The Saturn was represented well at the Game On Expo in Phoenix, Ariz., over the weekend as SHIRO!’s own SaturnDave and TraynoCo hosted a panel, manned a booth and more.
First, the guys set up their booth Thursday afternoon featuring a few Saturns and beautiful CRT screens, not to mention Pat’s Sakura Shinguji cardboard standee.
Friday
When the expo opened Friday, Pat and Dave took viewers along on YouTube for a walk on the show floor to take in the sights and sounds.
But while checking out the vendors, Pat happened upon an opportunity he couldn’t refuse —
Snatcher for a (relatively) reasonable price. One of his holy grails! Dave captured that on video, too.
Pat and his newly acquired copy of Snatcher appear in a gif of Neo Kobe courtesy of SHIRO! community member PudgyBunny.
That afternoon, they tried to livestream the SHIRO! Show from the convention but the show floor was too loud. So friend of the show Adam Koralik invited them to sit in on his panel and livestream that instead!
They finished off the evening with some delicious sushi.
Saturday
On Saturday, the guys moved their booth to a different spot on the show floor. “They put us in a terrible place by the tournament stage, and folks kept asking us if they could enter the tournament,” Dave said. “We moved diagonally across the entire vendor floor over to where John Hancock was.”
Then Dave played one of his favorite games, Daytona USA, on the Pluto, a rare prototype Saturn that travels the world with Adam Koralik.
It was fun running into folks like Tim Kitzrow, who chatted about his astonishment at learning he was, in fact, an exclusive hidden unlockable character in the Saturn version of NBA JAM! BOOMSHAKALAKA!!!
While checking out vendor booths, Dave was astonished at some of the prices of North American complete-in-box Saturn games. He took a video of it and posted it to X, formerly Twitter, where the post got a lot of traction — more than 200,000 views in just a couple days.
Finally it was time for SHIRO!’s panel Saturday afternoon. Titled “Saturn IS Our Future,” Pat and Dave — who returned the favor and brought on Adam Koralik as well — spoke to a crowd of about 25 people about all the reasons to look into the Saturn in 2024.
Sunday
On the final day of the convention, Dave picked up some games himself — some good, some… not so good. His SHIRO! bro, Pat, gifted him a Japanese copy of SEGA AGES OutRun, which Dave called “one hell of a surprise.” Then Dave picked up Dragon Heart on Sunday at a $25 off sticker price! Pro tip: Always wait until Sunday if you want to avoid the old “convention tax.”
SHIRO!’s Saturn outreach at the Game On Expo and other events like the Portland Retro Game Expo is made possible thanks to generous contributors to the SHIRO! Patreon. Thank you for helping to get the word out that you must play Sega Saturn!
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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