Supersega’s long, crazy history as a crowdfunding scam

You might recall last Summer when we talked about the announcement of a new FPGA console called the SuperSega. It was proposed as a console that could accurately run games from any original Sega console off of it’s original media, even Dreamcast games. I was cautiously optimistic as I wrote about the console, though the general consensus online, including from our own commenters, was that the SuperSega was destined to be vaporware. After a few short months, a couple of sketchy video demonstrations of the SuperSega hardware, and some ultra sketchy pre-orders that took way more money from people than they agreed to pay, it’s looking like it’s worse than even the naysayers thought at the time. Gotta give them credit.

We might be late in talking about this now, but because I had already reported on the SuperSega as if it was potentially going to be a legitimate product, we may as well take some time to go over all that had transpired regarding this new console since my original article. Join us after the break. It’s gonna be a long one.

Lets start with one of the videos from my original SuperSega article. This was the video footage of the software meant to run on the SuperSega hardware playing a few Dreamcast games. While I hadn’t thought there was anything wrong with it at the time, most everyone else who’d seen it would say the footage looked too perfect. Considering SuperSega are supposedly making their own brand new software for an FPGA system that has never yet been used for video games, I can now see why that concern makes sense. Although FPGAs are known for running retro games as close to perfectly as possible, the tech for running games on them never starts out that way. It is unusual that they would wait until they have things down perfect before showing footage of their progress, or that this would come before they’ve even finalized the hardware. (I also somehow didn’t think much of the microphone feedback audible during the whole video, plus the random belch he let out at some point.)

After my original article on the SuperSega, originally uploaded on July 23rd, 2024, SuperSega’s “Creator” Alejandro Martin, got very busy uploading more and more videos showing off this new FPGA console, each one more unprofessional, strange, creepy, and suspicious than the last. A few times, he even uploaded videos to his official SuperSega YouTube channel that had nothing to do with SuperSega. It was so much, in fact, that I’ll admit I never found the time to report on any of them along with all the other news I’ve reported since. It was a mix of showing off bogus prop motherboards, showing himself off in his skivvies (yes, you read that right), and recklessly driving around in a Lamborghini. Just in case they are deleted, I have uploaded them to this article to view in the native video player, though I will also link to the YouTube pages.

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In September of 2024, Alejandro finally opened up pre-orders for the SuperSega with a very odd pre-order structure. He announced that he would take initial deposits of a paltry €3 (Currently just under $3 USD). That 3 euros would put you on a shortlist for the privilege of paying the rest of the hundreds of euros to get a SuperSega after enough deposits are made. Unless enough deposits were made, showing enough interest in the system to go forward with production, everyone would have their 3 euros refunded. If at least 500 deposits were made, then Alejandro would let you know that he’d go ahead with accepting the rest of the cost directly from your bank account. He even felt honest enough to warn buyers that he would take the remainder of the cost at any time. Sounds trustworthy enough to me, right?

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While it’s not clear how many deposits were made, the poor, unfortunate backers found that they quickly got the rest of their money syphoned from their bank accounts as early as the very day after putting down their €3. This happened without any warning to them, in fact. Meanwhile, Alejandro would continue uploading dubious videos that instill less and less confidence in potential backers along with making excuses about how poor he is and how much he had to sell in order to realize his dream of putting together an all-in-one Sega FPGA console. Hard to sympathize with someone after not only doing that, but previously showing himself off driving a luxury vehicle that is certainly not even cheap to rent.

That brings us to the next biggest issue with the SuperSega, something even I said in my original article is crazy. That’s the name “SuperSega”. Not only is this a trademarked company name that Alejandro never once had the rights to use for profit, but his SuperSega logo was made entirely in the same font used for the official Sega logo. To the shock of no one, Sega proper took issue with this and had apparently sent Alejandro a cease & desist order. According to Alejandro, Sega had requested that he change the name of his FPGA console, refund everyone he had taken money from for the console, destroy any SuperSega hardware units he had already made, complete or otherwise, and to shut down the SuperSega website the console was named after. As a reminder, that over 20-year old website was made for sharing copyrighted ROM files of games for all of Sega’s consoles. Alejandro’s lawyer friend had previously said he was confident that Sega wouldn’t care about him using the name, but gave no reasons for this. Guess that was a bit too naïve of him to say.

After that was a wild series of responses, from him claiming he would fight Sega’s C&D order, then him showing people screenshots of his own personal bank account info (Can you say TMI?) showing that he was thousands of euros in debt sending bank chargebacks to refund backers, claiming he had to sell the Lamborghini he was driving earlier to fulfill some of those chargebacks, then claiming Sega changed their minds about stopping him moving forward with the SuperSega name and showing an official letter saying this that was definitely written by a real Sega representative, then pretending he was hospitalized. What a way to play the “David vs. Goliath” angle for some sympathy. Before you start feeling sorry for Alejandro, he would then withdraw his Lamborghini from sale and contest chargebacks to backers’ bank accounts.

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The most recent news on SuperSega is that the system will now just be a simple MiSTer console, a pre-existing and reputable open-source FPGA console which can only run game ROMS, but not original game cartridges or discs, and is currently unable to play Dreamcast games. It will also go by a different name. Sounds nice, except for the fact that anyone who would’ve put down a deposit by now wasn’t interested in a MiSTer console. They were interested in an FPGA console geared around playing games off of original Sega media. Even if you’re fine with a MiSTer console for all your retro gaming needs, I will advise all of our readers: DO NOT give this clown one cent of your money. There are plenty of reputable outlets making and selling MiSTer units that can suit most interested buyers.

So that’s the long and short of the SuperSega story up to this moment in time. Much of this news comes from retro gaming news site Time Extension, as well retro gaming youtubers Video Game Esoterica, Pixel Cherry Ninja, Ian Lee, SpineCardTV, and friend of SegaBits, Daniel “DJ Slopes” Ibbertson. The latter has recently uploaded an over 2 hour long video essay recounting the entire SuperSega affair in much richer detail, including several events that involve him personally. I highly recommend taking some time to watch the video, shown below, as it is quite a strange tale full of unpredictable twists and turns and Mr. Ibbertson has done an amazing job gathering receipts and videos to clearly illustrate this insanity. The other four YouTubers also deserve some credit for their longstanding coverage of Alejandro and SuperSega, which Mr. Ibbertson also drew from to research for his feature length video.

There’s a very valuable lesson we can all learn from this whole episode. Scam consoles like this are not a new thing on the internet. In fact, some of the youtubers mentioned above have covered a couple of famous examples from the recent past, such as the Intellivision Amico. The fact that people have the resources to make niche consoles like these today is nothing short of amazing, but everything is, unfortunately, grounds to create some convincing scams designed to trick you into giving up your hard earned cash with nothing to show for it. This also hurts the groups making real consoles, such as Analogue and the MiSTer community mentioned earlier, as it can lead to doubt from cautious consumers. I have personally dealt with scams like these before, and it is why I often warn about the potential risks of backing Kickstarter projects when I write about kickstarters here, but it seems even I still have a lot to learn about spotting scams early on. Credit once again goes to commenters on my original SuperSega article, both here and on Twitter, who were not fooled by Alejandro’s posturing, and I do apologize if anyone was convinced by my article to put down a deposit. I only hope that everyone who has eventually sees their money again.

Oh well. Lets hope the GF-1 Neptune turns out to be legit. The people putting that together at least come off like their heads are screwed on tight.

If you liked this write-up, be sure to check out Barry’s April Fools article from this year, which was inspired by this entire debacle.

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