The Sega Hitachi HiSaturn Navi Console

2023-11-0322:4311235nfggames.com

Yes, this system was on ebay. Check it out. In December 1995, about a year after the Saturn launched in Japan and only a few short months after the Saturn's launch in North America, Hitachi released…

Yes, this system was on ebay. Check it out. In December 1995, about a year after the Saturn launched in Japan and only a few short months after the Saturn's launch in North America, Hitachi released the single most extreme console the world has ever seen. The HiSaturn Navi. Its feature list was enormous: slim profile, car adaptor, LCD screen, GPS Navigation, karaoke... No console before or since dared dream of including half these features, which is why to this day it is probably the rarest and most expensive post-NES console. In fact, even considering the piles of weird pre-NES hardware, the HiSaturn Navi still ranks as one of the most ridiculously expensive and elusive systems you're ever likely to see. As of this writing (2003/06/23) you can expect to pay over $1200 USD to get one of these in decent shape with a screen, and more if you get one in like-new condition with all the boxes and manuals intact. Totally ridiculous, and yet...

When Sega was creating the Saturn system they enlisted the help of several long-time partners - JVC provided the CD mechanism and Hitachi provided the dual SH-2 CPUs. As part of a co-branding or cross-licensing agreement, both of these companies produced their own variants of the Saturn hardware. Both JVC's V-Saturn and Hitachi's HiSaturn were merely coloured variants of the Sega Saturn, with no additional features or capabilities. All three manufacturers, Sega, JVC + Hitachi, released older oval-button systems and newer round-button systems, and none of these are particularly rare, but then Hitachi threw down the gauntlet.

It beggars disbelief to this day. The Saturn was only a year old when Hitachi threw out the Sega mold and released a completely redesigned system jam packed with goodies. It's smaller than your average Saturn - about the same width and length, but almost a third shorter and it's nearly flat on top. It's considerably heavier because of the added components, even considering most of the power supply was made external. In addition to the standard Saturn ports (serial, AV + controller) it has two microphone inputs for karaoke use, a GPS antenna port, video and audio inputs, a TV-tuner port and a line-out port. This was all standard equipment.


(click for larger)
  1. Hitachi HiSaturn
  2. Hitachi HiSaturn Navi
  3. Sega Saturn (New)
  4. Sega Saturn (US, New)
  5. JVC V-Saturn (New)
  6. Sega Skeleton Saturn
  7. Sega Saturn (Old)
The launch price was 150,000 Yen, or about $1480 US Dollars at the time. This certainly helps explain the system's rarity - the price of this system without a screen was more than $1000 above the price of a normal Saturn. Add another 45,000 Yen ($443) for the LCD screen and you've got a system far beyond the reach of most people.

Also accounting for the system's rarity are the production quantities: only two thousand HiSaturn Navi units were produced every month. Unconfirmed: I've been told the system was in production for only one month. Possibly then only 2,000 units were produced.


Normal HiSaturn + Pad (click for larger)
The LCD screen was released at the same time as the system, but only one thousand units per month were produced - half the number of systems. It was a backlit active-matrix TFT screen, a very expensive process at the time, with resolution, clarity and contrast surpassing any other console screen - equal in vibrancy but larger than the Turbo Express. It draws its power from the system, so no additional power supply is required. . It clips to the back of the system and plugs in with a short cable to the 'monitor out' port. When closed it sits flush with the CD door, and has quite a slim profile, when closed the system is approximately the same height as a normal Saturn. The screen is capable of displaying both interlaced and non-interlaced video. It has a sliding volume control, and one speaker, as well as tint + brightness controls and a Front/Rear switch, which serves a very secret purpose (I have no idea what).

A GPS antenna port and a GPS antenna/receiver were standard equipment. In-car navigation systems have been popular in Japan for a very long time, but I'm not sure to whom this particular system seemed a good idea. Installation of the power supply and GPS antenna were semi-permanent, as the former had to be tucked away carefully to avoid unsightly cable dangle, and the latter needed to be clipped to the handbrake. When installed you could use the system like any other navi. The screen showed your location overlaid on a road map, and you could zoom in or out, add locations, plot routes and leave 'bread crumb' trails. No navi software or boot disc was needed, to operate the navi you merely turned the system on with any Naviken compatible map CD in the drive, and the Navi mode started.


GPS Antenna port + VCD bay
Operation was a bit tricky. Unlike normal navi systems the HiSaturn used a controller on a cord, and since two hands were required it was beyond the driver's ability to manipulate the system while driving. In addition, also unlike other navi systems, there was a sensor that needed to be attached to the hand brake cable, and if you weren't parked with the hand brake on there were several functions unavailable to the user, like route planning. Also game playing was prohibited while the car was in motion - without the handbrake sensor installed and the handbrake applied the screen would shut off after a game started to load.


If you happen to own one and dare use it in the car, you can bypass this 'feature' by connecting the sensor cable to anything grounded.

