Latest news with #retroGaming
Gizmodo
4 days ago
- Business
- Gizmodo
Amazon Offers This 15.6″ Portable Monitor for Less Than It Was on Prime Day, Already Selling Out Fast
There are lots of ways to add a bit more utility to your tech life. You can get power banks, you can look for additional batteries and memory upgrades, or you can add another screen to your setup. That last one can make a big difference if you're looking to get one for a desk that doesn't move, but it's a lot harder if you're after something that works on the go. See at Amazon Well, if you want a bit more flexibility, then a portable monitor could be the answer you've been searching for. Right now, you can get your hands on the KYY 15.6-inch portable monitor for just $70, which is 46% off the standard price. It's worth noting that this price is only available for Amazon Prime members, although non-members can still get it for $100 and save themselves $30 on the standard price, so that's not bad either. More On The Go What can you use this portable monitor for though? Well, you can actually use it for gaming on the go, if you fancy switching things up with your Nintendo Switch or a last-gen console. We're not expecting many people to make the most of this compatibility, but it's a nice bonus for a lot of us who might want to set things up a little bit differently at home, especially as you can even use this with a Wii for some retro gaming. For most people, the compatibility win here is that it can work not only with phones, but also with desktop PCs and laptops as well. This means that you can show off bits of work more easily, or just enjoy a better streaming experience on the 15.6-inch 1080P monitor. Sometimes it's nice to not have to sit with your phone in your hand, and this monitor lets you do so. Laptops and PCs can both benefit too, because sometimes you just need a second monitor here and there, and not permanently. It means you can bring up an important report, spreadsheet, or basically anything else on the portable monitor, while still working on your main one. This monitor normally costs $130, but this deal means you can save $60 on that price, which is great. We're not sure how long the deal will last though, so if you do decide to pick this up, we recommend it be sooner rather than later to avoid missing out on this excellent saving. See at Amazon
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Autogun Heroes: Supercharged launches on Steam
Relive the fast-paced action and nostalgic thrills of retro gaming in this new game Autogun Heroes: Supercharged KOTKA, Finland, June 18, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Nitro Games announces that the retro-inspired shoot 'em up adventure, Autogun Heroes: Supercharged, is now available on Steam. This game is a heartfelt tribute to classic retro titles and to the passionate players who continue to love the evergreen genre. Autogun Heroes: Supercharged marks an exciting new chapter in the ever-expanding Autogun Heroes universe, building on the success of the award-winning mobile game. This time around, Gus and his squad take the action to PC, bringing old-school arcade excitement to both longtime fans and newcomers in a fresh adventure. "We're big fans of classic skill-demanding gameplay here in Nitro and excited to unleash Gus and his hero squad on the big screens. This game launch is well in line with our platform expansion plans, and we see this as a big stepping stone towards reaching wider audience on more platforms. I am proud of how our team perfected the controls and game flow in this latest entry to the Autogun Heroes universe," Jussi Tähtinen, CEO & Co-Founder of Nitro Games. Autogun Heroes: Supercharged combines tight, responsive controls with fun, skill-based platforming and classic 2D shoot 'em up mechanics. The game delivers a nostalgic yet modernized experience, enhanced with crisp, stylized graphics. Players can grow their squad and customize hero loadouts to battle relentless alien invaders across dynamic and visually stunning worlds. Dodge bullets, master enemy attack patterns, and save the universe with arcade-style gameplay that's been finely tuned for PC. All latest press assets for Autogun Heroes: Supercharged are available at: Play the game today at: Website: Tags: #AutogunHeroesSupercharged #AGSupercharged For more information:Jussi Tähtinen, CEO & Co-FounderPhone: +358 44 388 1071Email: jussi@ Nitro Games in brief: Nitro Games is a game developer and publisher, backed by a multinational team of gaming professionals with expertise spanning game development, publishing, and live operations. Specializing in action and shooter games, Nitro Games is dedicated to creating high-quality experiences for a global audience. With recent titles like Autogun Heroes and NERF: Superblast, the company has built a strong portfolio of engaging and innovative games. Nitro Games also has a proven history of collaborating with leading brands and companies, offering tailored development and publishing services to select partners. Nitro Games' shares are listed on Nasdaq First North Growth Market with the ticker NITRO. The Certified Adviser is FNCA Sweden AB. Finnish Business ID: FI21348196 This information was brought to you by Cision The following files are available for download: Release Supercharged PressRelease Keyart 18 6 View original content: SOURCE Nitro Games Oyj Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Geek Girl Authority
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Geek Girl Authority
Frogger Archives
Categories Select Category Games GGA Columns Movies Stuff We Like The Daily Bugle TV & Streaming Games Stuff We Like Video Games In our very first Retro Revisits, we dive into what gaming was like on the Commodore-Vic 20 and talk about some of our favorite memories. Games List Articles Stuff We Like Get ready to jump on the nostalgia train as we share six of our favorite toys and games from childhood. Did your favorite make the list?
