Amazing deal for a LaserActive on Ebay

[schweaty]

your welcome

http://www.ebay.com/itm/RARE-VTG-COMPATIBLE-LASERDISC-PLAYER-W-SEGA-GENESIS-CLD-A100-/161895521085?&_trksid=p2056016.m2516.l5255

BTW - not mine just ran across it.

[tbone3969]

Nice price on that LD system.  If only I had the room.

[BigusSchmuck]

Thats about what I paid for mine 2 years ago.

[sirhcman]

Thats about what I paid for mine 2 years ago.

How do you see what the best offer was? It just shows a line through the BIN price for me

[DildoKKKobold]

Thats about what I paid for mine 2 years ago.

How do you see what the best offer was? It just shows a line through the BIN price for me

I've noticed eBay has been doing this, even if you pay full price.

[CrackTiger]

Amazing deal for an American.

[SignOfZeta]

Is it? I've passed on a number of LAs with Sega modules over the years for pretty much that same exact price. 

In the end it doesn't matter though. Since the games start at $80 for totally unplayable garbage (or Power Stone, if you are lucky), quickly get into Neo Geo AES pricing, and you can never play Dragon's Lair no matter how much you pay...Even as a huge LD fan the appeal of the LA diminishes every day.

If only it didn't suck so much. If the video wasn't terrible. If the games/modules weren't so expensive. If they had done any LD game that I ever played in in arcade. If they had just made a version of Yuna that had real anime in it. Almost anything would made the thing more appealing than it is.

[RyuHayabusa]

Is it? I've passed on a number of LAs with Sega modules over the years for pretty much that same exact price. 

In the end it doesn't matter though. Since the games start at $80 for totally unplayable garbage (or Power Stone, if you are lucky), quickly get into Neo Geo AES pricing, and you can never play Dragon's Lair no matter how much you pay...Even as a huge LD fan the appeal of the LA diminishes every day.

If only it didn't suck so much. If the video wasn't terrible. If the games/modules weren't so expensive. If they had done any LD game that I ever played in in arcade. If they had just made a version of Yuna that had real anime in it. Almost anything would made the thing more appealing than it is.

I have a Laseractive and I have to agree. It's convenient to have hooked up and just switch out the PACs to play Sega and NEC games, but as an LD game system it's very lacking. No Dragon's Lair, no Space Ace, etc. If even half the games on Daphne were available on the LA instead of a bunch of Pyramid Patrol-type games it would've been so much better. Triad Stone is cool but the other two games I really want, Road Blaster and Time Gal, are astronomically expensive now and I'll probably never own them.

[BigusSchmuck]

Is it? I've passed on a number of LAs with Sega modules over the years for pretty much that same exact price. 

In the end it doesn't matter though. Since the games start at $80 for totally unplayable garbage (or Power Stone, if you are lucky), quickly get into Neo Geo AES pricing, and you can never play Dragon's Lair no matter how much you pay...Even as a huge LD fan the appeal of the LA diminishes every day.

If only it didn't suck so much. If the video wasn't terrible. If the games/modules weren't so expensive. If they had done any LD game that I ever played in in arcade. If they had just made a version of Yuna that had real anime in it. Almost anything would made the thing more appealing than it is.

I have a Laseractive and I have to agree. It's convenient to have hooked up and just switch out the PACs to play Sega and NEC games, but as an LD game system it's very lacking. No Dragon's Lair, no Space Ace, etc. If even half the games on Daphne were available on the LA instead of a bunch of Pyramid Patrol-type games it would've been so much better. Triad Stone is cool but the other two games I really want, Road Blaster and Time Gal, are astronomically expensive now and I'll probably never own them.

That's kind of how I feel as well. Even Don Quoxite has lost its appeal to me after I finished it. Road Blaster would be awesome to have, but not at $400+ I have been seeing run for nowadays.. Unfortunately about the only thing I use my LA for is to watch movies lol.

[schweaty]

let's petition tobias for some Road Blaster booties 

[SuperGrafx]

I've been interested in the device, but I heard these are notorious for leaky caps.

[SamIAm]

I'd like to try Hyperion before I die, just because I like chase-view shooters. I really hope the Laseractive gets emulated at some point for this reason.

Also, I see that most of the games finally have full playthroughs on youtube now. That wasn't the case just a short couple of years ago.

