SEGA’s Forgotten Game Gear TV Tuner Lets You Tune In to Nostalgia

In 1991, SEGA released the Game Gear, a handheld console that dared to challenge Nintendo’s monochrome Game Boy with a color backlit screen. But SEGA didn’t stop at games. They pushed the boundaries of what a portable device could do and introduced an accessory that turned the Game Gear into a pocket TV. The TV Tuner, a cartridge like add-on, promised to let you watch broadcast TV anywhere.

SEGA designed the TV Tuner to slot into the Game Gear’s cartridge port and turn the handheld into a miniature TV set. About the size of a standard Game Gear cartridge, it had a sleek black plastic shell with a small antenna jack and a 3.5mm A/V input for connecting external devices like VCRs or camcorders. A tuning dial on the side let you flip between VHF and UHF channels and a telescoping antenna would pull in analog signals. In Japan SEGA released a standard version for ¥12,800 and a later “Auto Tuner” model (HGG-3015) with automatic channel scanning. In the US it was $49.99 and in the UK £74.99. Different regions got tailored versions to match local TV standards—NTSC for Japan and the US, PAL for Europe, with specific variants for the UK’s PAL-I and Germany’s PAL systems. SECAM regions like France were left out entirely.

Functionally, the TV Tuner delivered on its promise, but not without caveats. Plug it in, extend the antenna and you could get local broadcasts on the Game Gear’s 3.2 inch 160×144 pixel screen. The tuner also had a mono 3.5mm A/V input so you could pipe in video from other sources and turn the Game Gear into a portable monitor.

The Game Gear was already a battery hog, chewing through six AA batteries in just a few hours of gaming. Adding the TV Tuner, which tapped into the system’s 34V rail, drained power even faster. Users recalled batteries lasting as little as 15-20 minutes when using the tuner.

Plus, the TV Tuner’s relevance faded with the switch from analog to digital broadcasting in the late 2000s. In the U.S., analog signals were phased out by 2009, rendering the tuner obsolete for live TV. However, the A/V input kept it alive for enthusiasts. SEGA wasn’t alone—NEC’s TurboExpress had a similar TurboVision tuner, and later, the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS got their own unofficial TV adapters.