like that you comment on these videos. I think I've seen your stuff on modding the PS3. You commenting here shows creators are viewers and viewers are creators.
The DC's copy protection was "no one makes gigabyte discs, we're safe!" The worst part about this "protection" is that they didn't custom engineer the lasers used in the DC so you had regular CD-ROM lasers trying to plow through the density of data on a GD-ROM and causing taxation on the mechanism that it was never designed to handle. Dreamcast lasers are very temperamental.
The Dreamcast was intended to be protected by the fact that no one other than Sega or licensed producers can press GD-ROMs, something that is still true to this day as far as I know, but the ability for it to read games of off MIL-CDs was accidental if I remember rightly as it needed to read them to take advantage of special features of those discs, but I don’t think they ever realised full games could be put on them or loaded using chest device discs. Or maybe they just thought that due to the low file size of MIL-CDs no one would be able to port commercial games to them. There’s a long-standing rumour however that Sega knew about this issue from the start, and deliberately released the info on how to use a chest device disc to force a MIL-CD to be loaded in the hopes that it would increases sales of the console, only for it to backfire horribly when pirates managed to get discs to contain boot loaders that didn’t need to swap for another disc.
Dr Abrasive's video is a must watch! The determination he had to defeat the security was top notch. It goes into a surprising amount of detail on how he did it.
Only a brief mention of the cartridge-based exploits? I think they are a very important step in this story that deserve a bit of elaboration! Pseudo-Saturn Kai is a cartridge firmware that can be flashed to Action Replay carts, and uses an exploit to allow CDRs to be run with no other modifications necessary. Professor Abrasive developed one of the exploits that PSK uses. The benefit of using a cart this way is that you don't need to install a modchip or ODE, and they are much cheaper and easier to come by. I love my Satiator though! More expensive but extremely convenient and worth every penny IMO. I would recommend for newcomers to Saturn to pick up an Action Replay cart and flash PSK onto it as a starting point (or buy an all-in-one cart that comes pre-flashed).
Yeah I'm surprised he just brushed over that, I got a pre-flashed cart a few years ago and since then my Saturn has seen more use than my PS2 and GameCube combined
This has to be one of my favourite youtube channels ever! Having only recently found it and having started collecting more and more for older consoles it has been a joy going through your back catalog of videos.
Yes, Lantus. This is exactly the content I needed right at this moment. A nice calm Aussie voice lulling me to sleep talking about some of the biggest screw ups in the video gaming world. Videos like yours, Nostalgia Nerd, DYKG, and LGR are my favorite videos to use as background noise for sleeping. Cheers to you, legend.
@@ytwatcher5519 there's an old video called "I wrote the Emulators and Homebrew YOU played on the original Xbox - A look back" released about 3 years ago, very very interesting to watch and know that this man is responsible for so so much.
Protection uncracked for years but it always comes down to one person putting in a buttload of effort. The Satiator’s been in the works for years though.
In the past 4 months I've fallen through a portal completely out of AAA gaming and into indie gaming, which got me back into guitars, which got me started in electronics, which led to me starting an arcade machine build and after being disappointed in subpar emulation on the ReteoPie, I've started digging my retro consoles out of storage and buying the retro consoles I never had via eBay. Videos like this are very interesting to watch for the context and technical details.
Yeah, *many* mistakes were made with the Sega Saturn, but this wasn't one of them. "Mistakes Were Made" is basically part of MVGs brand at this point though, and the video was about how the Saturn's security was eventually defeated (similar to his other mistakes videos), so I completely understand why he included it.
I’ve been on a Saturn resurgence lately. It sat in my closet for years and years. I love my fenrir ode and have been enjoying so many games I never would have gotten the opportunity to check out. Policenauts, Grandia, and the other scenarios for shining force 3 come to mind. I bought my Saturn at launch, and was so broken hearted with its failure that I actively avoided it for a long time.
Saturn didn't fail. It underperformed in the United States its first two years. But started selling modestly well before Sega of America foolishly pulled the plug on it. BTW, PS5 is Selling LOWER than Saturn did in the US.
I have a Satiator and absolutely love it, it's the only way to have access to drive emulation and still be able to play original discs on the Sega Saturn!
This is probably my favorite section of your channel. It is pretty interesting to find out how people manage to get pass through a game console's security
Thank you for this video! I love my Saturn, and have been looking for more ways to play it's original titles. I would like to keep the disc drive in tact because the CD loading sounds are iconic for me lol
I use MODE for the Dreamcast and Satiator for the Saturn. I really appreciate not having to modify the Saturn in anyway beyond plugging the device into the VCD slot. The MODE install is much simpler on the Dreamcast which is why I went that route!
I used "change disc" method on the middle of 1996 when I bought saturn, the original game was sega rally championship, then several month later mod-chip was on sale in local game store... I collected many original saturn games in recent years but cd drive was damagered, it could not work anymore, I'm very interseted for the SD video card device,it looks great!
Dr. Abrasive's method is really excellent, especially if you want to keep your Saturn the most "vanilla" possible! Thanks for your video, very interesting and simple as usual! 👍
Nope. I installed my no-solder Saturn chip over 20 years ago. This + an Action Replay cart = nearly any game, any region. I finally pulled the mod chip for a MODE; Still have it & the CD assembly, which both still work well.
