PC Engine mini THE LEGEND RETURNS
IN THE KNOW
RELEASE DATE 19 March 2020
PRICE £99.99
RETAILER Available exclusively
through www.amazon.co.uk
ACCESSORIES
Extra controller £21.99 Multitap £24.99
The PC Engine Mini is by far the most fascinating of the recent wave of plug-and-play retro systems. Now, we’d imagine that some of you are probably thinking, “Blimey, that’s a bold opening statement,” after having read that, but it’s true for one simple reason – Konami has chosen to sell the PC Engine Mini in Europe. Although the console was popular with UK importers thanks to coverage in Mean Machines and achieved popularity in France via the Guillemot subsidiary Sodipeng, it never actually had a proper official release in the territory, and won’t benefit from the nostalgia that has driven sales of the SNES, Mega Drive and C64 minis. But we don’t think that’s a disadvantage – in fact, we think it’s an opportunity.
You see, the PC Engine has always been a relatively difficult system to get into. Its import-only nature means that it rarely turns up in the wild for impulse purchasing, and the various combinations of different models and add-ons can be intimidating to an inexperienced collector. There has never been a PC Engine compilation on modern consoles, and even the pretty decent Virtual Console line-ups missed things like the SuperGrafx and Arcade CD-ROM games. Though many gamers will have been aware of the PC Engine thanks to import coverage in magazines like C&VG, these factors have ensured that the console has remained accessible only to the more adventurous retro gamer. So, yes, the PC Engine Mini represents an opportunity. For the first time there is a convenient and affordable way
