{"id":622075,"date":"2026-06-05T05:43:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T05:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/622075\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T05:43:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T05:43:11","slug":"rumour-sega-might-be-releasing-a-low-cost-handheld-with-removable-game-carts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/622075\/","title":{"rendered":"Rumour: Sega Might Be Releasing A Low-Cost Handheld With Removable Game Carts"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Rumour:<\/a> Image: Damien McFerran \/ Time Extension<\/p>\n

An employee of a “small specialist electronics manufacturer” has posted on Reddit<\/a> that they suspect Sega might be looking to release a low-cost handheld games console.<\/p>\n

SeraphHS<\/a> reveals that the company they work for received a quotation request from “a company that\u2019s done licensed Sega hardware before,” citing the Genesis \/ Mega Drive Mini<\/a> as an example. “Not Sega directly, but definitely in that orbit \u2013 think Tectoy, AtGames, etc.”<\/p>\n

(AtGames has released Sega handhelds in the past, including the extremely disappointing Mega Drive Ultimate<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

SeraphHS adds that the pitch turned out to be “extremely interesting and seemingly significant” for a device that hits the following beats:<\/p>\n

+ Low-cost handheld gaming device
+ Low-power ARM processor, not x86
+ 5″ OLED panel (same form factor as the Vita), aggressive cost-cutting elsewhere to accommodate this
+ Seemingly pretty limited internal storage
+ Removable game cartridges
+ No mention of 3D acceleration beyond basic UI\/compositing
+ References being designed for \u201cmodern 2D titles\u201d and \u201cpixel art presentation\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Rumour:<\/a>The Japan-only Game Gear Micro was Sega’s last entry in the realm of portable gaming, and was something of a disappointment \u2014 Image: Damien McFerran \/ Time Extension<\/p>\n

The cart design is the “most interesting” element of the whole pitch, as it’s “not the usual high-capacity consumer NAND you’d expect of a modern handheld,” explains SeraphHS. “[It] looks like low-capacity industrial eMMC modules – these are readily available and not caught up in the AI memory price inflation.” This would mean a smaller storage capacity, which SeraphHS speculates could target 2D games.<\/p>\n

“The wording makes it sound less like a retro emulation handheld and more like a dedicated 2D platform with physical media,” SeraphHS continues. “We often see pitches like this that never end up going anywhere, but I would put money on this being from Sega.”<\/p>\n

The concept isn’t a million miles away from what Blaze is doing with its Evercade<\/a> and Super Pocket<\/a> handhelds (and it’s worth noting that Sega is yet to collaborate with Blaze on an Evercade collection). Sega’s last handheld venture was the puzzling Game Gear Micro<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This may well lead nowhere \u2013 or it could be totally made-up. A pinch of salt is almost certainly called for here, but if Sega or one of its hardware partners did produce such a device, would you be interested in picking it up?<\/p>\n

\"Previous<\/a><\/p>\n

Prev<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Damien<\/p>\n

Damien has been writing professionally about tech and video games since 2007 and oversees all of Hookshot Media’s sites from an editorial perspective. He’s also the editor of Time Extension<\/a>, the network’s newest site, which \u2013 paradoxically \u2013 is all about gaming’s past glories.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Image: Damien McFerran \/ Time Extension An employee of a “small specialist electronics manufacturer” has posted on Reddit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":622076,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[59,614,214,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-622075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-gb","tag-rumours","tag-sega","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=622075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622075\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/622076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}