ABC News
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Retro gaming's nostalgia-fuelled evolution from niche hobby to global subculture
How "obsolete" video games and consoles became collectors' items. And why bad games are often so valuable. 中文版 This is Mick "Intrepid Class Gaming" Burrows. A sparky by day, the 46-year-old Melburnian reckons he has one of the biggest private retro gaming collections in Australia. His home is like a video game museum. Across three rooms, shelves reach high up the walls, stacked with hundreds of consoles and thousands and thousands of games, handhelds, toys, controllers, marketing materials and more. In his overflowing "main" gaming room is the set-up of a '90s kid's dreams. This is where he and his mates play his classic consoles — he's got everything from Atari 2600s to Sega Dreamcasts — on any one of five CRT televisions. All while reclining on a couch with feet on a coffee table shaped like a giant Super Nintendo controller. From trash to treasure Not so long ago, old video games and consoles were the kind of thing you found in hard rubbish — or maybe at a garage sale, wedged between a broken Breville jaffle maker and a box of VHS tapes. Now, they're collectibles. Sometimes extremely valuable ones. Retro gaming has grown from niche hobby to global subculture with online forums, YouTube channels and pandemic boredom helping push prices sky-high. A handful of rarities still sealed with plastic or stickers from the factory have even sold for millions, though not without controversy over whether such sales reflect genuine value or hype-fuelled speculation. Some of Mick Burrows's Game Boy collection. ( ABC News: Jarrod Fankhauser ) Over the past 30 years, Burrows has seen this evolution firsthand. He first started collecting as a teenager in the late 1990s while working at a video game store. "I used to go to markets and pick up, like, a Game Boy console for $5 or $10," he says. "The games were like a dollar, because no-one wanted them. "I would buy a lot of the consoles off friends as soon as the next gen came out, because they didn't want them anymore. That's what people did back then. As soon as a new console came out [mimes chucking-away motion] off went the old one. "But now everybody's keeping their old stuff because sometimes it's worth more than the new consoles." A wall of games in Burrows's retro gaming collection. ( ABC News: Jarrod Fankhauser ) Burrows playing on a Nintendo64 kiosk. ( ABC News: Jarrod Fankhauser ) Burrows says his collection was inspired by a visit to the famous Smithsonian museum in the US in 2003. "I saw these old consoles in glass cabinets with little plaques and thought, 'I need to actually collect and display all this stuff'," he says. "So that's what I did when I came back, and it just sort of cascaded. A lot." For Burrows, collecting is like an "addiction". "Once you've got it, you put it on the shelf and you're just like, 'What's the next thing?'" he says. Retro gaming's rise US-based collectibles consultant Shawn Surmick, best known for his YouTube channel Reserved Investments, says an underground scene for retro gaming first emerged in the late 1990s. "Video game systems started getting into these predictable cycles, where every couple of years new hardware would be released and the old hardware would pretty much become obsolete," he says. "People got nostalgic and said, 'Wait a minute, I still want to play these old games.'" Super Mario Bros from 1985 is one of the most popular games of all time. ( Supplied: Nintendo ) As collectors grew more organised, they began to catalogue games and online forums and platforms like eBay helped solidify a market. "Before [the internet], the market was fragmented. You had to go to specialty retailers, thrift shops or flea markets to find this stuff," Surmick says. "With eBay, everybody could see what games were selling for." In the late 2000s and 2010s, YouTubers like the Angry Video Game Nerd and social media further popularised the hobby. Then, in 2018, grading company Wata Games arrived on the scene. Grading involves getting an expert to examine a game's condition and provide a standardised grade before encasing it in a protective plastic case. Surmick says Wata wasn't the first company to offer grading services, but its founders were more vocal about the potential for video games as the next big thing in collectibles. Then came the boom. 