If I'm not mistaken, the CPU for CD-ROM block could be used for executing game's code and there are a few that offload tasks there since that CPU is idle most of the time. Adding to the complexity of the system.
Not exactly. SATURN's Security works through what's called "Lowjacking" The CDR Driver itself contains a Hidden Piggybacked CPU called SH-1 Milkyway. The SH-1 is a fortress that guards the Saturn through a Checksum method. The SH-2 Aurora is Saturn's MAIN CPU. But it doesn't handle BIOS duties or Boot Start. The SH-1 handles all of that entirely through Codescape.
Of all the systems, and relative to it's time of release, it was a tremendously well protected system. Hard to hack given it was only properly done fairly recently but everyone did or knew someone hacking their PS1 and DC games back in their time of relevance/retail.
I've got a strange Saturn disc. I won my Saturn in a Nickelodeon competition, and as part of the prize I was supposed to also get a "Club Saturn" CD, which was some remixed music I wasn't interested in. But the CD in the jewel case was completely blank, and when I put it into my Saturn to my surprise it was actually a full copy of Virtua Fighter 2!
Awesome! This had to have been 1995 as in Christmas of 1996, Sega Of America started selling Saturn Arcade Bundles which included 3 Games: Virtua Cop, Daytona USA and Virtua Fighter 2!
I bet the Saturn would've been busted for homebrew in at most 2 to 3 years if it were as popular as the PS1. PS1 modders were insanely dedicated back in those days.
Saturn was my system and I don't regret it in the slightest, what a great system, I had it mod chipped back then and had more than a hundred games, I feel like the masses didn't appreciate this console as it deserved.
The Saturn is nowadays much more beloved and this helps a lot for new upgrades and homebrew on the Sega console. I have Rhea and the Satatior... the plug and play feature is the best way to play saturn games, it is also faster for loading ( Rhea vs Satiator, i didn’t try with mode or fenrir ). I have done a quick review of those ODE and the Satiator
@@Nighterlev The Xbox One isn't really locked down per se, Microsoft just removed a lot of the motivation by enabling users to run homebrew on it by simply flipping it into dev mode. Afaik you an even flip a single Xbox One on your account into dev mode for free (multiple consoles you have to buy a developer key for like $10-$20)
@@Nighterlev Not really, at all, period. It's 100% to do with the fact that they already give you a way to run homebrew out of the box. If not for the dev mode, I would bet money there'd be at least as many exploits for it in the wild as there are for the PS4. Also, the PS4 is not "just copied and pasted from the PS3" holy actual f*ck that can't be even further from the truth. Lol yeah, they just copied the Cell code from the PS3 and somehow magically got it to run on the PS4 which is x86 at native speed. Lmfao, "locked down" yeah the Xbox 360 was "locked down" too yet that console is blown wide open now.
@@Nighterlev There's honestly nothing remotely similar to Sega hardware on the OG XBOX. OG XBOX was mostly designed by nVidia and it's chpset was the basis for what became the 1st nForce chipset for PC. In terms of security, it's mostly based on serial-like keys (or signature based if you will) that are specific to the hard-drive and BIOS.
@@RetrOrigin Actually there is, but in reverse. The Sega Chihiro arcade hardware is based on the OG Xbox, and a modified Xbox can actually boot Chihiro games.
@@Nighterlev Bruh you said they somehow magically ran Cell code on x86 at native performance, you don't know what you're talking about. I literally handle this on a daily basis as my job, I literally have several certifications that prove I know what I am talking about. Nothing is " super locked down", "unhackable", "unexploitable" and anyone who says otherwise should be dismissed. Literally everything can be exploited in some way. No, it's 100% dev mode that kept people at bay, period, end of story, discussion is finished, /thread. The PS4 got busted wide open because it was the console people actually wanted to play on at the time, but around 2015-2016 the Xbox One started to gain popularity once Microsoft outed that d*uchebag and decided to be pro-consumer which also happens to be when they added dev mode. Had things been different, the Xbox would have seen itself busted wide open. It's running the NT kernel with HyperV (with two VMs, one for games, one for apps + the main UI/UX), exploits of those two pieces of software are a dime a dozen.
Love your content. One good thing about the current while(true) loop of StayAtHomeForLockdown(), wfh and nothing special happening is that the mondays with MVG content arrive what feels like faster.
I grew up in this era of gaming, and this console was always a myth. I heard stories of friends' friends' who had one; but never saw or played on one myself.
Man, I love this channel. Thank you for the constant stream of quality and diversity, as well as your accessible, informative and pleasant way of presenting.
MVG! Another top quality video. I never had a saturn. It's crazy that their copy protection lasted so long! I was using external mods in my PSOne in 1999!
