{"id":328269,"date":"2022-06-06T10:00:33","date_gmt":"2022-06-06T15:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jbsgame.com\/?p=328269"},"modified":"2022-06-06T05:36:42","modified_gmt":"2022-06-06T10:36:42","slug":"sega-saturn-mini-dreamcast-mini-mega-drive-mini-2-famitsu-interview-retro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jbsgame.com\/sega-saturn-mini-dreamcast-mini-mega-drive-mini-2-famitsu-interview-retro\/","title":{"rendered":"Sega says don’t hold your breath for a Saturn or Dreamcast Mini"},"content":{"rendered":"
At the weekend, Sega Japan announced that it was releasing a new piece of portable hardware in the form of the Sega Mega Drive Mini II, a pint-sized edition of the 1993 console that will come pre-loaded with 50 Sega Mega Drive and Mega CD classics. Given that the Mega Drive Mini already exists<\/a>, some fans might be puzzled as to why Sega has not instead focused on releasing a scaled-down model of its 1994 console, Sega Saturn, or its 1998 big brother, the Sega Dreamcast.<\/p> Speaking with Famitsu<\/a>, Sega hardware producer Yosuke Okunari offered up the unfortunate news that a Sega Saturn Mini or a Sega Dreamcast Mini are both very unlikely to ever see the light of day. Okunari understands that the audience is there for such consoles, but states that a combination of expensive components, further hampered by the COVID-19 pandemic’s effect on manufacturing costs, has simply made the project uneconomical from both a production and finance perspective.<\/p> Okunari also suggested that the components used by Sega’s Mini consoles are not quite up-to-spec in regards to running Sega Saturn titles \u2014 a console that is notoriously difficult to authentically emulate. Okunari jokes that the process of producing a Sega Saturn Mini in 2022 might see it launch with a price rivaling that of modern-day consoles. So it seems, for now at the very least, the Mega CD is as far as we are going in regards to the Sega Mini range.<\/p> The Sega Mega Drive Mini 2 launches in Japan October 27, priced at \u00a59,980 (roughly $75 USD). Sega is yet to confirm whether this edition will also be released in the west. For more details on the console, check out @gosokkyu’s Twitter thread<\/a> translating\/paraphrasing the Famitsu interview.<\/p>