I don't know how many people here still actively play/maintain their older consoles, but since this is the only gaming forum for which I actually have an account I thought I'd ask my questions here. If anyone else has similar questions about some old console or another, feel free to utilize this thread as well if you like.
This is specific to the Sega Genesis. What I've found lately as I attempted to play my old games for the first time in years is that very few actually work, and none consistently. For some, there's only a black screen. For others, it more regularly manages to display the "licenses by sega" screen, but the boot up ends there and it returns to a black screen. Finally, a few can be played, but it often involves many attempts and putting the cartridge at slightly strange angles.
The difficulty with this had me believing my console was more to blame than the games, but I've found those games guaranteed to work that I've bought off of eBay work far, far more often than mine. At this point I think it's likely a combination of both. I should say that my efforts thus far have been vigorous and repeated cutip (apparently neither that nor q-tip is a word?) cleanings using water and rubbing alcohol, and the copper contacts do look pretty darn clean. I'll say that they're more clean looking than my Atari VCS games, and those mostly work just fine.
In the past this method was all that was required for cartridges on my N64/Atari VCS/NES, though on the NES the blinking screen made it clear that I needed a new 72 pin connector, after which it worked fine. Could my Genesis need something similar? I believe the reason it becomes necessary for the NES has to do with it locking games out when it can't verify they're licensed, don't know if Sega did something similar.
So yeah, that's my situation at the moment. Any sega Genesis players out there have any experience with this?
