Japanese gaming publication Famitsu has chatted with Sega’s classic hardware producer Yosuke Okunari about the newly announced Mega Drive Mini 2. Famitsu asked Mr. Okunari about whether they had thought about the prospect of bringing out a Sega Saturn Mini or Sega Dreamcast Mini. Okunari said that they have, but he admitted that with the semiconductor shortages due to COVID-19 coupled with the internal costs of developing Saturn Mini or Dreamcast Mini they ultimately decided against it. The Mega Drive Mini 2 is due out in Japan this October and comes with 50 games preinstalled including some from the Sega Mega CD. A western release date for the Sega Mega Drive Mini 2 has not been announced.
“Some of you may say ‘this isn’t a Sega Saturn Mini’ or ‘I wanted a Dreamcast mini’, it’s not that we didn’t think about that direction. The development of new boards has been stagnant due to the Coronavirus and, of course, it would be a fairly expensive product in terms of cost.”
Do a kickstarter campaign for a Dream cast. They’d get funding within days
Yup, I don’t doubt that :)
I’m inclined to agree but would have to see the numbers before I committed to the opinion.
I had ordered an AVS from RetroUSB last year. The AVS is an FPGA based NES. Anywho, like most of the small retro games tech developers, they manufacture things in small batches, generally funded with preorders. So I had my preorder in and a couple months go by and there’s an update. His manufacturer never actually ordered one of the primary chips for the device, and now the amount of time it would take to get one is……. nearly two full calender years. He offered full refunds to anyone interested of course, but he was also forced to raise the price on all future orders a full $10 due to increased shipping costs.
Point is, the chip shortage is no small thing. Moreover, retail prices are based on a percentage of cost of production. So for every dollar or so increased in production cost, you increase the final price by about 2. So if it cost the Dreamcast mini $75 to make and it cost $150 to the customer, that’s tight for a limited emulator box, but there’d be interest. If it cost $150 to make and it would retail for 300? Well…… I’m sure you can imagine community reactions to that pricing.
Now I’m not saying those are the numbers, but what the numbers actually are will vary a lot based on the particular part needed for the particular design. Shoot, they could be figuring, hey, in 2 years the prices will have gone back down and we can make these things for $20. Why bother pushing it through right now?
Someone said Kickstarter that’s the best idea, I don’t know about the Saturn but I definitely put money on a Dreamcast and they can port the Saturn games to the Dreamcast Mini problem solved
Dreamcast Mini would be one of the best things ever. I wasn’t around to experience it in its glory, but if even for a moment it came back like this with all the good games it has, gaming would feel really fun again.
No one was around, the thing came out on 9/9/99 and was discontinued on 3/31/01 just 18 months later, so it never even existed!
I was around. I bought it when it came out with Sonic Adventure and Soul Caliber. It is still one of my all time favorite systems, and one of the most underrated.
It was also the first console that I played online (Phantasy Star Online)
I still have mine with 2 official agetec arcade sticks and 62 games. Believe it or not, when it was discpntinued games sold for dirt cheap on e-bay, Some will cost you an arm and a leg now.
Poopie head!
Since the “Mini” treatment is unlikely to happen Sega should have just continued the Sega Ages line (or just make a new collection series) featuring the Arcade models, the Saturn or the Dreamcast games. I would buy those in a heartbeat.
What is this “Saturn” thing? Is that another commercial failure from Sega? I have to look it up. It’s another system that didn’t even exist at all coming out in 1995 and discontinued in 1998, not even 4 years! The Wii U was a commercial flop, and it got almost 4.5 years, and is considered short-lived, so this thing didn’t even exist at all then!
POOPIE HEAD!
What’s a “Dreamcast”? Is that some machine that came out under Sega, but only lasted about 5 years, because it was a commercial failure like the Wii U? I looked it up, and wow, it didn’t even last 18 months? It never existed, because Wii U was a short-lived console, so Dreamcast didn’t even exist!