[xcrement5x]

let's petition tobias for some Road Blaster booties 

I wish man, it would be cool to be able to repress LDs at all, but I guess all the equipment for them is just totally gone at this point. 

I've got all the LA stuff I really want except a couple titles, I like it because it's a neat footnote in gaming history, plus the games are basically impossible to emulate so if you want to play something you have to have the originals   Hopefully they find a way to do flash cart hacks and the like eventually.

[EvilEvoIX]

With the sega pack does it play Sega CD Games or just Turbo Games with the Turbo pack?  In terms of it's video out, LD is Composite native so I've heard that the Composite output is superior to almost everything through a CRT TV?  Game Sack made a great episode here:

[SignOfZeta]

I've been interested in the device, but I heard these are notorious for leaky caps. 

Also, $1000 games. Honestly, I'd be more more concerned with that. If I can afford $1000 games I can probably afford to pay someone to fix the machine itself.

[CrackTiger]

With the sega pack does it play Sega CD Games or just Turbo Games with the Turbo pack?  In terms of it's video out, LD is Composite native so I've heard that the Composite output is superior to almost everything through a CRT TV?  Game Sack made a great episode here:

The Sega paks contain Genesis/MD + Sega/Mega-CD hardware.

The Turbo/PCE packs contain Duo system hardware.

[schweaty]

With the sega pack does it play Sega CD Games or just Turbo Games with the Turbo pack?  In terms of it's video out, LD is Composite native so I've heard that the Composite output is superior to almost everything through a CRT TV?  Game Sack made a great episode here:

So here is everything it will play (with appropriate PACs:

Genesis
Sega CD
Sega Master System (w/ power base or other adapter)
PC engine Hucards
CDROM2 / super CDROM (ACD w/ card)
Mega LD
LDROM2

The picture quality isn't great, but I plan on doing a component video mod using turbokons v1 board when I finally get mine out of storage.  I will let everyone know how nit goes

[xcrement5x]

With the sega pack does it play Sega CD Games or just Turbo Games with the Turbo pack?  In terms of it's video out, LD is Composite native so I've heard that the Composite output is superior to almost everything through a CRT TV?  Game Sack made a great episode here:

So here is everything it will play (with appropriate PACs:

Genesis
Sega CD
Sega Master System (w/ power base or other adapter)
PC engine Hucards
CDROM2 / super CDROM (ACD w/ card)
Mega LD
LDROM2

The picture quality isn't great, but I plan on doing a component video mod using turbokons v1 board when I finally get mine out of storage.  I will let everyone know how nit goes

RGB off the LaserActive is supposedly quite good, possibly the best for any Genesis hardware from what I've heard.  Also, if it's RGB modded then you could use a 32X as well!

[SignOfZeta]

Yeah, good luck pulling off a successful and useful modern day video mod with one of these things. Doing the PAC side is trivial, but the LD side is, unless someone has come a long way since I last looked into it, about as difficult as making an emulator and for pretty much the same reasons. I'm sure it can and will be done eventually, but I'm not sure if I know of anyone in the world who can. 

16 bit game machines are RGB native
LDs are composite native
All the analog video muxing is (badly) done in the realm of Y/C
The machine only outputs composite

Soooo...let us know how it goes.

Like I said, you could do *just* the PAC side, but you'd get no better results than you would with a $20 Genesis so it seems beyond pointless to me.

[schweaty]

Yeah, the mod only works on the PAC side (which is all I care about).  LDs are essentially pure composite analog. 

To be honest, I get a lot of nostalgia out of watching 80s movies on LD.  The grainy pic just a half step up from VHS really takes me back in a way watching it on BD doesn't recapture the moment I first saw it

[SignOfZeta]

It's half a step up from VHS on the LA. It's a full step on a better LD player. While not a terrible player, the the amount of chroma noise coming from an LA is pretty fierce since the LD side is largely cribbed from the (bottom of the range...and a new bottom at that) CLD-S201. By the mid 90s Pioneer was making nearly noiseless players. Of course with the LA already coming in at $1000+ they couldn't exactly stuff the things with 3D comb filters and copper cases.

[Bloufo]

With the sega pack does it play Sega CD Games or just Turbo Games with the Turbo pack?  In terms of it's video out, LD is Composite native so I've heard that the Composite output is superior to almost everything through a CRT TV?  Game Sack made a great episode here:

So here is everything it will play (with appropriate PACs:

Genesis
Sega CD
Sega Master System (w/ power base or other adapter)
PC engine Hucards
CDROM2 / super CDROM (ACD w/ card)
Mega LD
LDROM2

You can add to the list Mark III carts. As well as Sega Card/MyCard games.

