When we first shared the news about SEGA’s Astro City Mini, it was revealed that the plug and play would include 36 arcade classics. At the time, 10 were revealed, and today we learned of an additional 13 games! The newly announced titles include:
- Cotton
- Shinobi
- Shadow Dancer
- E-SWAT
- Crack Down
- Gain Ground
- Puyo Puyo
- Columns
- Bonanza Bros.
- Puzzle & Action: Ichidant-R
- Wonder Boy
- Wonder Boy in Monster Land
- Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair
The previously announced games include:
- Alien Syndrome
- Alien Storm
- Golden Axe
- Golden Axe: The Revenge of Death Adder
- Columns II
- Dark Edge
- Puzzle & Action: Tant-R
- Virtua Fighter
- Fantasy Zone
- Altered Beast
Also revealed is a kit of plastic accessories that turns the unit into a mini sit down arcade machine complete with base, stool (not for actually sitting on) and a place for the arcade game marquee. At the moment, it is unknown how to obtain these additional items, but Amazon has had a limited version of the machine at a slightly higher price. Alternatively, this could be a pre-order incentive like we have seen with the Game Gear Micro’s magnifying glass accessory, or it could be sold on its own like the Mega Drive Mini’s Tower of Power.
UPDATE: Game Watch has a news story about the Astro City Mini Game Center Style Kit which they say releases in December for 3,980 yen (about $38). So the kit is being sold separately.
Additional news is said to hit on Famitsu’s stream on September 3rd. In the meantime, you can reserve the machine from a number of online shops with Amazon Japan being your safest bet as it ships internationally. At the moment there is no plan for a western release of the machine, and in my own opinion I would not hold out for one.
[Thanks to @Gosokkyu]
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I’m starting to get the feeling that this will be Japan only. That’s a good selection of games so far, but nothing terribly surprising or exciting. The last 10 games better be mind blowing, in my opinion.
Cool, but the games aren’t too surprising, for a Sega Astro console you’d think we’d be seeing more 32-Bit Saturn style games as well, but all so far have been 16-bit rereleases, some of which were just on the MegaDrive/Genesis mini rerelease already, Shadow Dancer and Golden Axe: Revenge of Death Adder are good additions I suppose though as they were never given home console conversions outside of the arcade consoles, they are probably saving the last 13 as the bigger surprises.
Still would love to pick this up but probably unlikely if it’s not international, not sure how to use Japan Amazon yet and depends how many they are making.
I ordered the PC Engine Mini earlier this year. I had to set up a separate account with Amazon Japan, but other than that, you can select English as your language and navigate and place orders easily. The shipping was also surprisingly fast to the US east coast.
To be clear these will all be arcade versions. There are no Genesis versions on this thing. Games like ESWAT and Shadow Dancer were very different from those home versions. The original Cotton never appeared on the Genesis at all. For me personally, the inclusion of Virtua Fighter, Revenge of Death Adder, Dark Edge, Cotton, Shadow Dancer, and ESWAT make it a provocative device. I very much look forward to the final games being announced for a few more gems.
Arcade is better most of the time. 🙂
Ok, now we’re talkin. Cotton games are awesome. Shinobi too! Love ESWAT and Crack Down. Thing is though, these are all 80s babies. :/ We need more 90s 3D stuff too.
Maybe there will be a way to add more titles to it seamlessly like Project Lunar is doing with Mega Drive mini.
– Stack Columns
– Arabians Fight
– Princess Ninja
what about a mini cabinet with a steering wheel and model 2 and 3 racing games?\