Sega's Game Gear Micro Was Originally Going To Be Even More Stingy

Somehow I don't feel all that much better knowing that it could have been even worse than it already is.

If it was going to be even more stingy shouldn't we 'bee' thankful? (gets coat) (leaves)

so each color is different games? ..... meh

For this price I think I’ll buy an actual game gear. In fact I don’t even have to do that as I got quite a few games and a game gear too

I was thinking they are cool I'm going to buy all of them !!
$50 each ? Might buy one for novelty factor.

I'm not entirely convinced they're going to be on sale over here at all

Should have done a Dreamcast Mini. Sega's best consoles in terms of the quality of their titles were the Mega Drive and Dreamcast. Looks like they put the guys who marketed the Sega Saturn on this project.

How did Sega get it so right with the Mega Drive mini, but so wrong with this Game Gear mini. If it had a decent number of games I would definitely buy one.

Game & Watch: "It's not tears, it's liquid pride... totally different thing..."

Why would I buy this?

@JohnnyC now that’s something I would buy

I'll wait until they're in Poundland

After all the licenced out handhelds the have done for both the Master System and Mega Drive over the years which all had between 20 and 30 games and an SD card slot for a similar price to these they really have no excuse for only 4 games on each. The only appealing thing is the colours and the novelty of them. Although I have a feeling they won't get released outside of Japan as the Game Gear wasn't exactly that successful anywhere else and these all seem to have Japanese exclusive text heavy games.

Utter bollo##s

Game Gear. Not worth it then, and not worth it now. To be this consistently bad takes ages.

It’s not like Sega has a history of mucking up hardware, right?

Oh, and nobody tell Sega, but...you can get a 2DS and play more than four Game Gear games on a much more comfortable handheld for a similar price.

SMT "forerunner" on a micro handheld? I think it is worth €50! I love all form of handhelds!

FOUR GAMES?! And here I thought each would have the entire SEGA owned GG library at minimum. Ugh. Major pass.

look cheap and nasty

Yeah, definitely will be waiting for a steep sale on these

I honestly expected a fully fledged Game gear 2. The dedicated handheld market is wide open at the moment, something priced £100-£130 with a nice 4" 720 screen that did 720 would Steam roll Switch lite.
Sega got no fight left in it.
Will have a look at the Fog gaming arcade stuff with an open mind. I assume it simply replaces memory cards with your own cloud account, so you log into the arcade machine and it saves your high scores/progress to the cloud. Fairly sure that has been around years though so maybe it is something new.

If they can be easily hacked like the mini mega drive, and also like the mega drive, have enough storage to add lots of additional games, and it runs sonic pinball, Robocop vs. Terminator, puzzle bobble and streets of rage 2, I might just buy this. A lot of ifs there.

Come on guys. They are perfectly fine as novelty items. I'm over the disappointment now (especially after finding out the streaming service was the big news.)

I have no doubt that these will be modded soon. You'll be able to buy one w/something like: Every Game Gear title, every NES title, and every GBA title for $119.00 shipped on eBay. Trust me. You'll see.

Can you imagine a collector paying 50 for each one for a total of 3 games, $150 total?
I'm glad, at least, that they went with 4 games in it

When you thought that the Mini NES and Mini SNES were scams, when you thought that the Mini PS1 was an even bigger scam that couldn't fool anyone, comes SEGA and surpasses them.

All 16 games in one device? No, let's sell 4 devices with 4 games each.

Let's be honest, this is pure Sega. They always find a way to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

I actually think these look really pretty cool - and at face value, four games and a mini console isn’t that bad of a price if you compare it to the price of something like the Mario LEGO set. Toys are way more expensive than you remember! This could even be a good starter handheld for kids since you can’t upsell on the device and it’s not that expensive to replace.

My only issue is that they look too small to actually enjoy playing if you’re, you know, over the age of 5. Which is funny, because when these things came out originally, they were kind of huge.

Missed opportunity. Classic Sega.

With screen, battery, and speakers built in, I don't think it is fair to compare these systems to the NES or SNES minis at all.

At ¥4,980 a pop - roughly $50 / €50 - a mini console with just four games on it sounds pretty stingy, especially when you compare that to Nintendo's NES Classic Edition which cost $60 and included 30 games as standard.

Another example of Nintendolife's legendary editorial bias. What does the NES mini have to do with the Game Gear micro? Absolutely nothing. If they chose to compare this to the Sega mini, it would be an apt comparison, since Sega has proven they can do these mini concoles well (even better than Nintendo).

@RandomNerds It isn't fair, but fanboys gotta fanboy.

@RupeeClock
Les Gold would be proud.

@RandomNerds @BulkSlash The Sega mini Megadrive / Genesis proves you wrong.

Not what anyone wanted.

