If you are like me, you will buy old computers and consoles for a whim off ebay. It’s a treasure trove for us retro gamers. One essential (in my eye) purchase is the Sega Saturn, Sega’s earlier launched but ultimately commercially troublesome rival to the Sony Playstation. It was completely blown away by Playstation’s marketing to the mainstream. Which is a shame, as the Saturn had some good games.
One piece of advice to you would be don’t bother buying a backup cartridge, the internal memory does just a good enough job, however – if you are buying it on ebay, you may find that this greets you every time you boot up your machine.
This basically means your battery backup is screwed. So you’ve lost all the unlocked characters on Fighters Megamix, your high score on NiGHTS and your 30 yeard screamer on Sega Worldwide Soccer. Don’t worry though, as – surprisingly – the battery backup is really easy to replace.
All you need is a standard watch battery, but not just any watch battery, you need a CR2032 3V battery like this off Amazon
. Don’t get one off ebay, as they turn the price up immensely, marketing it as a “Sega Saturn Replacement Battery”.
Unplug your Saturn and turn it so that the controller ports are facing away from you. On the back, you should see a little flap on the right hand side, this is easily taken out, where you will see this.
By placing your fingernail under the battery, and with not much pressure, you can lift out the battery no problem. Dispose of safely.
Finally, slide the replacement battery in grooved side down, replace the cover and switch on the Saturn.
Simple, it takes 3 minutes, costs less than a pint and you can once again save your games again.
your trick is really very good..i hv tried it and it really works..thanks a ots for this..
Cheers mate, I was fuming over not being able to save in RPGs!
Cheers for that, save me a shitload of monies!
cheers for this, recently recovered the console from the loft at my mums house and it had this problem
CR2025 3V also works. I just found out when replacing my battery this morning. Now I don’t see that annoying menu for resetting the clock every time I power up. Cheers.
Just a couple notes:
You will need to press *in* on the battery edge first (to slide it away from the hold-down tabs) before lifting up & out (intuitive maybe, but worth mentioning for clarity).
And…
using a 2025 in place of the 2032 is acceptable, but you loose a little run-time (60 mAh) with the substitution.
I do have the memory cartridge back up and I DID NOT lose all my save games from the 90s therefore I would strongly suggest investing in one. The on I have plays japanese games too! Macross is a great game as is Radiant Silver Gun!
just thought id let people know i just bought a pack of 8 from poundland in the uk, handy as these are also the batteries that go in the memory pack things for the dreamcast XD
Thanks a lot this was a great tip to find
Wow… I have had a Sega Saturn since I was a wee lad… To this day, I thought that my saturn had that menu thing and couldn’t keep saves because I didn’t have a save cartridge…
ALL THIS TIME, I JUST NEEDED TO REPLACE A FUCKING 1$ BATTERY!?!?!
…all those wasted hours on Road Rash and Bug!… but oh, the nostalgia this will bring! Thank you, thank you.
i paid $1 for 5 of these battery’s on ebay. i also bought the ACTION REPLAY which is perfect for backups. Its not a good idea not to have a backup. anyways i just bought a like new Saturn model 1 for $30 with a good battery too. SWEET! lxgoffxi@gmail.com
Good advice but I wouldn’t deter people from getting a back-up cartridge. The Action Replay Plus is great for extra back up which gives you a lot of extra memory.. It also has cheats built in my personal favorites… Gives you the extra RAM needed to play certain games and allows you to play imports… All in one reasonably priced cartridge.
This is actually a standard PC CMOS battery. Still had one lying around. Works like a charm!
A great simple replacement, even the Dreamcast replacement is easy enough if you dont mind taking the cases top cover off.
thanks for the tip, just got my saturn out of the box after the move to oregon (5 years ago)!
are we related?