For some time now, this device has been a shadowy figure mentioned in Web rumors, forums and gaming chat rooms at unholy night hours. Now that it has turned into a touchable and usable reality, the suspense is over, but in a weird way. Because, as it turns out, the Sega Vision can't play games. Yup. It's mainly a portable media player.

Even so, is it a great media player? Well, not really. It plays M3/M4 formats and it's also an eBook reader, a voice recorder, a radio/TV tuner and a camera. All this from a device that is not the slimmest and curviest of all media players out there. Still, it's quite versatile, and it may have a chance against some of its competitors; unfortunately, the Sega Vision is impaired by several serious technical faults, according to Gizmodo: 1. you can store only 2GB-worth of content on it; 2. the camera is a humble 1.3MP; 3. the TV tuner is of the old, tired analog type; 4. it will probably cost at least $100.

Maybe these sins would be easier to forgive if the Sega Vision could play games. Fortunately, this matter is not settled, so there's a glimmer of hope for all true-blue SEGA fans out there. When the first whisperings about the portable device were heard, running video games was on its specs list. Then it became known that the Sega Vision would let you play only mere flash games. As it turns out, not even this feature will be supported, but not exactly for a technical reason. It would seem that SEGA's marketing overmind thought that such a thing would place the Sega Vision in direct market conflict with portable consoles, mainly Sony's PSP and Nintendo's DS. Which would be just wrong.

So, for now, it's 90% sure that the Sega Vision will be gameless. Yet again, don't lose hope; it's quite possible that the company will change this cruel state of things in future versions of the Sega Vision.  

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