What’s new in the world of Sega Saturn fandom this week? Read on and find out!
New stock of 21-pin SaturnSwitchers to go on sale Monday
Will’s Console Modifications announced that his SaturnSwitcher’s variant for 21-pin Saturns will go on sale noon EDT Monday.
The SaturnSwitcher is kit that allows a Saturn’s CD-ROM drive to be kept inside and usable by housing the Fenrir optical drive emulator elsewhere inside the shell.
Will warned that, like the 20-pin Switchers that went on sale last month, this may be the last batch he ever creates, although he did say on X — formerly Twitter — that he’s considering making his design open source so others could create their own.
He also said on X that there will be 50 available. They will cost £45 and be available at Will’s store here.
When 45 units of the 20-pin variant went on sale July 31, more than half — 27 of them — were sold within the first hour. After 24 hours, just five remained in stock. But it took another 10 days or so to sell the last handful of Switchers.
Sonic R singer T.J. Davis to attend Sonic Fan Fest
T.J. Davis announced yesterday that she would be a guest at Sonic Fan Fest in Bristol, U.K., in October.
Davis is best known by Sega fans for being the vocalist for the soundtrack to Saturn racer Sonic R. SHIRO! interviewed her during a podcast a few years ago and reuploaded the isolated interview just last month.
Sonic Fan Fest is an unofficial convention centered on celebrating the Sonic the Hedgehog fandom that began under the name Weston Super Sonic in 2014. This year, it’ll be at the Future Inn in Bristol on Oct. 14. Tickets cost £16 before fees per adult and can be bought here.
“This should brighten up your day!” the convention’s organizers said on their Facebook page. “We are honoured to welcome a very special guest and legend, the talented TJ Davis!”
Saturn BT set for launch tomorrow
Humble Bazooka announced yesterday that his Saturn BT dongle will go on sale tomorrow at noon EDT.
The first shipment will be sold through Ohio-based Stone Age Gamer for US$39.99. Humble Bazooka has said that Europeans will be able to buy it from UK-based 8bitmods for £39.98 (€39.98) but it seems that stock won’t be available at that retailer yet.
The Saturn BT is an adapter that would allow modern Bluetooth controllers to be used with original Saturn hardware. It uses the BlueRetro platform coded by Jacques Gagnon, aka Darthcloud. A portion of each sale is donated to Gagnon to further support the platform.
The Saturn BT originally was going to launch a few weeks ago but it was delayed after Humble Bazooka said he found that a component in the device was not working as it should. In SHIRO’s Discord server, he said that he replaced each component himself after finding that a cheaper alternate part had been used. “Not hard to fix, just time consuming by hand,” he said.
Check out SaturnDave’s hands-on impressions with the device and our previous reporting on the Saturn BT’s specifics.
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.
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