I know we had a Vita video from you a bit back but i'd love to see a video discussing your favourite games for it and your memories wth the system (for me it was a Persona 4 Golden machine and rhythm game power house Hatsune Miku Project Diva series, DJMax Technika Tune, IA VT Colorful and Miracle Girls Festival were my games of choice for it, also Muramasa Rebirth)
I have been watching your content for years and I like how you explain things for those who may not have knowledge of hacking or programming while I have some experience programming and hacking I only ever hacked the Wii and the Dreamcast keep up the good work :)
Highly recommend the Saitiator, one of the first to receive it and its just so much nicer not having to crack open your console to install an ODE and you can leave everything as stock. It was also pretty much developed 100% outside of China so you will not see any clones of it so expect a high quality product if you see it floating around.
You forgot to tell that on second variation of Saturn (with the round buttons) the security increased and the swap trick was harder and different to make,still existed though.
Nice video, as always. I'd just like to point out that the reason why the SEGA CD had no copy protection wasn't necessarily due to a rushed production schedule or anything like that: given that the PC-Engine, the 3DO and even later the Neo Geo CD none of them would have copy protection (some of them weren't even region locked), I think another hypothesis seems more likely, if we also consider a simple fact: CD burners were as expensive as an arm and a leg back then(especially in the first half of the 90s), so probably the companies weren't exactly too much concerned about that.
My biggest problem with Saturn back then was the region lock. Some games like King of Fighters '95 were only released in Japan, so you had to use a "key cartridge" to run those games on a US console like mine. The problem was that KOF 95 used a custom memory cart that only worked for this game (later Capcom released their own memory cart), so you needed to swap cartridges during the initial load in order to play KOF 95 on a US console. A year or two later modchips became popular around here and I modded mine to play japaneses games without using the "key cartridge" and, eventually, CD-R and bootleg discs.
@@synthep it really was, for KOF95 you had to do it at the exact time for it to work and I was always scared that it would break my console or the cart, but damn, KOF95 is one of my favorite fighting games ever so it was worth it.
I've been using a Pseudo Saturn Kai cart for backups and imports. It works wonders and is one of the most cost effective and painless methods I've come across to play backups. Some ODE solutions, as awesome as they are, are quite expensive and I believe there are some compatibility issues for some games depending on the ODE. The main thing you have to remember if you want to use Pseudo Saturn Kai is that some games need to be patched beforehand, for example Mortal Kombat 2. A quick search will reveal a compatibility list and patching instructions.
I like that you cover the 'secret history' of this stuff. Especially when the makers of the systems aren't interested in their end and go out of their way to destroy it.
I just installed a Phantom chip and I’m blown away by how effective it is, and very easy to install too. And to think it only cost me £18 I think it’s incredible value!
I'm surprised you didn't mention that the ring area was human-readable (it says "PRODUCED BY OR UNDER LICENSE FROM SEGA ENTERPRISES".) I had always assumed the laser checked for a specific human-readable bitmap in that area (kinda like the Gameboy), but perhaps it just read some other data nearby? Reading the bitmap would have the advantage of incorporating trademark law like they loved to do... (There was also a trademark boot screen that was also copyrighted, and the disc version had to match the ROM version exactly, for extra legal protection)
@Daniel Long That's why I prefer the Grey Saturn 1's from Japan, they do still yellow but it's not as obvious..... though I do like the model 2's button Colours.
@Daniel Long here's an idea: STOP FUCKING PISSING ON YOUR CONSOLES. I've got the exact same white saturn and super famicom and they look like new. Remember kids when you're visiting your friend and he has yellowed technology yup he urinates on it. Thank you mvg for not pissing on your beautiful white saturn.
@Daniel Long ok then by your logic our god and savior mvg lives in his parents basement. Who in their right mind would like to game in a room with lots of sunlight
Very Good Video, I was hoping to also see Pseudo Saturn Kai, a software you can flash to an Action Replay, and directly execute burned copys without any region locking.
I remember trying to modchip my japanese saturn and gave up. The sega xtreme forums had a thread discussing the issues with modding certain models. If I recall, the saturn had several hardware revisions and it made modding difficult. A friend of mine had a dark grey saturn called V-Saturn, which was modchipped.
I still remember when ODE first came to the Wii scene. It was pretty late, I think most were already soft-modded but the idea was really cool. I didn't ultimately see the point though because a soft-mod would allow for so much more than loading backups.
Hell yeah! I have a couple ive been modding, repairing and retrobrighting I got as is for stupid cheap imported. Phantom and an AR Plus, BIOS mod went bad and the FRAM I figured wasnt worth it after the first issue lol. Hopefully Ill salvage the one since I got it for 10 bucks! Such a great console, along with PC Engine!
I just love the facts that we are getting CD emulator mods for our old game consoles, such as my dreamcast. I hope the PS3, and the xbox 360 at some point will get this, I already went through 2 lasers on my 360 and my sega dreamcast.
wow it's nice to see how far communities have come to where if the Discs no longer exist and yet there's great non corrupted backup files that it's even easier to play them
I own a modchipped Saturn, but it's difficult for me to justify the cost of the SD card mod because it's so dang expensive. Don't get me wrong, the Saturn has a lot of great games and the emulators of it still SUCK, but a good chunk of the best Saturn games worth playing are arcade ports, and mame runs on just about anything. So that leaves.....Saturn exclusives. What Saturn exclusives that aren't arcade ports are worth playing? I'd appreciate a list if anyone reading this could supply one.