'A nostalgia-fuelled binge' In 2019, a copy of Super Mario Bros for the Nintendo Entertainment System — graded by Wata — sold for $US100,000 ($154,000). Purchased by a group that included one of the founders of collectibles auctioneer Heritage Auctions, it tripled the previous record and made news all over the world. An ultra-rare copy of Super Mario Bros for NES that sold for $US100,000 in February 2019. ( Supplied: Wata Games ) Surmick says the "pristine-condition" game was among the first copies sold in the US — indicated by the use of a sticker seal rather than plastic wrap. Prices exploded and speculators piled in. "Everybody caught on the bandwagon," Surmick says. The pandemic added more fuel, with rare "factory-sealed" games selling for higher and higher prices. "Everybody was stuck indoors, everybody had money and everybody was on a nostalgia-fuelled binge." Prices for retro video games skyrocketed during the pandemic. ( ABC News: John Graham ) The high-water mark was reached in August 2021 with the sale of a different copy of Super Mario Bros — graded in even better condition — for $US2 million. Meanwhile, several journalists and YouTubers accused Wata and collectibles auctioneer Heritage Auctions of deliberately manipulating the retro games market for their own financial benefit, which the companies denied. In 2022, dissatisfied customers filed a class action lawsuit against Wata, alleging it and Heritage artificially inflated a bubble while Wata failed to live up to promised delivery times on its grading services. However, the case has since largely collapsed. "Last year, the court in the WATA case ordered plaintiffs to remove the entire section of their complaint alleging market manipulation and referencing Heritage and its principals, because plaintiffs presented no evidence upon which they could have a valid legal claim," a spokesperson for Heritage told the ABC. The case against Wata over the delivery times is continuing. Neither Wata nor the plaintiffs' lawyers responded to the ABC's requests for comment. Surmick says he and others had expressed concerns early on that the market was experiencing a bubble. "Lo and behold, what happened after the COVID money dried up, after everybody was able to go outside? The price of a lot of this stuff came crashing down," he said. "Does that mean video games don't have collectability? No, they do. "People love this stuff. People will still buy loose carts. It just means the market got overheated. Now there's a pullback, at least with the high-end graded stuff." Keeping the old hardware alive Kon Milonakos runs retro game store Collectors Quest in the Melbourne suburb of Greensborough. He says past generations of games and consoles continue to gain value in "waves" as the people who played them as children hit their 30s or 40s. "When they've got a little bit more time, a little bit more disposable income," he says. Collectors Quest sells a range of collectibles but mainly video games. ( ABC News: Will Jackson ) Many of the second-hand games at Collectors Quest cost hundreds of dollars. ( ABC News: Will Jackson ) Kon Milonakos says Nintendo GameCube games are particularly popular at the moment. ( ABC News: Will Jackson ) The PlayStation 2 has a huge selection of games. ( ABC News: Will Jackson ) The consoles he sells vary widely in price, with most around a couple of hundred dollars and rarer special editions going up from there. He says the systems of the late '90s and early 2000s have most recently become popular. Nintendo's Nintendo64 and GameCube and Microsoft's original Xbox are all big sellers but the PlayStation 2 — with its wide selection of games — is the "king". "It won't be long before the generations after that start to catch up as well," he says. He says in terms of genres, anything to do with Pokemon is always popular "regardless of the console, the system, the generation". "Horror games are too, your Silent Hills for example, and any Japanese RPGs." People in the "furries" fandom also have a particular interest in any games featuring anthropomorphic animals, he adds. Nintendo64 consoles at Collectors Quest. ( ABC News: Will Jackson ) A pile of NES controllers at Collectors Quest. ( ABC News: Will Jackson ) Kon Milakanos with a life-size statue of Link from Zelda. ( Supplied ) Independent shops specialising in retro video gaming have been popping up all over Australia. Even major retailers have taken notice, with EB Games this year getting into the second-hand retro market. Milonakos says part of his motivation to open Collectors Quest was to "keep the old vintage stuff alive". He and his staff spend much of their time refurbishing consoles — cleaning, testing, repairing — and resurfacing old game disks. He notes that game cartridges are remarkably robust. "We had one that we're sure was run over by a car that still worked," he says. While it's possible to play most retro games on modern hardware using emulators, Milonakos says it's just not the same. "Nothing beats holding the original in your hand and having it almost transport you back to your childhood," he says. "And I think that's what a lot of collectors really are after." 