So it wasn’t just the Japanese publisher’s attitude that two Mega Drive (and Genesis in North America) mini consoles would be enough for fans…

In the video below, YouTuber Adam Koralik discusses the mini Dreamcast and the equally dwarfed SEGA Saturn. Four or five years ago, it was fashionable for console companies to launch mini consoles: Nintendo was successful with the NES and SNES Mini, SEGA attracted attention with the two Mega Drive/Genesis Mini, and Sony launched a flop with the PlayStation Classic. However, the two 16-bit minis were not the only thing SEGA had in mind.

Koralik talked about working with SEGA on the re-release of Shenmue (the 2018 PC/console ports come to mind), and he also discussed with the Japanese publisher the re-release of several digital Dreamcast games. Finally, the question of whether the Dreamcast should be turned into a mini-console to eventually be used to release the revamped games from SEGA’s last console was also raised. SEGA told him it would have been too expensive to create such a device. According to the Japanese company, it would have cost around $300 because it would have used real hardware. Still, the technology was not cheap enough to make it happen, and they don’t think anyone would have been happy with the price because the public would have expected around $100…

SEGA was also reportedly considering a small Dreamcast with PC ports, but the public did not receive these well. According to Koralik, it would either have been a cheap, affordable product with poor quality or a device that would have been high quality but priced too far apart from Nintendo or Sony.

One can understand SEGA’s position: in the early nineties, SNK’s Neo Geo was far superior in quality to the SNES and Mega Drive, but the console, which offered perfect arcade conversions, was much more expensive than its rivals…

Source: WCCFTech