![Top 40 Best PS1 Hidden Gems [You Must Play]](/img/n.gif)
When you see the "Mistakes Were Made" title, you know you're in for a treat.
Came here to say this, lmao
@@salvatronprime9882 Hahaha.Omg that is so funny. It was so funny, I rolled over the floor, laughing my f ing ass off, pooing and peeing my pants, it was that funny. ROTFLMFAOPAPMP. Know what I mean?
@@Locutus Nice
@@salvatronprime9882 Thank you. LMFAO.
Didn't it take something like 20 years for the copy protection to be cracked?
This guys voice is like those narrator of animal planet and discovery channel, it really makes you want to watch the whole video.
David attenborough
@@twolechesconquick from the BBC. He does superb narrations for documentaries.
"oooohhhh, look over there. There's a Saturn in his natural habitat. He hasn't seen us yet so you can see he's comfortable enough to expose his inner security mechanisms. What a beautiful creature"
It's so funny how Americans think all brits sound the same 😂😂
@@M8Military Modern vintage gamer is australian
*MVG theme starts playing*
Console: "Why do I hear boss music?"
MVG: "Mistakes were made"
MISTAKES WERE MADE
MVG is R. Bear.
"the amiga cd drive"
@@metaorior dude mistakes were made... not amiga here
This is a fantastic comment.,
Having that ring data on the outer edge was an absolute curse for many game shop owners that dealt with used Saturn discs, at least from a rant I had seen in an old Acts of Gord entry. A lot of people didn't take care of their discs (no surprise there) but the outer edge was usually the first to go, resulting in many Saturn games not being able to boot.
This is very much the case. A friend of mine owns a retro game store and I used to visit his old store a lot. He always would complain when trying to clean scratched Saturn discs. He said a lot that come in are no good.
Also the cases were absolutely terrible, I know in the UK we had those terrible Cardboard ones and often the way it was done was the manual would be pushing very hard against the disk and they would very easily open, thankfully plastics snap ones came later
Can confirm that from all optical media systems, the Saturn is by far the worst to check for problems. Some scratched to hell would have to retry reading a fair bit but worked fine, others pristine except a small ding in the wrong place and would not boot at all.
Didn't help both Euro cases are terrible and I once did a weight test (with a regular kitchen digital scale, so ymmv, not accurate enough to actually present as irrefutable evidence) on discs at random and they were often 1-2 grams lighter on average than Mega CD or PlayStation discs, and the reflective foil seems to get holes more often. Maybe one of their duplication centers was really skimping on quality, idk.
I like that you comment on these videos. I think I've seen your stuff on modding the PS3. You commenting here shows creators are viewers and viewers are creators.
@MrMario2011 Acts of Gord, that's early internet lore! I still go back once in awhile to read these tales, I wonder what happened to the guy!
Sega CD: No piracy protection
Sega Saturn: ABSURDLY complex protection
Sega Dreamcast: Laughable lack of protection
What happened?
Dreamcast was a simple oversight by allowing music CDs to have special features.
GD ROM is basically HC CD ROM.
The DC's copy protection was "no one makes gigabyte discs, we're safe!"
The worst part about this "protection" is that they didn't custom engineer the lasers used in the DC so you had regular CD-ROM lasers trying to plow through the density of data on a GD-ROM and causing taxation on the mechanism that it was never designed to handle. Dreamcast lasers are very temperamental.
The Dreamcast was intended to be protected by the fact that no one other than Sega or licensed producers can press GD-ROMs, something that is still true to this day as far as I know, but the ability for it to read games of off MIL-CDs was accidental if I remember rightly as it needed to read them to take advantage of special features of those discs, but I don’t think they ever realised full games could be put on them or loaded using chest device discs. Or maybe they just thought that due to the low file size of MIL-CDs no one would be able to port commercial games to them. There’s a long-standing rumour however that Sega knew about this issue from the start, and deliberately released the info on how to use a chest device disc to force a MIL-CD to be loaded in the hopes that it would increases sales of the console, only for it to backfire horribly when pirates managed to get discs to contain boot loaders that didn’t need to swap for another disc.
@@justanotheryoutubechannel No sir. Piracy on the Dreamcast is over-exaggerated.
Dr Abrasive's video is a must watch! The determination he had to defeat the security was top notch. It goes into a surprising amount of detail on how he did it.
I remember the guy interviewing him was crazy knowledgeable on very niche topics.
@@rubbersoul420 cTrix is a legend unto himself. Would highly recommend his videos on the Amiga system!
That iconic mistakes were made theme really gets
You excited?
