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Post by blake00 on Dec 31, 2019 9:27:28 GMT
Hey guys, Obviously this place is filled with retro gaming fans of the 8bit & 16bit sega console era however if some of you are Australian, you have a good retro gaming mate who’s an Aussie, or you know a retro gaming influencer with Aus fans then maybe you can help with this preservation attempt! I’ve been working with others to try and digitally preserve copies of a great old Australian video game electronics magazine called MegaZone that covered PC & Amiga (with a particular focus on point & click adventures), Atari, Nintendo and a lots of SEGA stuff (it eventually became SEGA only in its final years). At this point in time 42 of the 56 issues have been found and scanned by various collectors and myself leaving 14 issues still missing, all from the magazines earliest years (pretty much all in the 8bit sega era). Many of the magazines found are missing their posters and some occasionally had supplement mini books that may be missing too. We’re also trying to digitize any MegaZone TV commercials out there on old VHS video cassettes as we have rescued 2 but know there are more (I remember seeing more as a kid). More info about what MegaZone is and how people can help here: blakessanctum.wordpress.com/2019/12/29/sega-megazone-preservation-archive-needs-your-help/ |
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Post by blake00 on Sept 25, 2020 11:18:13 GMT
Small update guys.. finally my efforts have netted a new find. A fellow named Colin contacted me over email and informed me that he has two MegaComp issues (pre-MegaZone Issue 2 and 4) and the first MegaZone along with several more early issues from 1990 (Issue 5 and what we believe is Issue 7 and 9). He's sent me pictures of all the covers however so far he's only scanned one mag for me and I haven't heard from him for a while since sadly  so fingers crossed he does the others eventually. That one mag was MegaComp Issue 2 and sure enough it mentions the name change from MegaCom (Issue 1) which confirms the NLA records. The scan is not of the best quality but beggars can't be choosers so I've added it to The MegaZone Archive !  Another fellow recently posted a comment in one of my other threads about this search claiming that Issue 56 was not really the last one and that a few months later another issue appeared and that a letter he wrote to them was in it. I find that hard to believe as Issue 56 clearly states that it's the last plus I was a subscriber and the only thing I got sent to me from them after Issue 56 was a cheque in the mail refunding me the rest of my subscription lol! On and yet another fellow sent me pictures of some sort of Sega bucket (called Mega Booster Pak) promotion that was associated with MegaZone. I can't see the word MegaZone written on them anywhere so I'm not sure about adding them to the archive at this stage. Maybe they were more of a Sega Club thing? And finally I also saw some more little supplementary 'Mini Megazone' fold out booklets (similar to my one pictured below) on ebay recently. The seller wanted 80 bucks EACH for them though so no one bought them. :/ In the end I just took his pictures from the sale, maybe I'll fashion them into something for the archives.  |
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Post by blake00 on Mar 7, 2021 9:27:11 GMT
Hi guys!  Time for another update as we’ve had some great new developments on the SEGA MegaZone Preservation Archive Project ! Unfortunately Colin is having some problems with his scanner so I still don’t have all the issues he offered however others have come forward and I’ve been able to score some big additions to the The MegaZone Archive ! First I’ve gotta start with the best one. Big thanks to Minuous over at the English Amiga Boards for letting me know plus David & his friends over at DLH’s Commodore Archive for uploading the file and giving me permission to copy, because I HAVE OBTAINED ISSUE 1! Yes really, the first issue from the late 1980s that started it all! And sure enough as suspected issue 1 was called MegaCom without the P on the end (before it was changed to MegaComp and then MegaZone).  