The Mega Drive is being re-released in Brazil

Did you know that the Sega Mega Drive still, to this day, sells around 150,000 units every year in Brazil?

No, nor did we. To put this into context, this is around as many units as the PS4 sells in the region. Not bad for a quarter century old bit of 16-bit kit.

Gizmodo reports that so popular is the machine tech firm Tectoy has signed a deal to begin manufacturing a new version of the console. The machine is officially licensed by Sega and works with existing cartridges. It’ll ship with 22 games installed on internal memory and one classic three button controller, and will retail for around 110.

Apparently Sega was by far the most dominant player in Brazil during the 16-bit era, which perhaps goes some way to explain this obscure retro obsession. Tectoy was the original manufacturer, and supported the Mega Drive long after the rest of the world had moved onto newer hardware, even going as far as to update and develop new versions of the console years after its global demise.

Of course, retro is a new market being targeted in the West, too, where a new version of the NES launches in the UK and US this week.