Sega is still celebrating its 60th anniversary, and we’re wondering if it’s perhaps gone to the company’s head. A few weeks ago, we got to experience what is likely the smallest handheld game system ever produced in the Game Gear Micro, which is a set of four colored game gears each with its own selection of four pre-loaded games.
Eight months before that, Sega produced the Genesis Mini, a mini-console that came with 42 pre-loaded games and even had a setting to recreate CRT scan lines in your LCD TV.
And now they’ve come out with the Astro City Mini, a recreation of the Astro City arcade cabinet, which is Sega’s most popular arcade machine. First revealed by Japanese gaming site Game Watch, the original article has since been taken down as they might’ve let the cat out of the bag a little early. However, it wasn’t soon enough to prevent it from being picked up by multiple other outlets, so expect an official announcement from Sega soon.
So what do you get with the Astro City Mini? First, you get a tiny arcade box with a microswitch stick, 6 buttons, and a select/start button to take over for the missing coin slots. It’s powered by a micro USB cable, and although it doesn’t have an internal battery, you can easily get one of those backup batteries for your phone and power the Astro City Mini using that for a truly portable arcade experience.
The only problem is there’s only room enough for one set of controls. Luckily, the Astro City Mini has a pair of USB ports on the back to allow for multiplayer controls of up to three people. There’s also an HDMI port in case you have a TV you’d prefer to display your games on.
Speaking of games, the Astro City Mini will come with 36 different games, including Golden Axe, Dark Edge, Alien Syndrome, Altered Beast, and Virtua Fighter, according to Sega Driven. We don’t have the full list yet, hopefully we’ll get that soon.
The Astro City Mini will be priced at 12,800 yen, or about $120. There’s no word on whether or not it’ll see a Western release, but here’s hoping.
Source: Game Watch, Sega Driven