I’ve also been contacted by Mick Elliot who had the super rare Issue 4 of MegaComp (the final issue before the name change to MegaZone) and kindly offered to scan it for me. This means we now have every issue before the name change to MegaZone except Issue 3. Fingers crossed we score that one one day too!  Then I got lucky on ebay when I saw someone was selling a massive collection of MegaZones and I noticed 2 of them I didn’t have in my physical collection, Issue 8 (EDIT: original wrote this as Issue 9 but it’s actually 8 ) and Issue 22. So I contacted the seller and negotiated them taking those 2 out and selling separately to me! Issue 22 is already in the online archive however Issue 8 is not! So I’ve scanned it in high quality and added it to the collection! Love that Arnie Total Recall cover!  And finally, as mentioned in my last update I’ve also managed to bag some more super rare MegaZone subscription & game catalogue foldout booklets. They were being sold on ebay or an utterly ridiculous price I was unwilling to pay. The seller had no interest in dropping the price however thankfully they did complete scans of ever page for the sale pictures. This allowed me to download them, rotate them (they were all wonky), and clean them up a bit to make them readable. They’re far from perfect but they’re readable which is the important thing. I’ve labeled them as Issue 5 and 20 supplements however I’m only guessing which issues they came with due to their similar content (Issue 5 the first MegaZone is still missing from the archive but Colin has sent me it’s cover).   There are now only 10 issues missing from the MegaZone preservation collection (issues 3, 5-8, and 11-15)! Well most likely 10 lol as there may be a mythical Issue 57 out there! A fellow on this forum claims the summer issue 56 was not really the last despite the issue saying it was and all subscriptions (including my own) being canceled and refunded. He says a final issue 57 showed up at news agencies however he’s sadly lost his copy. Can anyone else confirm this mystery issue exists? Anyway, big thank you to everyone for their help! Make sure you visit the The MegaZone Archive to see these latest additions. |
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Post by Sinistral on Mar 8, 2021 19:59:09 GMT
I've got to admit mate that I don't even remember MegaZone magazine. Will deffo be sure to check it out now you've done this. Amazing job!
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Post by blake00 on Apr 9, 2021 5:18:52 GMT
I've got to admit mate that I don't even remember MegaZone magazine. Will deffo be sure to check it out now you've done this. Amazing job! Thanks! Yeah you wouldn't have got them in Scotland mate. As I'm pretty sure the magazine didn't have much of an international distribution meaning it probably rarely made it out of Australian borders sadly. |
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Post by blake00 on Jul 30, 2021 7:17:20 GMT
Grr had to go edit my older posts in this thread to change all my links to the archive itself as unfortunately some bloody musician decided to call themselves Megazone and someone's backed up their stuff to archiveorg resulting it their music appearing in my magazine collection. :/ So I've gone in and edited all 56 rescued items in the collection to have a new 'more specific' author/creator name of "Megazone Magazine" which should hopefully stop any future mixups with other people using the word megazone in their stuff! Basically I changed this: archive.org/search.php?query=creator:%22MegaZone%22&sort=titleSorterTo this: archive.org/search.php?query=creator:%22MegaZone+Magazine%22&sort=titleSorterOh and no new exciting magazine finds to report sadly! |
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Post by BobSega on Aug 17, 2021 12:02:31 GMT
Hello, I'm a kiwi and Megazone certainly did have a run of popularity down here. Some of those covers I remember, my friend had that Alien³ issue with "The Bîtch is Back!" and I didn't get the joke until much later. I remember some quite funny readers' letters being published, though they weren't quite as extreme as some of the letters/replies I read in British gaming magazines!
