SHIRO! Sets Up Sega Lounge at PRGE

Once again, the SHIRO! crew has descended upon the Portland Retro Gaming Expo, but this time, they’re not just representing the Saturn — they’re showing the love for all of Sega.

They’re setting up the Sega Lounge, 1,450 square feet of playable games and educational placards that’ll be open to attendees 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

It’s akin to the Saturn Lounge that SHIRO! ran at the expo two years ago, but this time, it’s filled with a variety of Sega’s hardware and the games that play on them.

SHIRO! isn’t just running the Sega Lounge, though. They’ll also host a panel at 4 p.m. Saturday about Sega’s innovations and the ways in which many of them were ahead of their time.

Titled “SEGA: A Company (Too Far) Ahead of Its Time,” the guys will take a look at how Sega pushed the limits of console gaming with 3-D glasses, the Mega Modem, Lock-On Technology, the Sega Channel, Saturn NetLink, the PlanetWeb browser, online MMORPGs and more.

SETTING UP

Dave, Pat and Ben began setting up Thursday night.

To transform the room into a Sega Lounge, the guys hung a variety of posters highlighting Sega’s marketing campaigns from the ’90s.

One of the items on display is the Super Prologue 21, a karaoke machine that’s essentially a heavily modified Saturn.

There are Virtua Fighter 2 and Shinobi arcade cabinets there, too.

Pat had to set up his beloved Sakura cardboard standee. He might be getting a little too handsy with it, though.

John Hancock looked pretty excited to run into Dave.

IF YOU GO

The Sega Lounge will be in Meeting Room D133-134 at the southwest corner of the Oregon Convention Center. It’s in the area where all of the expo’s panels will be. It’ll be open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

SHIRO!’s Sega panel beginning 4 p.m. Saturday will be just across the hall in Auditorium 3, aka Meeting Room D137-140.

The Portland Retro Gaming Expo began in 2006. Last year, more than 27,000 people attended the three-day convention dedicated to current video games, retrogaming, arcade games, pinball, board games and collectible card games.