The live streaming of the past few hours has allowed SEGA to present, in view of the debut on the market next autumn, the new compact console for retrogaming, represented by the Mega Drive mini 2, developed internally with many games as a dowry.
Listen to this article
In recent days, Hiroyuki Miyazaki, executive manager of SEGA in charge of the Mega Drive Mini mini-console (launched in 2019 to curb the success of Nintendo’s NES mini and SNES mini, with 40 pre-installed games) and Yosuke Okunari, who takes care of the projects of SEGA retrogaming (for which he worked for 15 years), had posted a curious image, of a controller in chocolate, alluding to a new project they were working on for the Shinagawa giant, with a clear reference to a new mini-console for retrogaming.
Contrary to what Okunari himself hypothesized in 2020, who dreamed of recalling the first console of his company, the SG-1000, or the last (unfortunate) Dreamcast, SEGA, while officially presenting a new retrogaming project, has substantiated the new mini-console in a SEGA Mega Drive mini 2: the latter reproduces the features not of the first version of the SEGA Mega Drive, but those of the second emanation, which inherited it in ’92, with a new sound card that not everyone convinced, and the removal of both the audio jack for headphones and the RF output.
The new console, equipped with a 6-button controller for fighting games, will have the beauty of 50 pre-installed games to emulate among which, at least as regards Japan, there are also titles for the Mega CD add-on. , marketed between ’91 and ’96 to allow Mega Drive owners to play titles on optical CDs, but never subject to much success, given the poor performance of full motion video and the fact that many games were ported by those of the Mega Drive with the addition of “CD Audio” tracks. In this case, returning to the present, the manufacturer will include for example the video games Silpheed, Shining Force, Sonic CD, Mansion of Hidden Souls, Potful Mail. Virtua Racing.
However, there will also be games related to the actual Mega Drive console, including Bonanza Bros, Shining in the Darkness, Thunder Force IV, Magical Taruruuto-kun, and Fantasy Zone: the latter title is at the center of a small anecdote . Specifically, Fantasy Zone has never been released for the Mega Drive, unlike the sequel, Super Fantasy Zone, from which in fact the material for the emulation of the title brought as a dowry to the Mega Drive Mini 2 is taken.
Drawing on the material published by SEGA in Japanese on its institutional website, we learn that, in view of the debut of the Mega Drive Mini 2 next autumn, for 10,000 yen (about 71 euros), there will also be more. Specifically, the “Genesis / Mega Drive Tower Mini 2” add-on will be marketed which, at a price of 4,500 yen (32 euros), will offer a SEGA / Mega CD 2 Mini, two mini-cartridges (one for Sonic the Hedgehog CD) , one spacer for Genesis / Mega Drive Mini mounting, and one for Super 32X Mini mounting. For 2,500 yen (about 18 euros), however, you will get the additional controls offered through Fighting Pad 6B.