'Burning nostalgia' Scarlett Noorman, an assistant lecturer in games and immersive media at Monash University, is one of those collectors who got into retro games during Melbourne's lockdowns. She says she started off buying the titles she remembered renting from Blockbuster back in the day. "There was always this sort of burning nostalgia for the games that I played as a kid." Retro video game collector Scarlett Noorman. ( ABC News: Will Jackson ) Noorman's collection of PlayStation 2 games. ( ABC News: Will Jackson ) Light guns for playing video games on the Sega Dreamcast. ( ABC News: Will Jackson ) Noorman's video game controllers. ( ABC News: Will Jackson ) For her, the physicality of the games is part of the appeal. "I love having a physical disc or cartridge to hold in your hands, to look at the artwork, to put it in the system and boot it up. "It makes me feel like I'm a kid again." Scarlett Noorman found her CRT television on the side of the road. ( Supplied ) Like Mick Burrows, Noorman has an old cathode ray tube (CRT) television, which she says not only provides a more authentic gaming experience but also displays retro games better than modern flat screens. With demand from retro gamers, prices for good-quality working CRTs online and in second-hand stores have been increasing. "Thankfully, I found mine in hard rubbish," Noorman says. Scarlett Noorman's Sega Dreamcast. ( ABC News: Will Jackson ) Noorman with a copy of Tokyo Bus Guide. ( ABC News: Will Jackson ) Noorman says the games she likes best are offbeat simulations. Her favourite? Tokyo Bus Guide — a Japanese bus driving simulator where players must follow traffic rules exactly or be brutally penalised. "It's so unbearably difficult … but I love being able to just sit there and absolutely zone out to these low-resolution environments of Tokyo and drive a bus." Tokyo's Akihabara district is well-known for its huge retro video gaming stores. ( Supplied ) A shelf of games and consoles in Japan. ( Supplied ) Four of the games Scarlett Noorman bought during a trip to Japan. ( Supplied ) Noorman found a rare Wavebird controller for the Nintendo GameCube in a shop in Japan. ( Supplied ) Like many retro game collectors, Noorman has travelled to the mecca of retro games, Japan, but she's also scoured shops in the US, Canada and New Zealand. "Sometimes the shop won't realise a game's value to collectors," she says. "They'll price them like junk, and you get a really great deal. "For me, there is absolutely no feeling in the world quite like finding a good deal on a game." Collecting Australiana video games Sam Crowther, from a town in regional Victoria, has fond memories of playing video games as a child, but he considers himself more a collector than a gamer. He says heading to a garage sale or seeing a good bargain gets his blood pumping. "The endorphin rush is very real," he says. "I'm 100 per cent a junkie … in a collector sense." Sam Crowther with a Game Boy as a child and as an adult. ( Supplied / ABC News: Will Jackson ) Over the years, he has managed to track down every "Oz-coded" Game Boy and Nintendo Entertainment System title, including obscure variants, packaging revisions and region-specific oddities. Probably Crowther's most valuable game is a never-opened Australian-release copy of Super Mario Bros 3, still sealed with an intact foil sticker. Wildly popular and considered a landmark title, a US factory-sealed copy has sold for more than $100,000. Sam Crowther with his copy of Super Mario Bros 3. ( ABC News: Lachlan Bennett ) Crowther reckons he probably got his copy off eBay for less than $100 but doesn't remember specifically when. He did most of his game collecting between the early 2000s and mid-2010s — before sealed games were considered so valuable. "There were lots of things that I was able to find that people today are looking for and are much harder to find or much more expensive," he says. One of Crowther's rare Australian exclusives is Agro Soar, featuring the eponymous Cartoon Connection puppet. It was developed for Game Boy by Melbourne's Beam Software in 1993. But rather than building the game from scratch, they just ported, or rebranded, another title, Baby T-Rex, which they released in Europe. "Essentially, they just swapped out the sprite for Agro," he says. Agro Soar was a port of Baby T-Rex, which was released in Europe. ( ABC News: Lachlan Bennett ) Sam says it isn't a good game — he has only played it once