@@Rhythmeister yeah I think
You can pick it up on MVG's Bandcamp, as "Pacific Drive"
MISTAKES WERE MADE
@@OfficialRey202X MISTAKES WERE MADE
I like how you put "Backup" in quotation marks
Only a brief mention of the cartridge-based exploits? I think they are a very important step in this story that deserve a bit of elaboration! Pseudo-Saturn Kai is a cartridge firmware that can be flashed to Action Replay carts, and uses an exploit to allow CDRs to be run with no other modifications necessary. Professor Abrasive developed one of the exploits that PSK uses. The benefit of using a cart this way is that you don't need to install a modchip or ODE, and they are much cheaper and easier to come by. I love my Satiator though! More expensive but extremely convenient and worth every penny IMO. I would recommend for newcomers to Saturn to pick up an Action Replay cart and flash PSK onto it as a starting point (or buy an all-in-one cart that comes pre-flashed).
Yeah I'm surprised he just brushed over that, I got a pre-flashed cart a few years ago and since then my Saturn has seen more use than my PS2 and GameCube combined
hold my calls, mistakes are being made
MiStAkEs WeRe MaDe
SEGA Saturn CD was the PS3 of its time.
The most powerful system of its Gen and difficult architecture which made making games for it hard.
This has to be one of my favourite youtube channels ever!
Having only recently found it and having started collecting more and more for older consoles it has been a joy going through your back catalog of videos.
"My steaks were made" lol omg, he posted a picture of a bbq grill a few days back
Yes, Lantus. This is exactly the content I needed right at this moment. A nice calm Aussie voice lulling me to sleep talking about some of the biggest screw ups in the video gaming world. Videos like yours, Nostalgia Nerd, DYKG, and LGR are my favorite videos to use as background noise for sleeping. Cheers to you, legend.
Whaaat.... MVG is Lantus !? That brings back so much memories, the xbox scene was so lucky to have him.
@@ytwatcher5519 Yep! MVG is Lantus!
@@ytwatcher5519 there's an old video called "I wrote the Emulators and Homebrew YOU played on the original Xbox - A look back" released about 3 years ago, very very interesting to watch and know that this man is responsible for so so much.
Protection uncracked for years but it always comes down to one person putting in a buttload of effort. The Satiator’s been in the works for years though.
In the past 4 months I've fallen through a portal completely out of AAA gaming and into indie gaming, which got me back into guitars, which got me started in electronics, which led to me starting an arcade machine build and after being disappointed in subpar emulation on the ReteoPie, I've started digging my retro consoles out of storage and buying the retro consoles I never had via eBay.
Videos like this are very interesting to watch for the context and technical details.
lol
Were mistakes really made if the security wasn't defeated until well beyond the expected support cycle of the device?
Can't really call it mistakes since people had to do swap tricks and use mod chips for 20 years to play burned games. 😄
The mistakes were still made, even if it took 20 years for people to discover them.
@@HellTantrumbull No you didn't.
Was just gonna mention this.. didn't it take like 20 years to crack
Yeah, *many* mistakes were made with the Sega Saturn, but this wasn't one of them. "Mistakes Were Made" is basically part of MVGs brand at this point though, and the video was about how the Saturn's security was eventually defeated (similar to his other mistakes videos), so I completely understand why he included it.
I’ve been on a Saturn resurgence lately. It sat in my closet for years and years. I love my fenrir ode and have been enjoying so many games I never would have gotten the opportunity to check out. Policenauts, Grandia, and the other scenarios for shining force 3 come to mind. I bought my Saturn at launch, and was so broken hearted with its failure that I actively avoided it for a long time.
Saturn didn't fail. It underperformed in the United States its first two years. But started selling modestly well before Sega of America foolishly pulled the plug on it. BTW, PS5 is Selling LOWER than Saturn did in the US.
I have a Satiator and absolutely love it, it's the only way to have access to drive emulation and still be able to play original discs on the Sega Saturn!
I love it whenever MVG does Sega content. This is going to be good.
This is probably my favorite section of your channel. It is pretty interesting to find out how people manage to get pass through a game console's security
Thank you for this video! I love my Saturn, and have been looking for more ways to play it's original titles. I would like to keep the disc drive in tact because the CD loading sounds are iconic for me lol
The smile that the intro song puts on my face cause I know some great content is coming
You know its gonna be a MVG banger when the thumbnail say "MISTAKES WERE MADE" 🤣🤣🤣
I use MODE for the Dreamcast and Satiator for the Saturn. I really appreciate not having to modify the Saturn in anyway beyond plugging the device into the VCD slot. The MODE install is much simpler on the Dreamcast which is why I went that route!
You never talked about Rhea or Phoebe the FIRST disc emulators
And the best, as far as I'm concerned.
he mentioned in the end didnt he
I must say that I love my Sega Saturn and still play it till this very day.
I used "change disc" method on the middle of 1996 when I bought saturn, the original game was sega rally championship, then several month later mod-chip was on sale in local game store...
I collected many original saturn games in recent years but cd drive was damagered, it could not work anymore, I'm very interseted for the SD video card device,it looks great!
Words cant express how much I love waking up to your uploads
Video-game console architecture was so interesting up untill 2007ish...
Too bad that the Satiator part was so short. Dr. Abrasive work's is truly amazing.
Dr. Abrasive's method is really excellent, especially if you want to keep your Saturn the most "vanilla" possible!
Thanks for your video, very interesting and simple as usual! 👍
This just shows that no matter how you try to secure something, SOMEONE out there is gonna crack it eventually!
