YouTuber Adam Koralik’s latest video explained how SEGA did not release the Dreamcast Mini console because it would have had a $300 price tag.
Mini consoles made a huge storm about five years ago when the PlayStation Classic was released. It meant gamers could relive PS1 classics like the original Grand Theft Auto and Twisted Metal games. SEGA followed the hype with their revitalization projects, releasing the SEGA Genesis Mini and Game Gear Micro in the past three or four years. So that begged the question: what about the Dreamcast Mini? In a recent video, YouTuber Adam Koralik revealed how SEGA told him that a “mini format” would be too expensive to produce for their target market.
In the video, Koralik mentioned a conversation he had with a SEGA exec a few years ago on the development of the Dreamcast Mini console. They said the technology would be too expensive to make it and would cost around $300. To compare this, the PlayStation Classic had an MSRP of $99 USD; the SEGA Genesis Mini was $79.99 USD; and the four Game Gear Micro consoles were about $50 USD a piece (sold exclusively in Japan).
Koralik noted that they told him that ‘people would be expecting a hundred. Everybody would be mad.’ He summed up SEGA’s thinking that too many customers would be left out of the market for a $300 MSRP. He continued that despite the halt in the development of the Dreamcast Mini, SEGA considered having a cheaper alternative where a Dreamcast Mini included the PC versions of various Dreamcast games.
Sonic Adventures and Crazy Taxi were some of several Dreamcast games ported to PC throughout the years. Although, Koralik stated that Dreamcast fans were not thrilled when SEGA released a Dreamcast collection on Xbox 360 that had all the PC versions ported. While this was just a rumour, Koralik’s reasoning did make a lot of sense. He concluded that the “mini console” trend was dying down anyways.
The issues of the aforementioned “mini consoles” that were made played a lot on nostalgia as its core factor of being made, along with affordable costs for customers. Even though the PlayStation Classic stirred up a lot of fans to revisit some PS1 classics, the hype eventually died out and negative reception grew. Whether the Dreamcast Mini is still just a dream has yet to be determined officially. But a gamer can always continue to imagine it.
