The SEGA Game Gear Micro Is Ridiculously Tiny, And Yours For Fifty Bucks
Published
| Last updated
Featured Image Credit: SEGA
As part of the company's 60th anniversary celebrations, SEGA has announced the Game Gear Micro - a super-small version of its 8-bit handheld console, originally released in 1990 as a rival to Nintendo's Game Boy and Atari's Lynx.
The Game Gear Micro follows 2019's well-received Mega Drive/Genesis Mini (review), which scooped up 42 (mostly) great 16-bit games from SEGA's past and plonked them into a perfectly proportioned, shrunken-down version of the classic console. Unlike the Mega Drive Mini, it doesn't seem like the Game Gear Micro comes with the option of plugging it into a TV - so you're stuck playing its games on a truly tiny 1.15 inch display.
If this all sounds great so far, we regret to inform you that there's a catch. The Game Gear Micro won't release as a single model with a heap of games installed. Rather, on its launch in Japan on October 6, it'll arrive in four different colours, each with four different games. You want all 16 games? You're going to need to buy all four variants.
No doubt this won't bother dedicated collectors - but for those of us who want a better-value dose of gaming nostalgia, it remains to be seen how the Game Gear Micro is packaged as and when (and if) it comes to European and American markets.
If you do buy all four versions of the Game Gear Micro in Japan, SEGA will throw in a Big Window peripheral, to magnify the screen (itself a teeny version of an add-on for the OG Game Gear). The cost of all four? That'll be 27,255 yen - or just around £200/$250.
I find it very unlikely that a four-pack of the Micro would retail at that amount in the West, so if it leaves Japan I'd very much expect it to have all 16 games, and maybe more (or, more likely, popular Western games instead of Japan-only RPGs), in a single unit, priced more like the Mega Drive Mini - which launched at £69.99/$79.99.
The Game Gear Micro can be charged using an USB, and will also run on a pair of AAA batteries - hopefully for longer than the original Game Gear would on six AAs. You were lucky if you got four hours out of that thing, even with fresh Duracells. The full line-up of games across the different Micros is as follows:
Black: Sonic the Hedgehog, Royal Stone, Out Run, Puyo Puyo 2
Red: Revelations: The Demon Slayer, Columns, The GG Shinobi, Megami Tensei Gaiden: Last Bible Special
Yellow: Nazopuyu Arunu no Ru, Shining Force Gaiden: Ensei - Jashin no Kuni he, Shining Force Gaiden: Final Conflict, Shining Force: The Sword of Hajya
Blue: Gunstar Heroes, Sonic Chaos, Baku Baku Animal, Sylvan Tale
More information on the Game Gear Micro, in Japanese, can be found here.
Topics: Sega, Sonic The Hedgehog, Retro Gaming
