There's a significantly large amount of them, and they're needed to play many of the games in the Pico's library. But of course, you probably never heard of them because, well, Japan-only content, as usual.
Let's start with one that's really easy to understand just by looking at it:
The Drive Pico.
Designed to teach little kids some of the essentials years before they take on serious driver's ed, the Drive Pico features the keys, steering wheel, horn, handbrake, gear shift, and lightswitchs of a car control panel. Strangely absent? Foot pedals. I guess lessons on following the speed limit were considered too complex.
The Drive Pico was released and rereleased in a multitude of variants, including the two in the pictures, and an Anpanman-based one.
The Drive Pico retailed as either standalone for 3,000 yen, or bundled with a compatible game for 5,980 yen.
On the technical side of things... here's where it gets interesting.
The Drive Pico appears to work by re-mapping the standard Pico input to the wheel. Now, how would I know this?
Well, I tried emulating some of the "Drive Pico" compatible games that have had their ROMs dumped. Much to my surprise - and unlike some other games that required special accessories - they were playable, although a bit cumbersome to control.
Here's some footage of me playing "Race ni Deyou Yo! Ken-chan to Pepe Boku no Kuruma de Daibouken!"
This was emulated in Kega Fusion, but I'm sure with PicoDrive, you'd get the same result. Or at least I'd hope so, because that'd lead to the mildly funny piece of wit here; "I'm playing a Drive Pico game on PicoDrive!"
*cough cough*
Any particular accessory anyone wants covered next? Feel free to comment.
(NOTE: Thanks to Geocities.jp and coneco.net for the images.)
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