or twice — but according to price-tracking sites, a good-quality copy is worth more than $1,000. "It's very sought-after by collectors here in Australia and internationally," he says. When bad games become collector gold It's one of the quirks of the retro games market that some of the most expensive games are those that were commercial flops on release. Jason Ashman, owner of Icarus Tech Games in Melbourne's north, says the title My Horse and Me 2 released in 2008 for the Xbox 360 is a classic example. "It's atrocious," Ashman says. "It looks terrible, the controls barely work … it's shovelware." A copy of My Horse and Me 2 on Xbox 360. ( ABC News: Will Jackson ) Despite that, copies in their original boxes can sell for hundreds of dollars. Ashman says commercially unsuccessful games tended to get shorter print runs than popular games. My Horse and Me 2 was also only released on Xbox 360 in Europe. "The unfortunate thing about collecting is that most of the really expensive retro games [are the ones] you probably would never want to play," he says. "But if you're in that collector mindset and you want to have the number to tick up, it's something you have to justify." Jason Ashman opened Icarus Tech Games in Melbourne about six months ago. ( ABC News: Will Jackson ) A range of retro video gaming consoles is available at Icarus Tech Games. ( ABC News: Will Jackson ) Ashman says Icarus Tech Games is intended to be a hub for retro gamers. ( ABC News: Will Jackson ) Ashman says the games he sells range from a few dollars for common titles up to as much as $1,000 for rarities. The condition of an item makes a huge difference — any damage torpedoes the price with mint examples in their original boxes, or even sealed in plastic from the factory, worth exponentially more. However, hardcore collectors only make up a small proportion of his customers, he says. Most are just excited to get back into the games they played when they were younger — and share them with their own children. "I'm very much the same," he says. "I love playing these games with my kids as well. "It's very heartwarming to see that kind of thing." Retro gaming under a cloud While the games of previous generations are enjoying a renaissance, the future of the hobby is uncertain. Physical games are becoming rarer as more and more publishers move towards an online-only model where gamers buy — or even just rent — the right to play games downloaded or streamed from the cloud. Movements like "Stop Killing Games" have emerged in a bid to force publishers to provide ways for consumers to keep playing their games once online support has been discontinued. Games on the latest generation of consoles are normally downloaded or played online. ( Supplied: PixieMe - ) Frank Cifaldi, director of the US-based Video Game History Foundation, says the shift presents serious challenges not just for collectors, but for history itself. In the US, laws prevent libraries from providing remote access to archived games even if there's no way to buy them anymore. Cifaldi says the only legal way to access many old games in the US is to find the original hardware and a second-hand copy and hope it still works. In some circles, Citizen Kane is still regarded as the best movie ever made. ( IMDB ) He says it's like if Citizen Kane were only ever released on VHS — and the only way to watch it now was to hunt down a working VCR and an intact tape. For purely online games or those that are constantly being updated — like World of Warcraft, Farmville or No Man's Sky — preservation gets even more complex. It's not about just trying to save the games' code, Cifaldi says. "It might make more sense to preserve the stories, you know, the oral history of its players and its creators, video and photo and things like that." World of Warcraft has been continually updated throughout its history. ( Supplied: Blizzard Entertainment ) Mobile games like Farmville are difficult to archive. ( Supplied: Zynga ) Regardless of whether physical games disappear, Jason Ashman from Icarus Games says he believes the retro video game cycle will continue. Nostalgia will always bring people back to the games they played as children, he says. "In 25 years, people are going to be paying some ridiculous sum for a game on the PlayStation 5 the same way they do for My Horse and Me 2 on Xbox 360 now." Read the story in Chinese: 阅读中文版 Credits
Android Authority
08-06-2025
- Android Authority
If I had to choose just one retro gaming handheld, this is the one I'd pick