This thing is just way too small. Should have been the size of a GBA micro at the most, not a tomagotchi or Dreamcast VMU.

Ideally, I think everyone would have like a game gear the size of a standard GBA, that takes actual cartridges. I'm sure they could have come up with something at $200 price point, which is what these 4 will run you, and fans would have been happy.

This is more disappointing than the first Sonic movie trailer.

Even the most addicted retro collectors will ignore this stupid console. It has no use other than taking up space on a shelf, and collectors' shelves are already full of stuff.

Should have just been a Game Gear mini (so maybe say 50% the size of the original) that came pre-loaded with around 5O of the best Master System and Game Gear games (since it could technically play both) for the same price and also in the various colours for a bit of consumer choice. Now that would have been pretty cool. This, however, is a bit of a stocking filler and little else.

@RebeccaEdv Forerunner isn't quite right as the original GB Last Bible was developed in parallel to SMT, and the GG version came later. The LB games in general were an attempt to make the Megami Tensei series (as in the original Famicom games) friendly to a wider age range. The expanded GBC version was released in English as Revelations: The Demon Slayer.

Last Bible Special, the dungeon crawler, is very grueling and basically needs to have hacks applied to become reasonably playable.

@FargusPelagius

Exactly. This would have been the perfect time for Sega to try and get back into the handheld market. Nintendo basically cannibalized thier market into the home console market, and sony abandoned it a long time ago.

A game gear slim or game gear 2 would have been a hit with the dedicated handheld crowd. Something the size of standard GBA that takes OG game gear cartridges would have been big.

Saw this late last night and thought it was a joke honestly. Can't see the appeal of these things at all at the price they're charging

Who asked for this product?

Personally, I had high hopes for a Dreamcast mini.

As a longtime Sega fangirl, i say It's so cute! But unless it has an hdmi output i may have to pass.

@GammaPhonic @ReikoMortis If you remember back, they didnt really get it right. It took fan backlash to fix it. They were originally going to partner with AtGames to manufacture the Genesis Mini.

I'm intrigued but I don't know how I could actually play it? I have big hands and so-so eyesight. I'm not sure who the target group is for this product but people with big hands especially will likely struggle.

I loved the original Game Gear. Back in the early 90s, having a fatass portable color backlit Sega gaming console made you a king at recess. I found the screen to be better than playing the games emulated on anything else. And six AA batteries was nothing since we were still rocking boom boxes with even more and heavier batteries.

But this... this thing is a joke

@RupeeClock and you don’t even get any chicken McNuggets...😔

All I can do is laugh at these. I want one for the novelty factor, but as has been said many times over they look too small to be functional. Plus 4 games a piece is a joke. They should have 10 games each, minimum.

Honestly, they should increase the size 1.5x and have 20+ games and charge $75 it that's what it takes. The alternative is a novelty toy, which is cute, kind of cool, but wholly impractical as a way to enjoy Game Gear games in 2020.

Ugh...1 game per color would have truly been dumb, at least at the $50 price point. $20 and I MIGHT have been ok with it.

Oh why even bother, if these had 20 games included (like the SNES mini) and were a decent size I would have picked one up.... A missed opportunity in it's current state unfortunately...
I never had a Game Gear but remember playing one round a friends and enjoying it... Obviously it lost out to the Gameboy in the handheld wars but it still had a good collection of games, 20 of the best would have made this worthwhile..

@Ambassador_Kong I’m confused I’m not sure if you were agreeing with me or disagreeing. Anyway, all I’m saying is I like Sega, but it’s frustrating how so much of their catalog is just sitting in the archives. As a company that’s not probably ever going to release another consul why not get everything out there? Heck I would probably pay for a subscription service if it included all of their consoles.

@Zenszulu Yeah when the Atgames Game Gear/Master system handhelds were better you know you messed up somewhere
one of the few systems they got the emulation right

@RandomNerds I was just saying that the SEGA Genesis mini is probably the best mini console that has been released, so that proves Sega can do something good every once in awhile. But I think we can both agree that Sega is sitting on a goldmine of software that they refuse to re-release. I would love to see a Sega CD, Sega Saturn, Sega Mastersystem, and Sega Dreamcast collection. Unfortunately, they seem stuck on the Genesis / Megadrive catalog.

@ClassSonicSatAm they are probably the only things Atgames produced that have some value since they are cheap and are easy to stick any game roms on. Since Sega dropped them for making underwhelming products only to show of one of their own is ironic.

I had a Game Gear when I was a child, this will be a hard pass for me. To be honest, I wanted the Game Gear over the Gameboy because of the color screen but that's one of my biggest regrets of my childhood. The Game Gear just wasn't that great of a system and IMO, didn't have the strongest library of games. On top of all this, this retro system seems to be the most lacking out of all the systems released so far.

