Thread by @gosokkyu

Sega's classic hardware producer Yosuke Okunari, M2 president Naoki Horii & Game Gear's original external designer Tomoki Kaji talk Game Gear Micro 4gamer.net/games/510/G051…🇯🇵 again, there's been a ton of these interviews recently, so I'll just pick out what seems fresh

https://twitter.com/4GamerNews/status/1313373464800096257

how'd COVID affect the production of Game Gear Micro? much of the manufacturing was handled in Taiwan, where they've been on top of COVID from a very early stage, so it wasn't too bad, but problems that might otherwise have been solved by visiting sites directly proved tough

why Game Gear Micro and not __ Mini? their ethos for the Mini is accurate to-scale reproductions of classic hardware; the GG Micro was planned by the merch dept with a much shorter schedule & deliberately wasn't aiming for that same degree of faithful reproduction, hence Micro

they almost called it "Micro Game Gear" in order to further dissociate from the Mini line, but swapped it around in the end

what was hard about shrinking the Game Gear to Micro size? in short, it's tough to accurately judge & adjust the playability of something so small without actually making & playing it; certain aspects like embossing don't look right when accurately reduced, even if it's "correct"

the toughest part was including the headphone jack, which Okunari insisted upon for the sake of hearing Game Gear music in stereo: the Micro is so tiny that finding a way to fit the jack without putting it at an angle or unwieldy position, or touching the internals, wasn't easy

why doesn't Game Gear Micro do TV out? they feel GG's too low-res for TV out; OG GG couldn't do it & with very few exceptions, Sega's never reissued GG games for TV play

they also cite the lack of room for a mini-HDMI out & the necessity for ppl to buy another cable as factors

Horii jokes about wanting a 1seg compatible Game Gear Micro TV Tuner, to which Okunari replies it'd up the price by tens of thousands of yen

they did consider a non-functional micro-sized replica TV Tuner, but the Micro doesn't have a cart slot so there'd be nowhere to put it

on the different colour options, the interviewer points out how the red Game Gear is associated with promos: a Coca Cola tie-in, a Magic Knight Rayearth-themed bundle, etc

Okunari says he really wanted to add Rayearth but they didn't have time to negotiate the licensing deal

on the Big Window Micro: they wanted a bonus item for the bundle but the production expense was coming out of their advertising budget, so it had to be cheap; Okunari proposed a papercraft Window, like so, but when Kaji saw it he insisted on producing a more substantial version

on what was harder, producing the original Game Gear hardware or producing the Micro, Kaji says the original hardware was way harder since you had to deal with slotting components into the PCB, working with the solder bath, etc

on M2's white Game Gear Micro, they went over this already but I'll reiterate: Sega suggested M2 could release an Aleste-themed Micro as a bonus item for their upcoming new Aleste game but the game's not ready yet, so M2 put together the Aleste Collection as a substitute

even so, the add-on price of the Game Gear Micro+Big Window Micro is pretty steep, so they decided to make a brand-new Aleste game for Game Gear, GG Aleste 3, and throw that in to sweeten the deal

icymi, GG Aleste 3 is authentic Game Gear software that works on real hardware

M2 has their hands full with Aleste Branch so GG Aleste 3 is being made by a team of vets led by former colleague Manabu Namiki—when they brought it up with Namiki, they intended to only make a 2-minute caravan game but Namiki was like "nuh uh, seven stages, full game, let's go"

(for the unaware, Manabu Namiki's a prolific STG composer who's worked for NMK, Raizing, Cave, Basiscape & M2, and he's the director & planner on GG Aleste 3)

GG Aleste 3's character designs/illustrations are being handled by Amagami artist Kisai Takayama

https://twitter.com/gosokkyu/status/1309773748807950337

on why M2 specifically went with the white Game Gear Micro: Okunari suggested pink, as that was the brand colour of original Aleste devs Compile, but Horii insisted on white; thanks to that decision, all the main Game Gear colours released in Japan are represented in Micro form

Sega didn't have the Game Gear's specific tone of white on file, so Okunari went to ask Kaji for info and right then and there, Kaji whipped a pristine white Game Gear out of his desk drawer

(the white GG came bundled with a TV Tuner and was released in very limited quantities)

on their memories of Game Gear: Horii couldn't afford to buy every system, so getting a free GG & games from Sega was a plus

he was a Mark III maniac importing overseas Master System games, so Gunstar Heroes GG was made with the aim of reflecting the craftsmanship of those games

Okunari enjoyed games like Last Bible & Royal Stone, which he sadly didn't get to reissue on 3DS, but he especially liked the Shining Force games—unlike Force II MD, the first two Force GG games were directly connected to OG Force, & Final Conflict was a bona fide GG exclusive

Kaji remembers all the hard work he put in on the original Game Gear, and all the travelling he had to do to contractors in Japan & abroad when they were told to up production; he has fond memories of using GG+TV Tuner in the car with the big clunky PowerBack rechargeable battery

...and that's that