Sega had just last week announced the Mega Drive Mini 2, as well as some interesting accessories like the Mega CD. Though you may be wondering, why make the same mini console twice, in a sense, rather than something else like the Dreamcast or Sega Saturn. The company thought of it too, but says that high costs prevent it from going in that direction.
In an interview with Famitsu, Yosuke Okunari, the classic hardware producer at Sega, explains that the costs of producing parts of either a Dreamcast or Saturn mini would be too expensive. Of course, making things worse was the COVID-19 pandemic, which delayed the production of new boards for the new mini consoles.
As announced during the launch, the Sega Mega Drive Mini 2 will feature up to 50 games, though at the time only 10 of them were confirmed. These would consist of games that came in the original cassette format, as well as those that came in CD form, necessitating the use of the original Mega CD add-on.
The mini console and its accompanying mini Mega CD mock accessory are both slated for release on 27 October in Japan. For now, there’s no word on a release in other markets.
Back in the day, the Sega Mega Drive 2 ran mostly the same games as the original. But it was made smaller with some sacrifices like a headphone jack and volume control so that it would be cheaper to produce more of. It’s pretty much the same story as the original PlayStation and the much smaller PS One.
Which makes the fact that Sega would go on to make the Mega Drive Mini 2 interesting. In fact, Sony Interactive Entertainment could have done the same. Having released the PlayStation Classic, the PS One Classic wouldn’t be off the table.
