A new model of the Fenrir ODE released last weekend — and seemingly sold out within minutes.
Called the Fenrir Duo, it works with both 20- and 21-pin versions of the Saturn.
The creator, Ced2911, announced the sale a day ahead of time on Saturday.
When a reporter checked the stock two hours after the Duo launched on his webstore, it was sold out already, with one person on Twitter claiming that it disappeared in just minutes.
Ced’s retail partners, Castlemania and Trader Games, do not appear to have listed the Fenrir Duo yet, although they’re expected to do so eventually.
Previously, there had been two models of Fenrir. Each one connected to a specific pinout on the Saturn’s laser assembly, so it was important for buyers to determine which kind of Saturn they had before choosing a Fenrir.
Those two models will be retired in favor of the combined Fenrir Duo, Ced said.
The price appears to have increased slightly, as Ced’s shop lists the Duo at €110 while the older models had been €100. At current exchange rates, €110 would be about US$112.
The most recent firmware for all Fenrir models, version 1.5.5, paved the way for the new Duo model when it released in May, as Shiro reported. It improved the speed of loading games, introduced minor fixes and added support for TecToy units through 21-pin setups.
The Fenrir is a no-solder optical drive emulator that replaces a Saturn’s CD-ROM drive and runs games off of a micro SD card. It supports games in CCD/IMG, CUE/ISO (for single files) and CUE/BIN (for multiple files) formats. It first went on sale in spring 2020.
Danthrax is a contributor to the Shiro Media Group, writing stories for the website when Saturn news breaks. While he was a Sega Genesis kid in the ’90s, he didn’t get a Saturn until 2018. It didn’t take him long to fall in love with the console’s library as well as the fan translation and homebrew scene. He contributed heavily to the Bulk Slash and Stellar Assault SS fan localizations, and has helped as an editor on several other Saturn and Dreamcast fan projects such as Cotton 2, Rainbow Cotton and Sakura Wars Columns 2.
Leave a comment