Karaoke was absolutely huge in Japan. To say it was a phenomenon is a gross understatement. Every piece of stereo equipment featuered karaoke inputs. Portable CD players had CD+G capability and video output jacks, even the Sega CD system had a karaoke option. With the HiSaturn Navi, the karaoke features were built in, with two microphone ports and independant volume controls, as well as four buttons on top of the unit controlling Echo and Pitch. In addition, there was a control for voice cancellation or multiplexing on the top of the unit. These features are present in other Saturn models, but the buttons are software controlled and only accessible while playing music CDs or CD+Gs. With the HiSaturn Navi you can control the pitch or cancel voice for all audio output, a real laugh during gameplay, I assure you!


Sound controls + karaoke ports
The slim profile of the system made some extra demands for manufacturing, and because it was released relatively early in the Saturn's lifespan there was no newer, smaller chipset to use. To save space, most of the power supply was made external, but there's still part of it inside. There are two additional PCBs inside, one for the extra sound controls, and one for the GPS. There are many additional chips - video select, audio control, the GPS software, etc. It is fully region moddable like any other Saturn, and you can easily make a switchless mod for playing US or European games without cutting new holes. It has a VCD slot for the movie card, and it uses the same CR2032 battery for backup RAM. There is a cart slot, but the screen cannot be closed with a cart inserted, and the cart will block some of the screen controls.

The screen uses composite video, not RGB, but this isn't really noticable given the course triad-pixel arrangement. In a very strange move, the system does not output RGB through the multi-AV port like every other Saturn. I don't know the reason for this, but it's a relatively easy fix.

AV input + tuner port
I'm not certain the TV tuner was ever released. I've never seen one for sale, if it did reach store shelves it was in frighteningly limited numbers. The system manual makes reference to this unit as 'forthcoming' along with the never-released hard drive, and the keyboard and floppy drive which were released much later, and not by Hitachi. The HiSaturn Navi pad is the same as the other HiSaturn systems, which are in turn only cosmetically different than the Sega-branded units.



As you can see, the screen is very clear. From top-right clockwise: Bomberman, Tempest (closer), Bomberman (closest).

Adding RGB output


Import modding
Switchless mod info

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Comments

  • By gryson 2023-11-040:272 reply

    The Hitachi product site for this is still online (from 1995; Japanese):

    https://www.hitachi.co.jp/New/cnews/9512/1201.html

    It was intended as an in-car game console / GPS navigation combo unit.

    One of the unique selling points was that it could use the Saturn hardware to create a 3D map simulation of a planned route that you could view in advance of going on a trip. So, you could take it in the house, watch the simulation, then put it in the car for the actual trip and use the GPS navigation.

    • By gary_0 2023-11-043:294 reply

      Seeing a product photo from that era evoked a particularly weird feeling of nostalgia that I had never reflected on before. I think it's the sleek molded-plastic consumer electronics design combined with crisp photography that still lacks the uncanny valley of extensive digital photo retouching or full-blown 3D rendering that would become prevalent only a few years later.

      Now I kind of want to find a website with scans of old product advertisements from the 90's. While they seemed to lack the cultural distinctiveness of previous decades, the 90's were still a happening time and the eye of the storm of (post) modernity we find ourselves in now.

      • By gryson 2023-11-046:08

        A good source for such photos are the ads in old Japanese computer magazines, such as Micom Basic. Archive.org has the entire run (I think) from the 80s and 90s. Here's April 1985:

        https://archive.org/details/basic-1985-04/page/n5/mode/2up

      • By auto 2023-11-0413:36

        I had the same feeling, and I think along with what the other commenters have said, the bit rate of the image contributes to it as well, you can see the grain in the light background where it doesn’t have the practically infinite color spectrum to work with and you get the color dithering effect instead.

      • By fidotron 2023-11-0412:09

        In this case “crisp” means high contrast.

        Modern photographers and post process people would look at the histogram of the photo on that site and die inside.

      • By matheusmoreira 2023-11-045:501 reply

        I know how you feel. Really miss that era.

        > crisp photography

        Old photos just look so good, really miss them. Is it even possible to achieve this with current technology?

        • By HelixEndeavor 2023-11-047:051 reply

          Early digicams weren't powerful enough to pull off a lot of the fancy behind-the-scenes instant post-processinf modern cameras do before you even get to see the picture. The result was they often resembled film photography in many ways, especially the digital noise that in the right circumstances didn't look too dissimilar from film grain.

          This is why I personally have a small collection of early digicams I like shooting on from time to time, and why they've recently become a whole TikTok trend.

          I think if we allowed modern cameras to have an option that performs little to no post-processing on captured photos (without having to resort to RAW capture), we could get pictures that a lot more closely resemble this stuff.

          • By wkjagt 2023-11-0411:422 reply

            How early would they need to be? I still have an original Canon 5D (2005) and in a way I prefer the output of it over even my Leica Q. I wonder if the reason is related to what you are saying.

