Sega today unveiled Mega Drive Mini, a miniature version of its Mega Drive console, at company’s annual Fes event.
According to the company, the tentatively-named Mega Drive Mini will be released in Japan later this year. It is yet unclear that when the console will go on sale in the U.S, Europe and Asia.
The company said the console would bring up a number of classic games but did not break out much details about it.
Polygon believes that the new console could be launched on October 29, 2018, on the occasion of original Mega Drive’s 30th anniversary.
Sega had discontinued the production of the original console in 1997 after selling out 30 million units worldwide.
The so-called Mega Drive Mini will be released in Japan later this year
This isn’t the first time that Sega will be announcing a variant of the original console. In September last year, the company had released Sega Genesis Flashback HD, which failed to make an impact in the market.
AtGames announced on Facebook that the so-called Mega Drive Mini would be powered by its hardware.
The hardware company, in reply to a question in this post, said the new console would not feature Sonic 3 because it “has license issues with the music.”
When asked how the new console differs from Flashback unit, ATGames said: “Different emulation, additional features, etc.”
Some users expressed fear that Mega Drive Mini may have the same issues which three previous consoles AtGames had worked on for a Genesis release experienced, including Flashback.
In reply to such a comment, AtGames said:
“All the negativity is perfectly understandable. You’ll either see the improvement this year in the HD hardware or you won’t. Talking about it doesn’t do much at this point. There is a switch to a proven emulator and other features that have been requested for years making it into the 2018 HD models. There will be similar changes on the Atari HD side. Exciting stuff, but no reason to believe any of it until it’s actually in the wild.”
If you can’t wait until winter to play some Sega classics, don’t worry because the company has announced to add at least 15 classic games to the Nintendo Switch this summer including Thunder Force 4, Phantasy Star, and Sonic the Hedgehog.