Hold on to your nostalgia goggles! It looks as though Sega may be considering getting back into the hardware business.

As long-time gamers will know, Sega used to be a huge, huge deal. Back in the schoolyards of the nineties, there was only one subject on anyone’s lips. One debate worth having. Are you a Nintendo or a Sega person? This was how friendships were won and lost. It was the most serious of all serious business.

This was Sega at the height of their power. A time when their beloved Sonic the Hedgehog could go toe to toe with the crème de la crème of industry icons, Mario himself. What a time to be alive. Sadly, Sega fell from grace in a big way, largely due to the unfortunate runs of 1995’s Sega Saturn and 1999’s Dreamcast. The latter in particular is now a huge cult favourite, but as they say, cult favourites don’t put lobster on grandma’s table.

Two years after the Dreamcast’s release, financial losses were so great that the system was discontinued. Not only that, but Sega withdrew from the console market entirely. Since then, all we’ve heard are faint hopeful rumbles that they may return as something more than a third-party publisher. The latest, however, is a little more than that.

As Sega Nerds reports, the company have been watching the success of Nintendo’s recent NES and SNES Minis. Who hasn’t, after all? It’s interesting to see that, in a world where everything from our smartphones to some toasters can be used as emulators, there’s still a ravenous market for official retro systems.

Sega President Kenji Matsubara hasn’t officially confirmed a Genesis Mini or anything, but it’s clear that the idea for such a thing is floating around. In a translation from Yahoo! Japan, Matsubara has stated, “I’d like to think that the inquiries of game machines are increasing in Japan, I would like you to wait a while.”

This is certainly cryptic, and nothing remotely concrete has been confirmed, but this is a positive nonetheless. Any sign of Sega even entertaining the idea of a new (or retro) gaming system is going to be exciting for their many fans.

If you were brought up on a diet of Sonic the Hedgehog, Altered Beast, Alex Kidd, Golden Axe and such, you’ll want to keep an ear to the ground for any new developments on this score.