6Player

6Player
Made for: Sega Saturn
Manufacturer: Sega
Release Date RRP Code JP 1995-01 ¥3,800 (3,914)3,800e HSS-0103 US 1995 $49.9949.99 MK-80102 EU 1995-09 MK-80303

The 6Player, called the Multi Terminal 6 (マルチターミナル６) in Japan, is an accessory for the Sega Saturn that adds five controller ports to the system, thus allowing up to six people to play together simultaneously in compatible games.

Hardware

The 6 Player Adaptor is an evolution of the Sega Mega Drive's Team Player accessory, though has six ports rather than four. It is designed to be plugged into controller port 1 or controller port 2 of the Sega Saturn system; if one is used, up to seven players can be supported, and if two adapters are used, a maxium of twelve can play simultaneously.

Unlike the Team Player, the 6 Player Adaptor was available near launch and Sega mandated that software support it, even if the game itself did not support more than two players. Sega did not want games to start if a controller was not detected in the console's port 1; if a 6 Player Adaptor is inserted into console port 1, the rule follows through to its port 1. Any other controller combination should function correctly, though Sega's preference was that for 3-7 player games, the adaptor was used in port 2.

While it is physically possible to connect two or more 6 Player Adaptors together (theoretically creating an infinite number of players), the hardware does not support any form of "daisy chaining". There should be no need to insert controllers sequentially; player numbers are counted from the "lowest" (left) port to the "highest" (right) one, but it is possible to have "gaps" (e.g. if ports 1, 2 and 4 are occupied but 3 is empty, these should still be registered as players 1, 2 and 3, respectively). Sega recommended that if the device was removed or inserted during play, port numbers be remembered.

Many Saturn games support more than two players, but only a very small handful support the full twelve. Future consoles, such as the Nintendo 64 and Sega Dreamcast would eschew these types of accessories, opting instead instead to include four controller ports on the console itself (which would be the hard limit for simultaneous players).

Compatible games

Extension:DynamicPageList (DPL), version 3.3.3: Warning: No results.

Magazine articles

Main article: 6Player/Magazine articles.

Promotional material

Print advert in Strana Igr (RU) #4: "May/Iyun 1996" (1996-xx-xx)

Gallery

• 

  EU multi-tap

• 

  JP multi-tap

Physical scans

Saturn, JP
Cover

Saturn, US
Cover
Manual

Saturn, EU
Cover

External links

• Sega of Japan catalogue pages: Saturn
• 6Player on MobyGames