Dengeki Online has released an interview with Sega’s Yosuke Okunari, who talked a bit about trouble with gauging demand for the Mega Drive Mini/Genesis Mini, as well as how M2 got involved.

Here are the highlights:

Just in case, are there any other hidden things that haven’t been revealed?

Hiroyuki Miyazaki, producer: “Nope, we’ve revealed everything!”

Within Japan, the Mega Drive Mini is quite popular, but what about overseas?

Miyazaki: “We’ve only seen the reactions of those at E3, but the fans there had a welcoming reaction to the Genesis Mini (Mega Drive Mini). However, E3 is a special event where most who come are media, buyers, or hardcore fans. How the end users will see the Genesis Mini when it lines store shelves is something we can’t be sure about yet.”

Yosuke Okunari, producer: “On the other hand, we were only half-certain about the Mega Drive Mini. We were reasonably confident that readers of Dengeki would be happy, but at first we were like, “How many people remember the Mega Drive?” When preorders rolled in, we were relieved.”

On the Mega Drive Tower Mini:

Okunari: “This was something we joked about later on, saying that “it would be funny to release something like this.””

Miyazaki: “Originally, the price was higher, but we felt it wouldn’t sell and so lowered the price, and when many preorders came in we were like, “Oh crap!””

On M2’s involvement:

Okunari: “Before the announcement, it was top secret, so we didn’t tell M2. However, from the beginning of the project, I knew it had to be M2 to do it.”

Naoki Horii, M2 president: “It was around that timing, that Okunari-san contacted me behind closed doors regarding the project. If I remember, it was around Sega Fes 2018.”

Okunari: “Around Sega Fes it wouldn’t be overstating it to say the project had just begun. It was around the beginning of the year that I contacted Horii-san hinting at it, and at the Sega Fes announcement we contacted them saying that we wanted them to do it.”

The Sega Genesis Mini & Mega Drive Mini release in North America and Japan on September 19, 2019. The European release was recently delayed to October 4, 2019.