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The Sega boss says it’s difficult to turn the Sega Saturn into a micro console

The Sega boss says it’s difficult to turn the Sega Saturn into a micro console

Gage Cockse July 16, 2023 2 min read

Sega president and COO Yukio Sugino said that the Sega Saturn proves difficult to adapt to a miniature console.

Talking to Famitsu (Translated by VGC) Sega president said: “The Sega Saturn is surprisingly high performance, so the difficulty of miniaturization is also high.

“I don’t think it’s a matter of saying ‘let’s make another one because it sells so well,’ it just seems like it’s going to be a little longer.

“I’d like to think about it when we’re in a situation where we can develop it openly with the people who’ve always loved the Sega Saturn and the Dreamcast.”

Performance-wise, the Sega Saturn was released in the same console generation as the Sony PlayStation and Nintendo 64.

While Sony has released a classic PlayStation console, Nintendo has yet to continue the popularized trend of releasing mini consoles. If it’s supposed to, the Nintendo 64 should be next.

In June last year, Sega’s classic hardware producer, Yosuke Okunari, said he had considered producing scaled-down versions of the classic consoles, but claimed that the cost of producing parts for either the Dreamcast or Saturn would be prohibitively expensive.

On announcing the company’s Mega Drive Mini 2 console, Okunari said: “Some of you might say ‘This isn’t a Sega Saturn Mini’ or ‘I wanted a Dreamcast mini’, it’s not that we haven’t thought in that direction.”

Sega polled some Mega Drive Mini 2 customers in Japan to tell them which mini system they’d like to see next in October 2022.

The Dreamcast was Sega’s last home console, marking the end of the Japanese company’s nearly 20-year stint in the console market.

However, despite its short life, the console has spawned several critically acclaimed gaming franchises including Shenmue, Soul Calibur, Phantasy Star Online, Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio, and Rez.

Sega has released two mini consoles so far. The first Mega Drive Mini was released in 2019 and included 42 games, with libraries varying by region. New ports included Darius and Tetris, which had not been released before.