[SignOfZeta]

As well as 3D karaoke porn.

[EvilEvoIX]

The composite looks great, especially through an old CRT TV.  Not RGB Quality but very good.

[Nazi NecroPhile]

As well as 3D karaoke porn.

That's what sold me on getting mine.

[RyuHayabusa]

It's half a step up from VHS on the LA. It's a full step on a better LD player. While not a terrible player, the the amount of chroma noise coming from an LA is pretty fierce since the LD side is largely cribbed from the (bottom of the range...and a new bottom at that) CLD-S201. By the mid 90s Pioneer was making nearly noiseless players. Of course with the LA already coming in at $1000+ they couldn't exactly stuff the things with 3D comb filters and copper cases.

Why exactly did the LA and PACs cost so much? It wasn't that great of a laserdisc player to begin with. The video quality isn't very good, it doesn't auto-flip, etc. The PACs, although still outrageously expensive, are a tiny bit more understandable since the original Sega and NEC hardware are completely redesigned and  shrunk down into a single small box. Perhaps there was a hefty licensing fee for Sega and NEC that attributed to the cost?

[CrackTiger]

Probably because they didn't expect it to sell well and they considered that the sweet spot for price/consumer interest. It wasn't the best laserdisc player and not many console players could be expected to spend so much, so there would have been limited interest from both markets.

The licensing costs should have been passed on through the pacs and dedicated games.

[Nazi NecroPhile]

Its high MSRP was likely due to a combination of two things: A/V equipment MSRP is a joke, always selling at a discount; and it's a hold over of Japan's economic bubble, where people couldn't spend their money fast enough.

[SignOfZeta]

The player it was based on was $300-$400 retail. It has a lot more crap in it that one did too. When you consider it was, more or less, the most powerful piece of consumer AV gear ever made $1200 or whatever isn't bad. The original price for a PC Engine with CDROM2 was $500-600. We hadn't fully enslaved China yet at that point, and also people still expected shit to last more than 9 months. So shit was "expensive". You didn't have people buying PSTVs for $40 a year after they came out and then never bothering to take them out of the box. People nowadays seem to just buy SO MUCH shit so fast that they can't even use it.

My CLD-99 had an list price of $2400 and the only game I can play on it is "WTF Was That Sound? Shit. I Hope It's Not Serious, They Don't Make Parts For These Anymore." and it's not even as fun as Power Stone.

[schweaty]

Zeta is right.  It's a bit "over-engineered" possibly due to the high fail rate of first gen CD players among the other factors Zeta noted.  Additionally the pcb's in the PACs are really high quality.  Much better than what sega and NEC were using and also better than nintendo's boards by a significant margin.  I wouldn't necessarily say it was worth the money, but you were definitely getting something for your money

[tbone3969]

The player it was based on was $300-$400 retail. It has a lot more crap in it that one did too. When you consider it was, more or less, the most powerful piece of consumer AV gear ever made $1200 or whatever isn't bad. The original price for a PC Engine with CDROM2 was $500-600. We hadn't fully enslaved China yet at that point, and also people still expected shit to last more than 9 months. So shit was "expensive". You didn't have people buying PSTVs for $40 a year after they came out and then never bothering to take them out of the box. People nowadays seem to just buy SO MUCH shit so fast that they can't even use it.

My CLD-99 had an list price of $2400 and the only game I can play on it is "WTF Was That Sound? Shit. I Hope It's Not Serious, They Don't Make Parts For These Anymore." and it's not even as fun as Power Stone.

I have zero knowledge of Laser Disc games.  Can you share a list of LD games that can be played on this Laser Disc player?  Why can't Dragon's Lair be played?  What is this PowerStone game you speak of?  It can't be the Dream Cast one can it.  Also what games are worth in the $1000s?  Thank you.

[CrackTiger]

The LaserActive is a console with dedicated formats. Just as you can't play a PC Engine CD game on a Sega-CD, you can't just take a random arcade game and play it in the LaserActive.