            • By HelixEndeavor 2023-11-0822:53

              2005 is about as late as you can go before the processors in cameras started being powerful enough to do a lot of stuff to the images. Most of my collection is very early 2000s or even late 90s. The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-F717 is a great cam from 2002 that was Sony's flagship at the time. Despite having cool features that modern cams don't (nightshot which also allows for easy IR photography, a swiveling lens assembly), the pictures have that "filmic" look thanks to the CCD sensor and little to no denoising done in-camera. It was also high resolution enough for the time (5MP) that the pictures still look reasonably detailed and sharp. Super early digicams often had like 1MP sensors that produce quite fuzzy images (though I feel that has its own appeal)

            • By Grazester 2023-11-0413:14

              I always wanted that camera because I thought the color depth was amazing but as a college kid I couldn't afford a several thousand dollar camera.

    • By throwaway128128 2023-11-043:111 reply

      Knowing the quality of Saturn 3D games I can't imagine the 3D GPS feature was any good..

      • By Grazester 2023-11-043:292 reply

        The Saturn had good 3D games! The work it took to get a decent 3D games not many game studio could do. In fact it might have been only Sega. And for something as simple as a 90's 3D map the Saturn could certainly do with ease, once again if it wasn't half assed

        • By scheeseman486 2023-11-043:332 reply

          The most impressive engine released retail on Saturn was Slavedriver, which was developed by Lobotomy for Powerslave and re-used for ports of Duke Nukem 3D and Quake.

          If counting homebrew though, there's this demo which clearly developed by some kind of magician: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpcjkDDLoXM

          • By Grazester 2023-11-044:53

            The salve driver engine was very good. And that homebrew engine is also a impressive feat. I have been following that guys work for a while

          • By tuna74 2023-11-0413:441 reply

            I would claim Burning Rangers is the most impressive game on the Saturn. The effects are crazy and use the Saturn HW in totally creative ways.

            • By throwaway128128 2023-11-0421:32

              IMO the games which flexed VDP2 were the most impressive since you could do crazy raster effects without dropping the frame rate one iota. Equivalent effects on the Playstation, if even possible, came at a cost of GSU fillrate.

        • By sillywalk 2023-11-0419:021 reply

          IIRC the Saturn used quadrangles.

  • By thevagrant 2023-11-042:243 reply

    Sega made a Genesis mini a few years back with 40 games.

    Would be great if they made a console that let you play most games from master system, genesis, saturn to dreamcast.

    • By scheeseman486 2023-11-043:30

      It wasn't so much Sega that made it, but M2 using off the shelf ARM SoCs.

      Consoles and handhelds that can do all that exist though, they're just not made by Sega. A Steam Deck with a 1TB SD card is able to run almost the entirety of Sega's legacy back catalog, excepting a few titles that still aren't emulated correctly.

    • By imiric 2023-11-0411:331 reply

      It still used emulation, though. None of these "mini" official systems is appealing to me. I can already use emulators on any device I already own, and have an equivalent or better experience. Why would I pay for a cute enclosure bundled with the same emulator I already use and a handful of games? Legality aside, they're a cash grab tugging at nostalgia strings.

      What I _would_ like to see from the original manufacturers is an actual "mini" system, reimplemented using modern hardware components, and using software improvements (filters, upscaling, etc.). I would even settle for an FPGA implementation, which companies like Analogue are currently cashing on. The original manufacturers have an obvious advantage they can use, but it takes more effort than slapping together an emulator and some ROMs.

      It would also be great to have an official digital storefront specific to these systems, with the entire game library, or as much as they have the right to publish. Similar to what Nintendo has done with their legacy systems, just separate from the Switch itself. It just seems like a huge wasted market opportunity to not do this right.

      • By thevagrant 2023-11-0411:501 reply

        That's what I was getting at but didn't articulate it well enough.

        I'd pay per title if the prices were reasonable. It does seem like a missed opportunity. I know plenty of people in their 40s who'd more likely slap money on retro titles than they would on any new game.

        • By tuna74 2023-11-0413:471 reply

          Sony provided exactly what you wanted in for PS1 games on the PS3/PSP/Vita, but stopped doing that for PS4. I am going to assume it was not a very big business.

          • By Everdred2dx 2023-11-0413:53

            That wasn’t using FPGA emulation/legit hardware which is what this commentator seems to be asking for

    • By zdhgbdthdtv 2023-11-0413:17

      Just use RetroPie

  • By jonhohle 2023-11-040:051 reply

    As a console collector with a good number of odd consoles, this has always been a bucket list item. It reminds me of the PC engine LT in design sensibility.

    Sega did a lot of console licensing in the 90s - JVC and Pioneer both released versions of the Genesis/Sega CD.

    • By Grazester 2023-11-0418:42

      Do you collect for the Saturn? There are a number of very expensive games for this console

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