More news about the upcoming Astro City Mini plug and play was revealed at SEGA’s Tokyo Game Show digital events. A variant with pink buttons, based off the player two controls of an Astro City cabinet, was revealed. Additionally, there will be Astro City Mini controllers and arcade sticks with the pink variant, as well as an accessory to place over the marquee making it appear to be a New Astro City arcade machine (New Astro City was a 1994 revision to the 1993 Astro City with exposed speakers jutting out from above the monitor).
The limited variant will be sold on the SEGA Toys website on October 14th in two versions: the Astro City Mini with two controllers for 18,630 yen and the Astro City Mini with arcade stick for 24,600 yen. Both will come with the New Astro City Mini add on accessory.
There appears to be no plans for a deluxe package for the pink variant, which features a kit to make it appear like a tiny arcade machine complete with coin slot and stool, and other accessories. So if you want EVERYTHING, be prepared to give SEGA all your money.
Additionally, SEGA allowed various Japanese gaming news sites to go hands on with the Astro City Mini. Highlights include:
- You can replace the buttons yourself on the arcade stick. (Famitsu)
- Coins can be saved as a piggy bank. (Famitsu)
- The development team considered making the coin slot functional, with 100 yen producing a new in-game credit. (4Gamer.net)
- The arcade stick is based on the Virtua Stick High Grade which SEGA released to the PS3. (Famitsu)
- The previewer was unable to get the arcade stick to work on the Mega Drive Mini. (@Gosokkyu)
- The previewer did not notice any input delay. (IGN Japan)
- The built-in speaker sounded firm. (Famitsu)
- The unit outputs at 720p. (4Gamer.net)
- The screen is about 1.3 times larger than the Neo Geo Mini. (IGN Japan)
- A bonus game, called “Dot Rikun”, is included. Apparently, it is a very simple one player game similar to the game Head On and was included with the original SEGA arcade cabinets for legal reasons as it was not possible to sell the chassis alone under law at the time. (4Gamer.net)
- “Dot Rikun” was also said to be a test for owners of the original arcade cabinets, and players can change the colors of the screen to test the color output. (Inside-Games.jp)
- Virtua Fighter looked and played very well. (Famitsu)
- Space Harrier has a normal and reverse icon in the corner for players to change the orientation of the stick by pressing the C button.
- Vertical games were less comfortable on the built in screen, TV output was preferred. (Famitsu)
- Two player games can be held in a variety of controller combinations. (Famitsu)
- Playing on the machine itself is more like a toy while with the arcade stick felt more like a true gaming experience. (Famitsu)
- There are no plans at the moment for an overseas version. (IGN Japan)
Brilliant, looking forward to this, although Sega said it will get an overseas release but so far only to other Eurasian countries at the moment but there is also more to yet be announced if it comes further west to other countries.
In other news Sega has said that initially the Mega Drive mini was just meant to be a one off project but based on the reception of the Mega Drive mini, they decided to dedicate another hardware R&D team specifically dedicated to domestic hardware development as well (along with arcade hardware which already existed) and are now looking to release even more hardware and mini varients of other consoles in future for next year possibly.
Great post. But “Dot Rikun” is actually called “Dottori-kun” (although I understand why someone would romanize it that way in English). The reasoning for its inclusion is kinda brilliant, as it was a very simple game which game with many arcade boards because, as you already said, it wasn’t possible to sell boards without including a game.
What ever happened to the marquee speaker add on? That looks dope. Kinda blows my mind how cooler an already cool product could be.