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Post by blake00 on May 2, 2023 11:32:08 GMT
Hello, I'm a kiwi and Megazone certainly did have a run of popularity down here. Some of those covers I remember, my friend had that Alien³ issue with "The Bîtch is Back!" and I didn't get the joke until much later. I remember some quite funny readers' letters being published, though they weren't quite as extreme as some of the letters/replies I read in British gaming magazines! Ha cool, I didn't know MegaZone went out to New Zealand too! I guess that increased my chances of finding issues a little bit more than I thought haha! Well, It’s been a long break since the previous project update as I hadn’t had much luck over the last few years sadly, however I’m happy to announce that things have changed and I’ve finally received a bunch of new donations to the SEGA MegaZone Preservation Archive Project ! Firstly the awesome Colin May who previously donated the rare issue 2 has successfully scanned issues 5 and 6 which were the very first issues after the final name change from MegaComp to the one we all knew and loved, MegaZone! To successfully obtain these rare early issues is such a great achievement. Thank you Colin!   Obtaining these issues has also confirmed that my original assumptions of the October & November 1990 issues being issues 9 & 10 respectively were incorrect as Issue 6 is dated August so there can only be one possible issue 7 between it and the Oct issue I’d said was 9 meaning it must actually be 8, which then means the Nov issue 10 is actually 9 too! The reason I had to originally guess those numbers was because many issues in that period did not say their number and until now I had no issues near Oct/Nov 90 to compare them to and on top of all that the magazine switched between monthly & bi-monthly multiple times during the early 90s making very difficult to predict. Some of my predictions / issue number allocations may still be wrong and only obtaining more lost issues will help reveal the truth! Anyway the good news is Colin has also kindly provided me with the missing 4 pages from issue 8 (formerly 9) so anyone who’s previously obtained this issue (pictured below) will definitely want to re-download it! The next piece of utterly awesome news is something I never thought would happen! Project fan Sean Paul kindly let me know about a passionate TV archiver named FlemishDog (check out their channel to see other awesome content they’ve rescued) who was in possession of not 1 but 2 more MegaZone TV commercials for Issues 26 & 27 and were in the same style with the same cool music as the Issue 25 commercial I’d previously found on my own tapes and added to the collection a while back. I know there’s another one of these out there too as I remember another similar advert in my childhood but with Captain Kirk in it, so I’m guessing it was for Issue 24 as that contained a review of Star Trek 6. With awesome folks like FlemishDog archiving tv adverts maybe one day I’ll see it again!   Well that’s pretty much everything for this update. Colin has actually given me more but I’m holding off on that as well as holding on to some more MegaZone subscription cards I’ve found as I want to save them for a future update where if all goes well another excellent fellow who shares our passion for preserving retro video game mags named Forgotten Worlds (check out his channel to see other awesome content he’s rescued) has kindly offered to scan several more MegaZone magazines not currently in the collection! So fingers crossed the next project update containing all this good stuff won’t be too far away! Sadly I almost managed to obtain yet another missing MegaZone issue I’d never seen before a few days ago dated April 1991 (possibly Issue 14) but was defeated in the ebay auction. I don’t know what’s happened (although I suspect I only have myself to blame by raising awareness for this magazine and making people remember it again) but up until a year or so ago you could buy a MegaZone magazine for 10-20 bucks (AUD), yet now days I seem to be battling with other collectors who are willing to spent 100-150 bucks on a single mag which is just crazy. I’m on a low income so I just can’t justify spending that much on an old video game mag despite how passionate I am about them and my desire to scan them for this preservation project. What’s even more annoying is that I sold 2 mint condition still sealed copies of MegaZone a few years back for around 25 bucks each, so god knows how much I could have got for those now! So anyway if you’re a fellow MegaZone collector who wins an auction for a mag you haven’t seen in this archive, then odds are you’ve beaten me to it! So congratulations, but please, I hope you consider scanning your prize for the preservation project otherwise it could be lost to the world forever. Some consolation though is that the seller took a photo of the cover so I’ve taken a copy of that, so if anyone out there sees a mag looking like this one then please contact me as we need it!  There are now presumably only 7 issues missing from the MegaZone preservation collection (issues 3, 7, 10-11 and 13-15)! Hopefully one day we’ll get these final issues backed up and preserved! Big thank you again to everyone for their help! Make sure you visit the The MegaZone Archive to see these latest additions. |
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Post by Retrobob on May 5, 2023 10:38:46 GMT
Very impressed by your progress and determination, well done.
Have you tried contacting the Video Game History Foundation? They are US based but you never know, they might have been sent some as they have some non-US publications.
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Post by blake00 on Feb 19, 2024 7:46:02 GMT
Very impressed by your progress and determination, well done. Have you tried contacting the Video Game History Foundation? They are US based but you never know, they might have been sent some as they have some non-US publications. Cheers yeah I talked with those guys a couple of years back but had no luck sadly. I keep an eye on them though just in case! |
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so fingers crossed he does the others eventually. That one mag was MegaComp Issue 2 and sure enough it mentions the name change from MegaCom (Issue 1) which confirms the NLA records. The scan is not of the best quality but beggars can't be choosers so I've added it to 
Time for another update as we’ve had some great new developments on the 