AYANEO Pocket ACE The AYANEO Pocket ACE offers excellent emulation performance in an incredibly small package. If you want a small device to play your entire collection, this is the one to buy. When AYANEO first announced the Pocket ACE earlier this year, I was pretty lukewarm about it. It was billed as a 'retro' focused handheld, but much like the Pocket DMG, it had specs to compete with the heavyweights. Everything was at odds: the 3:2 screen is between retro and modern consoles, the design was D-pad-centric but had two small sticks, and the massive 6,000mAh battery is nearly as big as the Steam Deck OLED. Aside from the Retro Power colorway I tested, nothing about this screamed 'retro.' After testing the device, I have to admit that AYANEO was right. This is the perfect retro gaming console, but it's also so much more. This thing could replace every other retro gaming handheld in my collection, and I wouldn't even be upset. Struggles of the middle child Nick Fernandez / Android Authority To understand my initial confusion, you have to compare the AYANEO Pocket ACE to the rest of the company's devices. On the larger side, you have the 6.2-inch Pocket S and the 7-inch Pocket EVO. The EVO in particular is one of the most capable handhelds I've ever used, and it can comfortably play any system that's currently possible to emulate. On the smaller side, you have the AYANEO Pocket MICRO and MICRO Classic. These 3:2 handhelds are designed for GBA games, with perfect 4x integer scaling in a GBA Micro-like form factor. They can play other systems, but the design and chipset have more limitations than the rest of AYANEO's lineup. Nick Fernandez / Android Authority Compared to those two devices, the Pocket ACE is undoubtedly the middle child (as you can see above). Despite that, it can still do everything those devices can. It has the same aspect ratio as the Pocket MICRO for GBA goodness, and the same chipset as the Pocket S and EVO for cutting-edge emulation. The Pocket ACE is the best of AYANEO's Android handhelds in one package. Most importantly, it isn't a series of bad compromises but rather a mishmash of the best that those devices have to offer. It feels like AYANEO learned from those devices to create something entirely new. Starting with the design, it's compact but premium, with some of the best controls I've tested in a device this size. The D-pad is a highlight, as are the surprisingly quiet buttons and Hall Effect analog triggers. Even the two small sticks are surprisingly decent. Sure, they're not as comfortable as the incredible full-size sticks on the Pocket EVO, but they get the job done when they need to and sit low enough to be out of the way when they don't. Nick Fernandez / Android Authority I was also happy to see that AYANEO moved the start and select buttons back to the top for the ACE. There are still four buttons on the bottom bezel, but they are hotkeys for the software. Also along the bottom bezel are two (mostly) forward-firing stereo speakers, which sound excellent. They're placed so that you won't cover them with your palms. My only complaint here is that there's no headphone jack. The bumpers and triggers have a smooth finish, but due to their size, I never really felt like they needed a grippy texture. The Hall Effect triggers feel great, and they sit right in the middle of my trigger fingers for easy shooting. Next to them are the Android back and home buttons, which thankfully are far enough away from the triggers to avoid accidental presses. There's an air intake vent on the back and outflow on the top, so none of the heat reached my delicate gamer fingers. The screen itself is a beautiful 4.5-inch IPS panel that blends right into the device. It's plenty bright and the colors look fantastic, but I couldn't help but wish it were an OLED panel for one reason, and it isn't perfect blacks. The Pocket ACE shows noticeable light bleed in low-light situations. Honestly, it didn't bother me while gaming and my eyes didn't even see it after a while, but it shouldn't be an issue on a device this premium. That being said, I think the Pocket ACE does a good job of carving out its own niche in the lineup. Essentially, it's the small one that can play everything. The design isn't perfect for every system and aspect ratio, but it makes the right concessions to comfortably play your entire retro game collection on a single device. A pocket powerhouse Nick Fernandez / Android Authority When it comes to performance, the Pocket ACE again doesn't disappoint. Obviously retro games run like a dream, and the 3:2 aspect ratio means 4:3 systems feature minimal bezels. I actually played through the entirety of Super Mario World on the SNES for the first time in years on a whim because it was so comfortable on this device. Sticking to older systems on the balanced power