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Retronauts Micro 93: Sega Pico (Patreon)

Published:
2018-08-03 07:00:01
Imported:
2021-08

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In 1994, Sega released the Pico: a cute little purple-and-teal suitcase that ran on Genesis hardware and promised to enhance young minds rather than rot them. While it was a neat little piece of tech at the time, America didn't take as kindly to the Pico as Japan did--though Sega's little "learning computer" managed to touch a few tiny lives before it disappeared with only 20 releases to its name. On this episode of Retronauts Micro, join Bob Mackey, Henry Gilbert, and Pico enthusiast Sam Leichtamer (of GameSpot) as the crew explores the computer that thinks it's a toy.

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Comments

Jerry Rattanong

Am I the only one that is liking that artwork too much?

Anonymous

My friend picked up a Pico-Beena at a Japanese yard sale with some Pretty Cure games for me. It definitely was the first time I had heard of the Pico. It was cool to learn Sega made edutainment hardware. Kind of wish I could pick up an original.

Jared Blankenship

Can't wait to listen to this episode. Somehow, I completely missed this system back in the day, and didn't even know of its existence until this podcast. This is one of my favorite parts of Retronauts: learning something new.

Anonymous

LOL - That artwork is amazing, haha!

Kevin Bunch

I remember messing with one of these at TRU back in the day; pretty interested in hearing what you folks turned up about it!

Anonymous

I admire the Bioshock series, and Ken Levine, for pushing the storytelling envelope of the medium and for giving us settings and scenarios far more compelling than 99% of all action games out there. It is true that the game play of said games doesn't always gel perfectly with the themes of the story. In Infinite for example, I wished that I could interact in far more interesting ways than simply murdering everyone in sight. Such shortcomings and clunky mechanics are often the case when a game is breaking brand new ground. And I also hold such criticism relative to the harsh needs of expensive AAA development. First and foremost I applaud Irrational Games for "getting away" with so much unorthodoxy within the confines of the blockbuster system. Same with David Cage too. Successful or not, he is doing stuff within his games that no other studio would attempt. The game world is richer because Cage is there experimenting. He manages the near impossible feat of being an auteur of sorts within a business that is actively hostile towards any such creative notion. Can you imagine how difficult that must as a AAA developer..? It's very easy to be extra critical of people that are innovating and doesn't play it safe. I think the directors of Call of Duty 36 and Assassins Creed 57 are worthy of more scorn.

Anonymous

Books are still totally a thing with kids. I have young kids and they both love reading. Worked as a children’s librarian for awhile and children’s books were some of the highest circulation in the system. Now I’m a writer, and the Middle Grade and YA markets are still largely print. YA less so as kids start to read on tablets, but Scholastic has the Middle Grade (elementary to middle school) market by the balls and it’s mostly print. Even when they move to tablets there are lots of readers who get their fix on sites like Wattpad, or by trawling the free offerings at Amazon.

Anonymous

Great episode. Always cool to hear someone so enthused about a product from a childhood you didn’t have. As a parent of a 12 year and 8 year old, (and I’m your age! Think about that!) my kids do most of their learning outside ipads and the like. Working in publishing I prefer physical books, so they mostly read paper products. Regarding interactive books, the added production costs are rarely offset in such a way as to make them profitable. Some books come have interactive editions, but if that tends to raise the price of the book, who is really going to pay extra for that functionality? No one, that’s who. We’ve tried before, and it’s not something I see our company really focusing on moving forward. Now if a book is produced from the ground up as interactive? I can see that working out. Wool by Hugh Howey has some cool animated bits as an example. App based learning can help in some cases, but I’m not aware of too many studies that show the value of it. Probably in the future, as they get better about programming algorithms to increase learning efficiency. Shudder. Personally I think kids are better grinding it out on paper, rather than multiple choicing their way math problems for example.