[tbone3969]

What are these $1000 LA games people have talked about here?  I am genuinely curious.  The LA is one system I know nothing about.  I did dome searching online and it's hard to find a list of all the LA games released.  I even saw some Japanese games like Street Fighter 2 which I thought was really strange.  Never knew that game was on LaserDisc.

[xcrement5x]

What are these $1000 LA games people have talked about here?  I am genuinely curious.  The LA is one system I know nothing about.  I did dome searching online and it's hard to find a list of all the LA games released.  I even saw some Japanese games like Street Fighter 2 which I thought was really strange.  Never knew that game was on LaserDisc.

List of titles:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_LaserActive#Games

Where is says Region: US it was a title released in the US, though the majority of the games were released in Japan only. 

There were only three PCE based LD games released for the US, over a dozen Genesis LD games.  Oh, and Zeta misspoke, I can only assume that he means TRIAD Stone, not POWER Stone.  Easy to confuse since in the game it goes "power Power POWER!" all the time.

[tbone3969]

What are these $1000 LA games people have talked about here?  I am genuinely curious.  The LA is one system I know nothing about.  I did dome searching online and it's hard to find a list of all the LA games released.  I even saw some Japanese games like Street Fighter 2 which I thought was really strange.  Never knew that game was on LaserDisc.

List of titles:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_LaserActive#Games

Where is says Region: US it was a title released in the US, though the majority of the games were released in Japan only. 

There were only three PCE based LD games released for the US, over a dozen Genesis LD games.  Oh, and Zeta misspoke, I can only assume that he means TRIAD Stone, not POWER Stone.  Easy to confuse since in the game it goes "power Power POWER!" all the time.

Got it.  Thanks for the info.  There really aren't any reasons to own this system except for the oddity factor I guess.

[tbone3969]

What the hell is this?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/STREET-FIGHTER-II-Kyukyoku-Ogi-Hen-Laserdisc-SCITRON/301603852456?_trksid=p2050601.c100085.m2372&_trkparms=aid%3D111001%26algo%3DREC.SEED%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20140211132617%26meid%3Db6202d8ff9474c159fc8e4cbeba7cdb9%26pid%3D100085%26rk%3D3%26rkt%3D4%26sd%3D221936152528%26clkid%3D1541284226164123476&_qi=RTM2067269

[SignOfZeta]

Hardcore SFII fan stuff. Combo videos, stuff like that. Not very exciting. There are a bunch of these, mostly for SNK games.

[SuperDeadite]

Living here in Japan, I was able to get a complete LD game collection in just a couple years when I was a single man.  The LD games library is quite small, but I've gotten quite a bit of fun out of mine, I rgb modded my unit, and because of that it has become my main device for playing PCE/Sega on.  Is the system worth buying today?  It really depends on who you are.  Vajra 2 is a game I can play once a week, very relaxing and always enjoyable.  Hell Virtual Cameraman 2 is way way way more fun then it should be.  Even Dr. Paolo which is a terrible game is strangely entertaining with the 3D Goggles....  In the end, if it looks like your thing, you will love it.  But I would never urge someone to buy one.

[schweaty]

I'm not aware of any LD games that regularly sell for $1k.  Road Avenger sometimes sells in the $500 range (way more than i can soend).  I was able to pick up triad stone for $50 a couple weeks ago.  I would like to get Don Quixote at a reasonable price and vajra 2 at some point

[Psycho Punch]

Hell Virtual Cameraman 2 is way way way more fun then it should be.

It can't be better than your classic video though.

[xcrement5x]

I'm not aware of any LD games that regularly sell for $1k.  Road Avenger sometimes sells in the $500 range (way more than i can soend).  I was able to pick up triad stone for $50 a couple weeks ago.  I would like to get Don Quixote at a reasonable price and vajra 2 at some point

The games that you rarely see pop up are the incredibly expensive ones: Time Gal, 3D Australia, Goku for the LD-ROMROM, other than that most of them vary in price.  You're never going to find a game for like $5 unless it's a thrift store, but the majority of the library can be had in the $50-$150 range.  The number of titles higher than that is few, but some of them are pretty awesome (Road Blaster and Vajra Ni in particular).

