SpritesMind.Net

Well age comes to us all including consoles. since the Megadrive is 20 years old already i'm sure sooner or later parts of it are going to start failing.

Leaky Capacitors and problematic chips are what will be endured.

Are all these replaceable?

I know that capacitors are long lasting but how long? i know its possible to replace these but what about everything else?

Processor is bound to fail eventually. But are they still producing the M68000 i know they produce new modified M68's but dont they use the same instruction set etc.

How long will the MD hold out against time. 20 Years is a long time and sure they have lasted till now.. but what does the future hold?

Only things that could fail in MD are capacitors and chips that become hot... the 7805s are most likely to die since they get rather hot. All other chips get only warm so there should not really be any trouble with them.
Power on/off cycles aren't healthy though, the least you have them, the better.

There are quite a few "clone" type Mega Drive consoles being produced all the time. So hopefully they will also function for over 20 years from now as well, and beyond.... or whatever. I think we will be ok for quite some time.