What is the "Pico" and why should anyone care?

I suppose I'll start with this obvious question. Obviously Wikipedia and Sega Retro got articles on this already, so I'll just make a summary - the "Pico" refers to the Sega-developed, 16-bit edutainment console targeted at preschoolers, and is also generally used when referring to it's hardware variants as well. (More on that later.) The internal hardware of the system is pretty similar to the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive console - enough so that, much like the Game Gear/Master System relationship, Pico games can be emulated to a certain degree with Mega Drive emulation as the basis.

There are a few notable things about the Pico at the time of it's release;
1) It was the first console which purposely marketed itself as an educational tool for preschoolers. Although there were "Edutainment" genre games on PC and consoles up to this point, this was the first time it was a dedicated platform.
2) The input method for the system is one of the most unique input methods to this date. Explaining it would take a while, but basically, it's like a touch tablet where you can also touch "Storybook" Pages. Speaking of which...
3) The "Storybook" cartridge format is also very unique to the Pico. The large cartridges had "pages" that could be turned like a book, and these pages would affect the gameplay of a game. A TV ad might help you if you can't grasp this already.


(thanks DaftPunkYoshialt)

Now, of course, you're probably saying "Jeez, that sounds like something dumb to make a blog about. I doubt there's any games that are actually fun on this thing." Well, to answer that question, I'll just say that the Pico has a few... interesting novelty titles. This video, which I uploaded 3 years back (When I was originally planning this blog out) may show you an example...

... Right, that's a (legitimate) Nintendo license on a Sega console. You've seen everything, you can shoot yourself now.

*cough**cough*

Of course, if this was just a one-off thing this wouldn't be too much to talk about, but don't worry, I've upped a good amount of videos now and got plenty of content to go on later. :)
And while I'm upping stuff, there's work being done on discovering more about the Pico (and it's successor, the Beena, which may be covered pending whatever may happen). So hopefully this will get updates at around the same pace as Satellablog does! Or more! Or only a little less! Either way. Catch you all later! ... in Pokeballs.