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Sega is announcing a ‘new project’ next week, which may be a mini console
A special Japanese livestream will take place on Friday
Sega has announced that it will reveal a “new project” in Japan next week, which may be retro themed.
A tweet on the official Japanese Sega Twitter account states: “Urgent notice! Live broadcast to announce Sega’s new project will be delivered from 20:00 on June 3.”
The news will be streamed in a live presentation on Sega’s Japanese YouTube channel, which begins on June 3 at 8pm Japan time (12pm BST, 7am ET).
Adding that Hiroyuki Miyazaki and Yosuke Okunari will appear as part of the stream, the tweet then asks: “Does that mean?” along with a photo of a chocolate cake shaped like a Mega Drive / Genesis controller.
The presence of Miyazaki – and Okunari in particular – suggests the announcement may be a new mini console, because the two both announced the Mega Drive Mini at a Japanese Sega festival in 2019.
Okunari is a producer at Sega, and for the past 15 years has worked almost exclusively on retro re-releases for the company, including the Sega Ages 2500 series on PS2, the Sega 3D Classics series on 3DS and the Sega Ages series on Nintendo Switch.
He was also the contents lead for the Sega Mega Drive Mini console, which was released in 2019.
Miyazaki, meanwhile, is an executive manager at Sega and has worked on a wider range of products, but most recently was the project lead on the Mega Drive Mini.
Further reading
Sega’s next retro console could be Dreamcast mini, says producer
Game Gear Micro released in Japan this month, but its producer says the next release must be global
Okunari suggested in October 2020 that Sega’s next mini console could be based on the Sega Dreamcast.
In an interview with Famitsu magazine following the Japan-only release of the Game Gear Mini, Okunari said he wanted the next project to deliver hardware that had stronger global potential.
“I think for the next one, we may go with a concept close to the Mega Drive Mini,” he said. “If I have to say some names, it could be an SG-1000 Mini or a Dreamcast Mini.”
