Sega Game Gear Replacement Battery Covers
The avid video game hunters among us who have found a Sega Game Gear at a garage sale or thrift store will know that more often than not the battery covers will be missing. I have been fortunate enough to find a few Sega Game Gears in the wild myself, but of the four I’ve found only one of them had its original battery covers. Missing battery covers not only make the console look incomplete, it also makes the console feel weird in the hands. The battery covers are placed with an ergonomic design so a missing battery cover leaves a gaping hole on the back of the console. This also exposes the edges where the cover should go, which can sometimes be sharp and uncomfortable to hold for even short periods of time.
I think we’re living in a fascinating time where companies are now flooding the market with all kinds of retro gaming related items that can be quite useful. The markets are filled with replacement parts to help make your portable consoles look and feel complete again, or even make it look better than it ever had. I recently found an online seller offering replacement Game Gear battery covers. But how do these unbranded battery covers compare to the originals and are they worth picking up?
Once the replacement battery covers arrived I pulled out my Game Gears and gave them a test. The left sides always clicked into place perfectly, but the right sides simply wouldn’t click down without help. While trying to adjust the clip on one of the right sides I nearly breaking it off, which tells me these aftermarket ones are made of much softer plastic, so keep that in mind. Once I helped the right one lock down in place everything seems perfectly fine. They fit well, they’re comfortable and they look pretty much like the original covers. If there was one criticism to say, other than being made of softer plastic, is the color is ever so slightly different, but not by much.
I also ordered a pair for my Majecso Game Gear. Since Majesco made their Game Gears out of super thin and brittle plastic everything popped into place perfectly, I’m assuming cheap plastics just go better together. Also since the console is a much deeper black than the dark gray of the original Sega version these covers stick out significantly more than they do on the original. Regardless they fit perfect and that’s really all I was wanting from them.
From the outside it’s difficult to tell the aftermarket ones from the originals, again there is just an ever so slight color difference that many might miss. On the inside is where you can clearly tell the difference. The original battery covers will have numbers stamped on the inside, while the aftermarket covers will only have L and R for left and right.
If you want battery covers to make your Sega Game Gear look and feel complete again, these are completely serviceable. If you plan to use batteries and take your Game Gear around with you from place to place then I doubt these replacement covers would last for very long being opened and closed repeatedly. The ones I bought were inexpensive and plentiful, so you could just order a ton of them and do as you please. In my honest opinion I’m happy with them because all I needed was the console to look and feel complete while I used it with the wall adapter. That suits my needs perfectly, so if you’re like me these battery covers are exactly what you need.
Sega Game Gear Bag Repurpose!
Along my thrift outings I’ve ran across a handful of old Sega Game Gear bags. I’ve only managed to find one with the insert to hold my Game Gear and it’s accessories, with being the only one I’ve found it took that job by default. But what do I do with the other bags without the inserts?
Being a, self proclaimed, MacGuyver of retro gaming items, I feel as though I’ve found a solution to my problem! I can’t just leave a Sega Game Gear sitting in such a large bag without proper protection, so I’ve chosen another Sega system to take it’s place. Perhaps you could say its keeping it in the family, my Sega Saturn.
The Sega Saturn fits perfectly, as does a controller or pair of controllers. The AV cable and power cord, once wound up, fit perfectly where game cases fit in the upper part of the bag, which leaves two compartments on the front and back for games, or anything else you need to carry along with your Sega Saturn. So if you ever run across one of these bags without the Game Gear insert don’t just pass it up, take it home, give it a cycle through the clothes washer and once it’s dry pack away your Sega Saturn!
Vintage Gaming Cleaning Kits
In the days when cartridges ruled the world it seemed as if anyone and everyone put out a cleaning kit to keep your systems in working order. Which was a big selling point made all too easy by the NES and its, more often than not, ability to put on a light show rather than play a game. If there is one thing I believe about retro gaming, it has to be the fact that if you keep your systems and games clean they will last longer and give you much better functional results.
Although I now know the true cause of these glitches, I was still taken in by the cleaning kits propaganda when I was younger. They made promises to keep the blinking NES, or just a black screen on other systems, away forever! Almost every cartridge based video game system had some form of cleaning kit, and although most of the time it worked for just a short while, the fact that it worked at all made them feel like essential hardware.
My first cleaning kit was a Doc’s Fix-a-system, which had what I still feel is a genius idea in the clip on NES cleaner. You simply took any NES game cartridge, clipped the contraption to the front of it and you proceeded to stab the living daylights out of your NES. Doing so cleared unwanted dirt and gave way to a few more minutes of uninterrupted gameplay.
I still love this idea, it still works great!
After that cleaning kit was lost or broken, I’m sure, I purchased a Player’s Edge NES cleaning kit. This one was a stand alone unit with a handle, and everything you needed fit conveniently inside the unit itself. Again you just took the unit and stabbed the living daylights out of your NES and you were good to play for a little while longer.
Years of use on this thing, does it show?
That would be the last cleaning kit I bought for nearly 14 years, until one day at a Salvation Army store I found a Player’s Edge cleaning kit for the SNES. Later, at another Salvation Army, I found an incomplete Doc’s 2000 kit, which brought back a flood of memories of the good old days. Sadly the NES clip was broken, but I decided to take what was left of it and turn it into a cleaning kit inside of an old Gyromite cartridge I had laying around. (Original article: Here)
Same system, only one fits perfectly into the NES so I can shut the lid.
It seems nowadays I go through thrift stores and find cleaning kits for almost every system, and if they’re at a reasonable price I’ll pick them up. Just this year I’ve accrued quite a few system cleaning kits, and although I may not use them I still pick them up when I can.
My current collection of boxed cleaning kits.
As an adult, I know the best way to keep my systems running is to clean both the games and the systems. But it seems a good Q-tip with rubbing alcohol thoroughly rubbed through a game keeps all my systems running well. Admittedly I have had some hiccups with my Sega Genesis, N64 and SNES, but nothing a good game cleaning hasn’t remedied, so far!
Back in the day cleaning kits were pushed in our faces, and as time went on they faded away. I still get nostalgic for cleaning kits and make room for them in my collection. Though they serve no practical purpose to me, as I’ve learned far better ways to keep my systems running, they still connect me to a time when video games were problematic, but so much fun.