@Ambassador_Kong Yes, we do agree, I was being a bit hyperbolic admittedly. I would pay a large sum of money for an official Sega Saturn mini with a big chunk of the catalog.

"A cloud gaming service for arcades"... Well, gamers have failed if true. Gamepass should have never been supported on its anti-consumer properties alone, nevermind the fact that it's a rip off. Now here we might have yet another anti-consumer subscription service to add onto the multitude of others. I suppose the only difference here though is it won't feature the same games as 4 other services do simultaneously, so even the smartest gamer (sarcasm) doesn't have to throw $20+ at one game they won't play across multiple services every month.

If you're a Gamepass supporter, you're destroying this hobby for real gamers. Stop pretending to be a gamer and go elsewhere.

@Anguspuss just the way I like my women

@ReikoMortis classic SEGA. Always has been a company that for every fantastic console release, they had a baffling money pit release just round the corner.

...Why do I support these morons again?

@GoblinKing86 how the hell is Game Pass anti-consumer??

Wow! Talk about a missed opportunity!

Seriously if they carry on like this I can unfortunately see Sega leaving the hardware race, being snatched up by Sammy Corporation in 2004, then, ultimately just languishing in digital purgatory like an empty husk of the fantastic company they once were.

WHAT!?... Oh!

Seriously though, who's actually asked for this? I can't imagine even the most hardcore Sega fans (myself included) not being interested one iota in this product.

I mean what lollipops at the Sega/Sammy HQ have sat down and went... "Hmmm what do our fans want? How do we celebrate our 60th anniversary of a company(s)? How about a Saturn or Dreamcast Mini? Even better! How about a Mini console shaped like one of our various arcade boards? You know, something like a Model2, a NAOMI2, a Triforce board, or even a ST-V board? On those we could pack them out with all of our greatest arcade hits of yesteryear! You know.... games like, The Virtua Fighter series, the Outrun series, the Shinobi series, the Daytona series, the Sega Rally series (frankly, just the original's worth the asking price alone!) Scud Race, Outrigger, FZero GX, Afterburner, Operation Thunderbolt, Virtua Racing, Golden Axe, ESWAT ..... Orrrrrrrrrr we can save ourselves the hassle and just bang out a Mini Game Gear with only four games on it, then all go and get extremely drunk at a karaoke bar, all in a desperate attempt to cop off with women dressed in Sailor Moon outfits....

All those in favour of releasing a Mini Game Gear with just four games on it and getting drunk in an underground dark and dank Karaoke bar, all in a futile attempt to cop off with women adorning Sailor Moon outfits"?

unanimous and rapid hand raising for drunken karaoke and potential cos play women love]

If Sega would have gone down the Mini Saturn, Dreamcast or even the arcade board emulation system route.... I'd now happily be ordering all Three! Oh well.

Criminal waste of anticipation!

Here's to their 70th though! Maybe we'll get a Mini Master Sytem with half of an Alex Kid game built in.

I genuinely hope this isn't the 'exclusive' Sega news that most of us have been anticipating for the last week and a half! If it is then talk about an anticlimax.

To be this disappointed truly takes AGES.

At that size, I would only be willy to pay $15. It is just too small to actually play.

@dsparil I didn't know. And I didn't know Last Bible existed for the GB. Must track this down!
I discovered SMT due to the remake on 3DS when searching for games similar to Etrian Odyssey and google around a bit and found the connection to both Last Bible and Persona. Fascinating series!

Haing only 4 games per device is comically bad. The GG Micro will bomb hard.

Bless their hearts! They try to be relevant, but they just are not. Every good idea they have gets lost in the implementation. I would be out on this one no matter how many games. I'm just too old to try to play on a screen that small, and years of gaming have cramped my hands enough to where there is no way that could be comfortable.

I don’t have to be thankful, because I’m still not buying this.

They weren't kidding when they decided to call it "micro" but for $50 i think is a bit too small for that price... maybe if it was a little bigger I'd consider it.

This ain’t the Sega of Suzuki and Kalinsky days, this is modern Sega. Not as bad as modern Atari.......but getting there

Just wait for the hackers to find a way to add more games, then buy one.

At that size they'd still be unplayable even if you got 1000 games for $1

This went from a probably a purchase if it was easy to get my hands on to a maybe a purchase if they drop in price drops 80%.

@Ambassador_Kong It's true the Megadrive Mini was very good, although it did come with Street Fighter II and only a three button controller in some territories. That's classic Sega right there! 😜

I agree with what you've said though, it really is about time we got a Saturn Mini or Dreamcast Mini!

Was the original going to eat AA batteries even faster than the original did?! Was it finally going to stop the Energizer Bunny once and for all?

