Sega's Mega Drive Mini Has Been Delayed

It's proving to be a surprisingly big day for retro consoles. Sony kicked things off by announcing the PlayStation Classic, a mini console modeled after the very first PlayStation with 20 pre-loaded games, and now Sega has delivered an update on its Mega Drive Mini. Unfortunately, it isn't a particularly good update.

Sega has announced via Twitter that it's chosen to push the Mega Drive Mini back to 2019. Announced back in April at Sega Festival 2018, the Mega Drive Mini and a North American counterpart based on the Genesis were scheduled to launch sometime this year. Judging from the tweets (which were roughly translated by Twitter), it sounds like Sega will take the console back to the drawing board.

Originally, Sega was creating the Mega Drive Mini with the help of AtGames, which has released a number of Genesis and Mega Drive-themed retro consoles throughout the years. In this pair of tweets, Sega said that it has now started working with a Japanese developer that has "proven" itself in the software development space. That developer wasn't revealed in this announcement, so it remains a mystery for now.

On top of that, Sega also said that the Mega Drive Mini and Genesis Mini will have a simultaneous worldwide launch at some point next year. Initially, the company only confirmed the Mega Drive Mini for Japan, so to hear that it's getting a simultaneous worldwide release is definitely exciting.

There's still a lot we don't know about the Mega Drive Mini; notably absent from Sega's marketing has been a full list of games. We can probably expect the usual suspects – games like Sonic the Hedgehog, Altered Beast, Phantasy Star, and Golden Axe – to make an appearance, but beyond that, the games it'll ship with are anyone's guess. Hopefully we learn more sooner rather than later, so stay tuned.