Every once in a while somebody gets the neat idea of stealing the competition's customers by making attachments to play a competitor's games for their own system. This is such a system. Pioneer designed it from the beginning to be the one and only console you'd ever have to buy. In addition to playing it's own Dragon's Lair type laserdisc games it had optional components to let you play Sega Genesis and NEC Turbografx games, as well as a karaoke unit, and it could also play any laser disc movies you had laying around. While it's a fantastic idea it was probably just not practical for the early 90s.
These things retailed for like 1,200. That kind of price tag might be in the neighborhood for a high end laserdisc player at the time but it was astronomical for a games machine. I mean, would you pay over a grand to get a home video game console? You could buy a Genesis, TG16, and a laser disc player all separately for that amount of dough. Thus nobody with a brain bought it.
The system worked via different modules you got (sold sepreately for about $600 each) to play Genesis or TG16 games. The Sega module (PAC-S1) is compatible with Sega Genesis carts, Sega CD games, as well as Japanese Megadrive carts (very nice) and Pioneer's own Mega LD games. The NEC module (PAC-N1) is compatible with TG16 and PCE hucards, as well as 8 and 12-inch LaserActive LD-ROM2 discs, Turbo DUO CD-ROM2 discs, Super CD discs, and CD+G discs (damn.) Truley a lot of capability going on here. Unique to this console is Digital Optical Out (so it looks great) and CD quality sound. You won't find a Genesis compatible that looks or sounds better. The NEC module came with a 4-in-1 CD with Gates of Thunder, Bonk's Adventure, Bonk's Revenge, and Bomberman, while the Sega module had a corresponding 4-in-1 CD with Shinobi, Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, and Columns.
Any more interesting stuff? Umm.... the 3D goggles are compatible with your Sega Master System. Woah. Why the hell did it cost so much? Well, in addition to playing games it was also a high end Laserdisc player mind you. This is back in the pre-dvd days and stuff like this was expensive.
Eventually the 16 bit consoles went out of style, and so did this machine. Today boxed units still sell for upwards of $2,000, which is totally ridiculous in my opinion. Maybe I'd save up for one if I had every other game system on the face of the earth and just needed this one to complete my collection.