"Mistakes were made"
Also Saturn: Had it's security last for like 20 years.
I think those two things do not go together that well.
everybody were busy cracking the dreamcast, the saturn was the system no one gave a shit as soon as the dc came out
Mistakes were made, but it took quite a while before someone noticed.
Nope. I installed my no-solder Saturn chip over 20 years ago. This + an Action Replay cart = nearly any game, any region. I finally pulled the mod chip for a MODE; Still have it & the CD assembly, which both still work well.
He does address the caveat, basically saying no one gave a shit about it to actually try lol
@@TexasHollowEarthYou fixed the Basic Region lockout, but you did NOT break the Console's Security.
If I'm not mistaken, the CPU for CD-ROM block could be used for executing game's code and there are a few that offload tasks there since that CPU is idle most of the time. Adding to the complexity of the system.
The overall design was the real mistake.
@@renakunisaki No it wasn't.
Not exactly. SATURN's Security works through what's called "Lowjacking" The CDR Driver itself contains a Hidden Piggybacked CPU called SH-1 Milkyway. The SH-1 is a fortress that guards the Saturn through a Checksum method. The SH-2 Aurora is Saturn's MAIN CPU. But it doesn't handle BIOS duties or Boot Start. The SH-1 handles all of that entirely through Codescape.
Of all the systems, and relative to it's time of release, it was a tremendously well protected system. Hard to hack given it was only properly done fairly recently but everyone did or knew someone hacking their PS1 and DC games back in their time of relevance/retail.
I've got a strange Saturn disc. I won my Saturn in a Nickelodeon competition, and as part of the prize I was supposed to also get a "Club Saturn" CD, which was some remixed music I wasn't interested in. But the CD in the jewel case was completely blank, and when I put it into my Saturn to my surprise it was actually a full copy of Virtua Fighter 2!
I'd love to see this
Awesome! This had to have been 1995 as in Christmas of 1996, Sega Of America started selling Saturn Arcade Bundles which included 3 Games: Virtua Cop, Daytona USA and Virtua Fighter 2!
I'm so glad you covered dr abrasive.
I dunno why but I just love your intros, with logo , this circle shade, and retrowave kicking in. Gets every time and sets the mood
That music just takes me right back to 1999. I love it.
@@nickwallette6201 in 1999 I was rolling rolling rolling
I bet the Saturn would've been busted for homebrew in at most 2 to 3 years if it were as popular as the PS1. PS1 modders were insanely dedicated back in those days.
I just use a pseudo saturn RAM cart bought off aliexpress to play cdr backups. Works great
Only problem is that you can't use the official backup RAM cart for ghost data and saved replays.
Saturn was my system and I don't regret it in the slightest, what a great system, I had it mod chipped back then and had more than a hundred games, I feel like the masses didn't appreciate this console as it deserved.
It underperformed in The US, but then just as things were turning around for it, Sega of America completely abandoned it.
I finally learned WHY exactly swap tricks would work.
I love your channel so much, it has sparked again my interest in retro hardware and emulation
Love all of your videos and especially this particular series!
I didn't know what i needed today, but i think this was it. Thanks MVG!
Im finally early instead of 1 year late
Edit: it's a shame that he doesn't provide a subtitles
The Saturn is nowadays much more beloved and this helps a lot for new upgrades and homebrew on the Sega console. I have Rhea and the Satatior... the plug and play feature is the best way to play saturn games, it is also faster for loading ( Rhea vs Satiator, i didn’t try with mode or fenrir ). I have done a quick review of those ODE and the Satiator
THANK YOU for mentioning Fenrir! Unless you're putting spinning rust in your MODE $ spent is WAY cheaper overall for the same Saturn ODE goodness
I buy my games but listen to this channel because its truly fascinating. And those rare limited edition consoles are lovely eye candy.
I love seeing "Mistakes were made" come up in my TH-cam subs list, thanks mate :)
When Sega thought they could one up their competitors and then realised they were way ahead of its time as usual and then they died
@@Nighterlev The Xbox One isn't really locked down per se, Microsoft just removed a lot of the motivation by enabling users to run homebrew on it by simply flipping it into dev mode. Afaik you an even flip a single Xbox One on your account into dev mode for free (multiple consoles you have to buy a developer key for like $10-$20)
@@Nighterlev Not really, at all, period. It's 100% to do with the fact that they already give you a way to run homebrew out of the box. If not for the dev mode, I would bet money there'd be at least as many exploits for it in the wild as there are for the PS4. Also, the PS4 is not "just copied and pasted from the PS3" holy actual f*ck that can't be even further from the truth. Lol yeah, they just copied the Cell code from the PS3 and somehow magically got it to run on the PS4 which is x86 at native speed.
Lmfao, "locked down" yeah the Xbox 360 was "locked down" too yet that console is blown wide open now.
@@Nighterlev There's honestly nothing remotely similar to Sega hardware on the OG XBOX. OG XBOX was mostly designed by nVidia and it's chpset was the basis for what became the 1st nForce chipset for PC.
In terms of security, it's mostly based on serial-like keys (or signature based if you will) that are specific to the hard-drive and BIOS.
