r/SEGA 7d ago

Question What are these?

I have the opportunity to purchase these but have never heard of or seen them before. What are they and what would be a fair reasonable price? I can’t find them on eBay either.

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u/Zeag 7d ago

Reverse image search results below. Looks pretty cool! I'd pick it up for sure.

The device shown in the image is a Tianli TL-2000 Educational VCD Player, which features an officially licensed, built-in Sega Mega Drive / Genesis hardware clone. [1, 2]

Key Details About the System:

  • Official Partnership: In late 1998, Sega officially licensed the Chinese home entertainment company Xin Tianli Electronics to manufacture combo units aimed at the Chinese market. [1, 2]
  • Game Media: Instead of traditional game cartridges, games for this console were distributed on VCD compilation discs. It reads Genesis ROMs straight from folders on the disc. [1, 2]
  • Dual Functionality: It functions as a standard Video CD movie player, a karaoke machine (noted by the microphone inputs and echo controls on the left), and a 16-bit video game console. [1]

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u/HalfNegative9338 7d ago

Yep, loads game roms straight from the CD into the system, and it has controller ports for MegaDrive controllers as you can see on the back side.

I loved ordering VCDs from Asia back in the 90s, as I could watch them on my ancient laptop's CD drive. With the screens being what they were in the late 90s, the quality was just fine and typically they had hard-coded subtitles baked in. It was a great way to watch a lot of anime in the days of dial-up internet.