Marcel Winatschek

Before Nintendo Claimed Me

Before I converted to the Nintendo religion, I was a Sega child. The Mega Drive was everything for a stretch of years—Sonic the Hedgehog, Ecco the Dolphin, Golden Axe, and then the RPGs that people always forget Sega was genuinely excellent at: Phantasy Star, Landstalker, Shining Force. That machine could hold its own against the Super Nintendo in ways the console wars discourse rarely gave it credit for.

Sega announced a Mega Drive Mini for the console’s 30th anniversary—the obvious answer to Nintendo’s SNES Classic Mini, and no less welcome for being obvious. A miniaturized, pre-loaded nostalgia box for people who still have specific feelings about 16-bit sprite work. Which is to say: me.

No release date at the announcement, but the holiday window was the obvious guess. Whatever the final game selection ended up being, there’s something right about these little machines existing. Not emulation buried in a subscription, not a ROM in a menu—an object, a thing that sits on a shelf and looks like the thing you remember. That detail matters more than it probably should.