I have an unreasonable desire for this even though I'll probably play it twice then just put it on display. That game list is strong though.

okay Sega take my USD converted into yen

Reminds me of the color LCD Game and Watches I used to have as a kid. Nintendo's Popeye, DK Jr. Automatic buy.

Maybe if it got the sounds right

Two questions:

1: Can it connect to a TV?

2: EU release?

1: YES! AND You can hook up your Arcade stick to it. Win /win

2: NEVER! Get on EBay mother fucker! This is SEGA , Remember? This 60th anniversary is looking a whole lot better. I must say.

This and the list of games in it, has caught my interest.

Where did you get this information? I haven't seen anything saying regular USB arcade sticks will work. It would be nice, but has there been confirmation?

The Game Watch link in this article is broken--the one in the original Verge article works:

https://game.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/interview/1263877.html

Interesting bits via Google Translate:

The stick: "The lever shaft was also made of metal, and I was particular about making it as close as possible to the real structure." ... "There are 4 switches inside, so that you can input in all 8 directions including not only the top, bottom, left and right but also the name. Also, the ball part at the tip is the same screw type as the real one, so it can be removed by turning it by hand."

The cabinet: "it uses the same resin as Astrocity." "Just like the real thing, the speaker is placed on the top and supports stereo output, and the part where the fluorescent light was contained has the LED turned on properly."

Controllers: "The Astrocity Mini Control Pad will be released at the same time as the main unit. It's the first pad in Japan to connect to Astrocity." "I think fans are probably the most familiar with MegaDrive pads, so I'll try to make reliable original parts and make good original ones. For games such as 'Virtua Fighter', we want to make it easy to enter commands accurately and full of SEGA love, so please look forward to this as well, including the design."

A mock-up of the pad (not final):



I was kind of blank on this until it got to the VF part of the video (1:23) and then I was like oh no, I think I have to get this. Well, depending on how good the emulation is, I guess. But man. An actual good VF1 port would be amazing.

There's potentially a limitation in terms of what game settings are used. The Game Watch interviewer asks if the user can change DIP switch settings for the games--to set difficulty, and so forth--and the designer answers "I also wanted to make that happen, but considering that it was offered as a product, there was a difficult side. Therefore, I made it so that Astrocity Mini can only be played with certain settings."

If theres a pad its simple as pie to solder the PCB to my Stick and its a go. The mere fact that it has USB ports opens it up for brooks to make a converter for it.

That's a good point, they did make one for the NEOGEO Mini. = o

Official sega.jp site:

https://sega.jp/astrocitymini/
https://sega.jp/astrocitymini/soft/virtua-fighter.html

segatoys.co.jp site:
https://www.segatoys.co.jp/astrocitymini

There's a small VF screen of a fight between Wolf and Sarah on the VF page, I don't think that one was shown before. And the little view of the cabinet at the top of the site's main page has an embedded, soundless 60fps YouTube video as a screen, which starts with a clip of VF:



The 3D has very smooth anti-aliasing; of course, it isn't clear what hardware this is running on. Maybe one particularly promising sign, though: although the video is technically 60fps, the VF part is actually only running at 30fps--which is the speed at which the internet tells me the original VF hardware runs the game.

There's a page linked from a prominent button at the top of the sega.jp site with Japanese pre-order links--Amazon JP and so forth: https://sega.jp/astrocitymini/shoppingguide.html

Play-Asia appears to have sold out their pre-orders already: https://www.play-asia.com/astro-city-mini/13/70dlhb

Honestly, it's looking great.

Where is the best place to pre-order this and get all the extra accessories?

Lol. Preorders went up like 8 freaking weeks ago. Good luck with that. I'll sell you mine on ebay, for 8 times the price. Cha-ching.