By now I feel that most of these releases are too hastily executed cash-grabs that do a tremendous disservice to the original experience.
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I would buy a mini master system in a heartbeat. It’s my favorite console of all time.
Yeah, like a possible N64 Mini it’d be better if they just didn’t explore the concept. Off the shelf parts and the expectation of cheap hardware will inevitably disappoint us.
I guess with Dreamcast there’s also the issue of storage - would need a bigger NAND chip to store the games, adding to the cost and potentially limiting the game selection to titles with a smaller filesize (see: PS Classic)
Not really, for a Dreamcast Mini I think Sega could get away with using similar parts that were used in the Playstation Classic, as the PS Classic can run Dreamcast games quite well, so an optimized emulator could run them close to perfect, but doing that is the challenging part I guess.
The cost would probably be increased by the controller which is a bit more complicated than the Playstation one, and VMU would most likely be out of the question. Shipping with just one controller would be a letdown too.
Honestly if they could make a nice interface with options like filters, borders and scanlines as Nintendo did on their minis it would be great, but if it’s a bare-bones low-effort thing like the Playstation Classic with a less than great games selection then it will end up being a commercial failure too.
I can see the N64 being in a similar situation, and people will probably pay even 150$ for a mini one since it’s a Nintendo product. Saturn on the other hand is pretty much impossible, there was great progress in the Saturn emulation in the last few years, but emulating it requires a good CPU, definitely won’t work on these cheap low-power ARM CPUs.
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Don’t forget that before Mednafen we still had SSF which doesnt require anything like the CPU overhead to run, yet still has high compatibility. I have no doubt that in house emulation coupled with per game optimisation would make a Saturn mini doable with the current SOC’s.
N64 should be a breeze, the Wii Virtual Console emulator ran on lower specced hardware compared to the average classic console, they would have more than enough additional CPU overhead to both improve the emulation and scale beyond native resolution, it would be more than good enough for the primary audience buying this stuff.
Yeh… feels like we’ve come full circle with these now lol