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One of the highlights of the week was the announcement of the Mega Drive Mini 2 – Sega’s next miniature console, loaded with 50 games from the Mega Drive and Mega CD libraries. It launches this October in Japan and will include games such as Sonic CD, Slipstream and Virtua Racing.
As exciting as the news was, it didn’t stop fans from asking for miniature versions of other Sega consoles, such as Saturn and Dreamcast. So why did Sega decide to release Mega Drive 2 instead of something else? In an interview with Famitsu, Sega classic hardware maker Yosuke Okunari explained how the pandemic shaped the outcome.
Here is what he had to say (courtesy of Twitter user @gosokkyu):
he is sure that ppl will be like “how about Saturn / Dreamcast Mini?” [and] not like them [Sega] did not study the idea – the internal elements of MD Mini can not adequately cope with Saturn games, and the development and production of new chipsets during the pandemic is a difficult and expensive process
… so even if they were advanced with the Saturn Mini anyway, it could have been extremely expensive – he jokes that he might want to launch a mini that costs as much as an authentic modern console
And then the Mega Drive Mini 2 appeared as an “extension” of the original – making it much more manageable during a pandemic, in terms of schedule and production. It is worth noting that there will still be a “much lower production cycle” of this device – with the initial focus on Japan’s warehousing. Okunari is aware of the demand abroad, but for now remains focused on Japan, where the team knows the market.
Although the price of the second Mega Drive Mini system is higher – due to improved chipset, more memory for Mega CD games and increased component costs, Okunari is confident that a larger library of games will justify the price.
Okunari also mentioned that the team was considering another Game Gear Micro, but the increased cost of the semiconductors led to the cost of a second hand-held micronutrient “1.5x the production cost” of the original micro model. And the team couldn’t risk selling at the same price and didn’t want to increase the RRP.
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Yosuke Okunari has already mentioned how Sega thought about creating other mini consoles, but for now the focus is on Mega Drive Mini 2:
Would you like to see Sega launch miniature devices based on Dreamcast and Saturn one day? Would you be willing to pay more? Give us your own thoughts below.
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