@@RetrOrigin Actually there is, but in reverse. The Sega Chihiro arcade hardware is based on the OG Xbox, and a modified Xbox can actually boot Chihiro games.
@@Nighterlev Bruh you said they somehow magically ran Cell code on x86 at native performance, you don't know what you're talking about. I literally handle this on a daily basis as my job, I literally have several certifications that prove I know what I am talking about. Nothing is " super locked down", "unhackable", "unexploitable" and anyone who says otherwise should be dismissed. Literally everything can be exploited in some way.
No, it's 100% dev mode that kept people at bay, period, end of story, discussion is finished, /thread. The PS4 got busted wide open because it was the console people actually wanted to play on at the time, but around 2015-2016 the Xbox One started to gain popularity once Microsoft outed that d*uchebag and decided to be pro-consumer which also happens to be when they added dev mode. Had things been different, the Xbox would have seen itself busted wide open. It's running the NT kernel with HyperV (with two VMs, one for games, one for apps + the main UI/UX), exploits of those two pieces of software are a dime a dozen.
Love your content. One good thing about the current while(true) loop of StayAtHomeForLockdown(), wfh and nothing special happening is that the mondays with MVG content arrive what feels like faster.
YES the "MISTAKES WERE MADE" series rise once again
I grew up in this era of gaming, and this console was always a myth. I heard stories of friends' friends' who had one; but never saw or played on one myself.
Where I'm from it wasn't even a myth. People simply didn't know it existed. PS1 or N64, no other choice that generation..
I wanted one but by the time I could get one everyone already had a Playstation so I got that instead.
I played Nights Into Dreams at my friend’s house and wanted to play it from front to back...but then I got my PS1 for Christmas.
I rented the model 1 version from Blockbuster and when the model 2 launched, I finally saved enough to buy my own. Daytonaaaaa!
I've been wating for this video for AGES. Great video, well done!
I love these security documentary style videos.
These are always my favorite videos, do some more please!
Man, I love this channel. Thank you for the constant stream of quality and diversity, as well as your accessible, informative and pleasant way of presenting.
I love having the Satiator, very happy with having both backed Prof Abrasive on Patreon and now owning my production Satiator.
Please keep covering the Sega Saturn, I really love the console and learning more about its development cycle is really interesting.
MVG vids are the MVPs of gaming videos
MISTAKES WERE MADE
Keep doing great work MVG. Really enjoy your videos, especially the historical ones.
MVG! Another top quality video. I never had a saturn. It's crazy that their copy protection lasted so long! I was using external mods in my PSOne in 1999!
Damn I love the backing music, it fits the vibe of the topic incredibly well. Keep up these awesome videos dude
I know we had a Vita video from you a bit back but i'd love to see a video discussing your favourite games for it and your memories wth the system (for me it was a Persona 4 Golden machine and rhythm game power house Hatsune Miku Project Diva series, DJMax Technika Tune, IA VT Colorful and Miracle Girls Festival were my games of choice for it, also Muramasa Rebirth)
I have been watching your content for years and I like how you explain things for those who may not have knowledge of hacking or programming while I have some experience programming and hacking I only ever hacked the Wii and the Dreamcast keep up the good work :)
Highly recommend the Saitiator, one of the first to receive it and its just so much nicer not having to crack open your console to install an ODE and you can leave everything as stock.
It was also pretty much developed 100% outside of China so you will not see any clones of it so expect a high quality product if you see it floating around.
You forgot to tell that on second variation of Saturn (with the round buttons) the security increased and the swap trick was harder and different to make,still existed though.
I love this kind of video. Very interesting, thank you!
These cd protections are so custom from vendor to vendor.
This channel is in my top 3 gaming channels. Always relaxing, entertaining and informative.
Nice video, as always. I'd just like to point out that the reason why the SEGA CD had no copy protection wasn't necessarily due to a rushed production schedule or anything like that: given that the PC-Engine, the 3DO and even later the Neo Geo CD none of them would have copy protection (some of them weren't even region locked), I think another hypothesis seems more likely, if we also consider a simple fact: CD burners were as expensive as an arm and a leg back then(especially in the first half of the 90s), so probably the companies weren't exactly too much concerned about that.
My biggest problem with Saturn back then was the region lock. Some games like King of Fighters '95 were only released in Japan, so you had to use a "key cartridge" to run those games on a US console like mine. The problem was that KOF 95 used a custom memory cart that only worked for this game (later Capcom released their own memory cart), so you needed to swap cartridges during the initial load in order to play KOF 95 on a US console. A year or two later modchips became popular around here and I modded mine to play japaneses games without using the "key cartridge" and, eventually, CD-R and bootleg discs.
@@synthep it really was, for KOF95 you had to do it at the exact time for it to work and I was always scared that it would break my console or the cart, but damn, KOF95 is one of my favorite fighting games ever so it was worth it.
The Saturn is a work of engineering art.
Yeah, abstract art!
@@raphaelcalado4335 Definitely more Jackson Pollock than da Vinci
Only when Lobotomy or the RAM expansions are involved.