This goes to show that Sega doesn't know how to make good decision, 1 game per unit then 3 games per unit, and finally 4 per unit, all bad decisions and all which would had been good had these thing go for $10 each but no ya had to put a $50 price for each one. Might as well make 40 games per unit, that would had been much better. The Game Gear had like over 350 games throughout its library, 60% of which are made by Sega themselves and are unlicensed, why didn't they take that route?

I was going to be seriously disappointed if this was that big scoop, I mean I already figured the reporter was grand standing, but still this would have been detrimental to my sense of intrigue.

This is very bad, waste of plastic. Why don't just release it as a collection for switch?

Yeah, waste of time and resources. Spoiler alert: Those games, all of them... They're free on the net. Don't tell anyone I told you.

Love the Game Gear. I'm also really big on 90s handhelds and 90s Sega in general.

But this is also a hard pass for me. If this doesn't appeal to me, I don't know who it will appeal to.

I paid $49.99 for my Famicom GB Micro. I just might pay $49.99 for the Sonic one.

@Jayofmaya I suspect these are made for people who like collecting novelty gizmos and NOT for people actually looking to play old games. These things are so tiny, it would be miserable to play anything on them. While I'm not one of them, I could see people buying these just because they want them in their collections. Probably the same people that buy old games "sealed in box" to put on a shelf and not play.

@JohnnyC the Saturn has an amazing library of games. A Saturn-Mini would have been so much better than this.

@techaspike Many things would have been. I see the sense in the Game Gear as after the Mega Drive it was one of Sega's more popular machines, though you don't often see people reminiscing about their favourite Game Gear games. This was just badly done though. Re the Saturn, I'm in the minority in that I'm fairly ignorant of its classic titles. The mid-90s for me and most people I knew were dominated by PC, N64 and PS1 in terms of gaming. I don't think I knew anyone who owned a Saturn, and can't think of any games on it that I feel I missed out on by choosing an N64 instead.

@JohnnyC I think you're actually in the majority for having not experienced the Saturn haha. So in that sense, I suppose what you said about Saturn's marketing is very accurate. But in terms of the actual games, there's a lot of great titles.

I think part of what did the Saturn in was it's refusal to jump full force into the 3D hype of the mid-90s. While that caused it to flounder at the time for not following trends, in the long term I think it made a lot of their games stand the test of time more than many PS1 and N64 titles did. Compare 2D games like X-Men vs Street Fighter on the Saturn and the PS1 and the differences are astoundingly obvious.

Call it a lack of innovation I suppose, but lots of Saturn games feel like the apex of what the previous generation could have built to, while a lot of PS1/N64 titles feel like clumsy early 3D experiments

Add to that the fact that a lack of nostalgia (since no one bought it) led to barely any of the games getting re-released on later consoles and it makes the Saturn a worthwhile thing to check out. If only the games weren't so expensive nowadays

Sorry, my giant hands won’t let me buy a game gear micro.

@RebeccaEdv The titles interested me enough that I considered this device seriously. Then I learned the price, and screen size. How would you play classic dungeon crawlers, with all their dialogue and menu commands, on a screen of that size?

Useless product for me. All I want is more Sega ages titles on Nintendo switch, please.

@COVIDberry true. Had it been like €25-30 it would have been a no-brainer. And as for the screen size I guess that can be a challenge. But I really really like portables and this thing is adorable. If there's an western release they probably will change the games anyway...

@techaspike I dunno, there's quite a few n64 games I still love playing on the Wii U virtual console. They may not look as dazzling as they used to, but they still play really well. I'm afraid I shall continue to live in ignorance of the Saturn. Can't play everything!

Damn you Sega/Sammy Corporation and your tiny digital nuggets of 4 game disappointment!

Please redeem yourselves by releasing a bundled package containing both the original arcade version of Sega Rally Championship, and its Japanese Saturn version on Switch. That move would literally make me happier than the preverbial swine in excrement!

Bonus points would be further awarded for a graphically updated arcade port as well. Few new tracks, Kenneth Ibrahim narrating again, that sort of thing. Just leave its core gameplay and music fully in tact though as they simply don't need tinkering with! After all they're pretty much the essence of what makes the game still (in my humble eyes at least) one of the greatest, most thrilling, and ultimately, compelling racing experiences ever conceived!

Even today 26 years after its initial arcade release, I STILL find myself having the occasional week long time attack bender on my Jap Saturn version.

While you're at it, a Shinobi bundle and reboot of the franchise wouldn't hurt either. (that includes the awesome chip tune music from Yuzo Koshiro as well!)

"Game over YEAH"! Bubabadissssssh

@JohnnyC

I would sell my soul for a Dreamcast mini.

@Ambassador_Kong

You can play Sonic CD (and Crazy Taxi) on a phone, which I find bizarre.