Since this comment was made by none other than the president of SEGA, perhaps it’s no coincidence that they haven’t tried to “miniaturize” more modern consoles lately…

In 2019, SEGA stepped into the trend with the Mega Drive Mini (called the Genesis Mini in North America, as the 16-bit console was renamed there), which had a different game line-up by region but still gave access to forty-two games, resulting in a more extensive catalog than its rivals (Nintendo’s NES and SNES Classic, and Sony’s lousy PlayStation Classic). After the 16-bit console, you’d have been right to think that SEGA would be bringing together a mini console from a more modern platform…

Instead, another SEGA Mega Drive/Genesis Mini arrived, which launched last October. So SEGA thought no more, although it could only expand from 32X and SEGA/Mega CD to the latter, and did so with the Mega Drive Mini 2. We can’t blame the company because it made a mistake in the 90s when the two Mega Drive add-ons got more attention, and then the genuinely new console, the SEGA Saturn, was already facing a rival (maybe we don’t need to introduce the Sony PlayStation…) that it couldn’t compete with in the long run, and the price of the PS1 in North America played a role (its announcement at E3 is still legendary today!)

Earlier today, we quoted from an interview with SEGA president and COO Yukio Sugino by Famitsu, and again, VGC translated what he said. Still, this time, it’s not about what they’re planning to do with Sonic, but what’s going on with SEGA’s Saturn miniaturization: “The Sega Saturn is a surprisingly high performance, so the difficulty of miniaturization is also great. I don’t think it’s a case of saying, ‘Let’s make another one because it sells well’; it looks like it will be a little longer. I’d like to think about it when we’re in a situation where we can openly develop it with people who have always loved the Sega Saturn and Dreamcast.”

So it’s still a long shot. And it’s been two decades…

Source: VGC