[BigusSchmuck]

I'm not aware of any LD games that regularly sell for $1k.  Road Avenger sometimes sells in the $500 range (way more than i can soend).  I was able to pick up triad stone for $50 a couple weeks ago.  I would like to get Don Quixote at a reasonable price and vajra 2 at some point

The games that you rarely see pop up are the incredibly expensive ones: Time Gal, 3D Australia, Goku for the LD-ROMROM, other than that most of them vary in price.  You're never going to find a game for like $5 unless it's a thrift store, but the majority of the library can be had in the $50-$150 range.  The number of titles higher than that is few, but some of them are pretty awesome (Road Blaster and Vajra Ni in particular).

I concur, though I did manage to snag a new sealed copy of Don Quixote for $100 and Triad Stone for $85. One day I will get Road Blaster, just not today.

[tbone3969]

Hell Virtual Cameraman 2 is way way way more fun then it should be.

It can't be better than your classic video though.

Wow this video is truly priceless.  Thanks for sharing.

[InfraMan]

I've always been interested in the LaserActive, since I have an unhealthy love for laserdisc gaming in general. It's one of those systems that I'm kind of afraid to get into, though... it seems like it could very easily turn into a money-sucking black hole.

BTW, this is probably common knowledge, but for anyone who's interested in laserdisc games there are fantastic Japanese ports of Road Blasters + Thunder Storm LX-3 and Time Gal + Ninja Hayate for the PSX and Saturn. There's also a really cool SNES version of Road Blasters available for download, as long as you have the hardware to play it (or an emulator that will work with it).

[RyuHayabusa]

I've always been interested in the LaserActive, since I have an unhealthy love for laserdisc gaming in general. It's one of those systems that I'm kind of afraid to get into, though... it seems like it could very easily turn into a money-sucking black hole.

BTW, this is probably common knowledge, but for anyone who's interested in laserdisc games there are fantastic Japanese ports of Road Blasters + Thunder Storm LX-3 and Time Gal + Ninja Hayate for the PSX and Saturn. There's also a really cool SNES version of Road Blasters available for download, as long as you have the hardware to play it (or an emulator that will work with it).

Unfortunately the Time Gal + Ninja Hayate ports for the Saturn are pretty expensive now, going for well over $100 now. Road Blaster + Thunder Storm are a lot more reasonable though.

[SignOfZeta]

Yeah. I noticed that. IIRC those were budget releases and didn't even have all the scenes in them. The video was the original Cinepac Saturn spec too, I'm pretty sure, so it would either be more grainy than small or more small than grainy.

I suppose it's one of those "inflation by association" things like Magical Chase.

[RyuHayabusa]

Yeah. I noticed that. IIRC those were budget releases and didn't even have all the scenes in them. The video was the original Cinepac Saturn spec too, I'm pretty sure, so it would either be more grainy than small or more small than grainy.

I suppose it's one of those "inflation by association" things like Magical Chase.

Hmm, I've never heard that they're missing scenes. As for the video quality, it's definitely not LD quality but it's better than the Mega CD port by far.

Interesting tidbit I just found out recently that I can't believe I missed. The car from Road Blaster is actually the car in the garage in the first Double Dragon arcade game. Also, the helicopter in the garage in Double Dragon 2 arcade is from Thunder Storm FX. Anyone else miss this?

[InfraMan]

Hmm, I've never heard that they're missing scenes. As for the video quality, it's definitely not LD quality but it's better than the Mega CD port by far.

Interesting tidbit I just found out recently that I can't believe I missed. The car from Road Blaster is actually the car in the garage in the first Double Dragon arcade game. Also, the helicopter in the garage in Double Dragon 2 arcade is from Thunder Storm FX. Anyone else miss this?

I've never noticed any missing scenes in the PSX/Saturn ports either, but then again I haven't played through them in a while. Now I'm curious...

And holy cow, I can't believe I never made the connection with the Double Dragon games before! That's a really cool easter egg!

On an unrelated note, I totally love that ridiculous opening theme song in the Sega CD port of Road Avenger. I haven't played that one in ages, and I can STILL hear the damn song in my head, lol.

[SignOfZeta]

Maybe they are just missing the flipped versions of scenes? I can't remember. I was pretty sure there was something that sucked about them but maybe I'm confusing something...

[SuperDeadite]

Road Blaster and Thunder Storm were also released on DVD-ROM for Windows PCs.  They were ported by a doujin team, but fully licensed.  Fully patched they officially support Windows 8.  Both are excellent ports, Road Blaster even adds some exclusive features such as an optional video blurring effect for when you hit the turbo or break.  Highly recommended and pop-up for sale on amazon japan quite often.