profile, I got well over 15 hours of battery life on a single charge. I actually struggled to even drain the battery on this thing without dipping into more modern consoles. For casual gamers, the 6,000mAh battery can last a full week, and the 40W charging topped it off in roughly 90 minutes in my testing. There's no charger in the box though, so you'll have to source a compatible charger if you don't already have one. More demanding systems like the PlayStation 2 and GameCube are also no problem for the Snapdragon G3X Gen 2 SoC. This is one of the most powerful chipsets available on a gaming handheld, only edged out slightly by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 on the Odin 2 lineup. For comparison, I ran the Pocket ACE and the AYN Odin 2 Portal through our standard suite of benchmarks and found the Odin 2 Portal has roughly a 10% CPU advantage. The GPU scores were nearly identical and even favored the Pocket ACE in a few occasions. However, the Odin 2 Portal performed significantly better when it came to thermals, with the Pocket ACE reaching a peak temperature of 46°C. Granted, the Odin 2 Portal is nearly twice as big, so it's much easier to keep cool. The heat on the Pocket ACE is also concentrated in the middle and top of the device, so I couldn't feel any heat while holding it, despite the size. That said, the fans get very loud on max settings. Nick Fernandez / Android Authority Benchmarks are one thing, but the best way to push these devices is with the most demanding emulators. I tested the Pocket ACE on a variety of Nintendo Switch emulators, including Citron, Eden, and Yuzu to see how it would stack up. The results were a mixed bag. Games like Mario Kart 8, Super Mario RPG, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, and Mario & Luigi: Brothership all ran smoothly, with a few graphical glitches here and there. Other games, like Metroid Dread, struggled to get in-game. The Pocket ACE can emulate anything that's possible to emulate on Android. I'd chalk this up to the software more than the hardware, but the takeaway is that this device is powerful enough to emulate some Switch games. Other cutting-edge cases like Windows and PS3 emulation are less performant due to a lack of community optimizations. Hopefully, as these Snapdragon G-series chips become more common, we'll see better driver support. On the plus side, the 3:2 display still looks great with 16:9 games. That's good news for systems like the PSP, which can't easily change their aspect ratio. Android games also play well, and the compatibility issues the Snapdragon G3X Gen 2 faced on previous devices have largely been remedied. AYANEO Pocket ACE review verdict: The only handheld you need Nick Fernandez / Android Authority So should you buy the Pocket ACE? Well, that depends on what you're looking for. If you've already got a small collection of retro gaming handhelds and want to start specializing, this jack-of-all-trades probably isn't your best bet. But if you want something relatively small that can play everything, this can be the ace up your sleeve. The combination of build quality, chipset, and controls can make it the only handheld you'll ever need to emulate every system under the sun. Granted, you will pay a premium for it, since it starts at $459 for the 8GB+128GB configuration. The 16GB+1TB Retro Power version that I tested jumps up to $699, but I think that's overkill for this handheld's strengths. The Pocket ACE is expensive, but it can comfortably emulate your entire retro collection. It isn't without competition, though. The AYN Odin 2 Mini ($329 at Manufacturer site) is its closest peer, and it sacrifices comfort for the more reliable Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset tested above. The Retroid Pocket Mini V2 ($199 at Manufacturer site) is another, and although it's not as powerful or premium, it's certainly a lot cheaper. If you do decide to buy the AYANEO Pocket ACE, I'd recommend you do so soon. I listed the final retail prices above, but the Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign is still running with significant discounts. The $339 early bird price on the cheapest model is more than reasonable for a device that can emulate your entire collection of retro games. AYANEO Pocket ACE Great performance • Small size • Premium build MSRP: $459.00 The jack-of-all-trades emulation handheld The AYANEO Pocket ACE is a small Android gaming handheld with enough power to emulate any system. See price at Indiegogo Positives Great performance Great performance Small size Small size Premium build Premium build Complete controls Cons Expensive Expensive IPS screen has minor light bleed