It's Engineering was done by SEGA Away27 in The Fall of 1993.
I like the thumbnail. "Mistakes were made"
Id love Saturn and Dremcast mini consoles. Sega plz
I've been using a Pseudo Saturn Kai cart for backups and imports. It works wonders and is one of the most cost effective and painless methods I've come across to play backups.
Some ODE solutions, as awesome as they are, are quite expensive and I believe there are some compatibility issues for some games depending on the ODE.
The main thing you have to remember if you want to use Pseudo Saturn Kai is that some games need to be patched beforehand, for example Mortal Kombat 2. A quick search will reveal a compatibility list and patching instructions.
That "impossible to code on" system had over 1,000 games released in Japan.
I like that you cover the 'secret history' of this stuff. Especially when the makers of the systems aren't interested in their end and go out of their way to destroy it.
I love all your security defeated videos! thank you for making another !
Another great video like always. Keep up the good work!
getting my saturn modded with 21pin chip in 97 was a game changer :P especially after ps1 cdr copys being available for two years ha
I just installed a Phantom chip and I’m blown away by how effective it is, and very easy to install too. And to think it only cost me £18 I think it’s incredible value!
I'm surprised you didn't mention that the ring area was human-readable (it says "PRODUCED BY OR UNDER LICENSE FROM SEGA ENTERPRISES".) I had always assumed the laser checked for a specific human-readable bitmap in that area (kinda like the Gameboy), but perhaps it just read some other data nearby?
Reading the bitmap would have the advantage of incorporating trademark law like they loved to do...
(There was also a trademark boot screen that was also copyrighted, and the disc version had to match the ROM version exactly, for extra legal protection)
Its a License Key which locked TOC on the CORE of the Disc. The SH-1 relays it back to the SH-2 Aurora.
That japanese saturn is beautiful
@Daniel Long That's why I prefer the Grey Saturn 1's from Japan, they do still yellow but it's not as obvious..... though I do like the model 2's button Colours.
@Daniel Long here's an idea: STOP FUCKING PISSING ON YOUR CONSOLES. I've got the exact same white saturn and super famicom and they look like new. Remember kids when you're visiting your friend and he has yellowed technology yup he urinates on it.
Thank you mvg for not pissing on your beautiful white saturn.
@Daniel Long ok then by your logic our god and savior mvg lives in his parents basement.
Who in their right mind would like to game in a room with lots of sunlight
Yeah I have one that I Imported ^_^
@Daniel Long Lmao @pucci is right
Very Good Video, I was hoping to also see Pseudo Saturn Kai, a software you can flash to an Action Replay, and directly execute burned copys without any region locking.
Another epic, technically interesting and well researched video. Thanks again MVG!
I’ve been a Saturn user for decades and have used almost every method of bypassing security around. It was all worth it even the swap tricks.
I just can't believe the Mister is getting a PSX and a Saturn core in the next 12 months or so. I bet you are pretty excited about that too MVG!
I don't even mod, make backups, play backups...I hardly even game anymore really, but these videos are just so interesting.
I remember trying to modchip my japanese saturn and gave up. The sega xtreme forums had a thread discussing the issues with modding certain models. If I recall, the saturn had several hardware revisions and it made modding difficult. A friend of mine had a dark grey saturn called V-Saturn, which was modchipped.
Love your videos, you learn a lot from them and in a very easy way. Thanks for the work done.
Just love this console! I have a MODE too and definitely no plans to get rid of that system!
I still remember when ODE first came to the Wii scene. It was pretty late, I think most were already soft-modded but the idea was really cool. I didn't ultimately see the point though because a soft-mod would allow for so much more than loading backups.
Hell yeah! I have a couple ive been modding, repairing and retrobrighting I got as is for stupid cheap imported. Phantom and an AR Plus, BIOS mod went bad and the FRAM I figured wasnt worth it after the first issue lol. Hopefully Ill salvage the one since I got it for 10 bucks! Such a great console, along with PC Engine!
I just love the facts that we are getting CD emulator mods for our old game consoles, such as my dreamcast. I hope the PS3, and the xbox 360 at some point will get this, I already went through 2 lasers on my 360 and my sega dreamcast.
wow it's nice to see how far communities have come to where if the Discs no longer exist and yet there's great non corrupted backup files that it's even easier to play them
Early! What's up everyone! Much love MVG!
I own a modchipped Saturn, but it's difficult for me to justify the cost of the SD card mod because it's so dang expensive. Don't get me wrong, the Saturn has a lot of great games and the emulators of it still SUCK, but a good chunk of the best Saturn games worth playing are arcade ports, and mame runs on just about anything. So that leaves.....Saturn exclusives. What Saturn exclusives that aren't arcade ports are worth playing? I'd appreciate a list if anyone reading this could supply one.
Astal, Fighters Megamix, Burning Rangers,Last Bronx, and the Japanese Saturn version of SF Zero 3. Just to name a few.
Yah, Im happy you brought back the original intro music.
The Saturn is the first sega console I touched. Got it last week ☺️ and love it
You missed out on Pseudo Saturn Kai - an action replay firmware that's essentially a softmod, not requiring a swap trick