Giles N

Possibly one the greatest systems ever the Megadrive/Gen. Out Run runs fine via emulation and im not too sure about After Burner 2 as i have never tested it. I would say it's probably a licensing issue of some sort. Even through it was published by Sega they could have out sourced some code. Not exactly sure it's just a stab in the dark

Thing is; Afterburner 2 for Arcade is available on the 3DS/2DS.

Heck I even bought a japanese 2DS with 32 SegaAges titles (mostly to get Turbo Out Run).

So, for the mentioned reasons I don’t really think its about either  hardware/tech-limits or lincences.

But I really do Sega is loosimg money and popularity over their ‘slowness’/‘reluctance’ to provide retro-availability.

Due to the likeness to the real-life F-14 Tomcat, Sega has had to get a license from Northrop Grumman these days when they touch their Afterburner franchise. And that of course is an added cost, which is problematic for a product like this (Especially when it's not a particularly great port that most Genesis Mini buyers were clamoring for).

You can see this change reflected in the legal fine print in both the 3DS release of Afterburner II and the PS3/360 release of Afterburner Climax (Which also officially licensed several other aircraft designs). Licensing wasn't a concern until the mid 1990's, when the aircraft companies started to take notice of all the aviation sims lining the PC gaming shelves at retailers and decided they were owed a slice of the pie. 

Same deal with Outrun. For the arcade original, Sega made it look like a Ferrari Testarossa and it even includes the Ferrari 'Prancing Horse' logo on the rear of the car, all without permission. The Genesis port retains the vehicle's appearance (And lack of any sign of Ferrari consenting to it). The videogame industry was young and neither Sega or Ferrari apparently were paying attention to potential legal concerns in this area, since this slipped by without issue back then

Sega of today isn't willing to take such chances (And Ferrari's legal team wouldn't miss a beat in filing suit if they did), which is why we've seen the design of the car altered to make it non-infringing when the arcade version is rereleased on home gaming hardware. 

Presumably the cost to alter the car in the Genesis port (Or worse, pay Ferrari's licensing fees) made this one an easy one to toss out of the list of candidates when so many other good games were available to M2 without added expenses. An M2 or Sega executive in Japan explained it away by saying it was inferior to the arcade version, but obviously that doesn't hold water and is just an excuse since the same could be said for Golden Axe and several other arcade ports on the Genesis Mini.

An unfortunate loss since the Genesis port is great and the Genesis Mini sure could've used one of Sega's racing games.