A $65 handheld emulator beats anything Nintendo currently sells for retro gaming

Remember how popular the NES and SNES Classic Edition were back in 2016 and 2017? For a brief time, they were impossible to find and became a reseller’s dream, and the mini consoles’ release started a wave of gaming nostalgia that’s still rolling strong today. They offered a simple, plug-and-play way to revisit iconic old-school games like Final Fantasy VI, Star Fox, Super Mario Bros. 3, Metroid, and more.

At the time, rumors pointed to Nintendo following up the pint-sized consoles with a portable Game Boy Classic, but that never happened. This was a big mistake on Nintendo’s part because companies like Retroid, Miyoo, ModRetro, Analogue, and, of course, Anbernic, have picked up that mantle in a big way. In fact, a lot of these devices are so good that even if Nintendo were to finally come to its senses and drop a Game Boy Classic, it likely wouldn’t be even close to as good or versatile.

Let’s take a look at Anbernic, for example, a China-based company that sells thousands of purpose-built retro gaming handhelds. There’s the unique Rotate ($88) (which just released), the Nintendo DS copy RG DS ($94), the Game Boy Advance-like 34XX ($57), the Game Boy Advance SP-inspired RG35XXSP ($55), and my personal favorite, the RG34XXSP ($65), a handheld that looks like a slightly smaller GBA SP with two analog joysticks.

The RG34XXSP is the ultimate retro emulation handheld

This tiny beast can play pretty much everything up to the Dreamcast

I’ve used both the RG35XXSP and the RG34XXSP extensively, and they feel shockingly high-quality for retro, emulation-focused handhelds sold at a price tag slightly above $60, undercutting far more expensive, similar devices like ModRetro’s Chromatic ($200) and the Analogue Pocket ($240), while still offering a capable handheld. If Nintendo were to release a Game Boy Classic of some sort, I can’t see it costing any less than $100, which would make it a tough sell when cheaper, arguably better handhelds exist.

Then, when you unpack game compatibility, the situation looks even more dire in some ways. Right now, if you want to play retro games in a modern, legitimate way offered by Nintendo, you have the Switch/Switch 2 and Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack, giving you access to dozens of classic games across the NES, SNES, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo 64, Sega Genesis, and more, all for $50 a year. It’s a relatively solid deal, and the majority of the gaming giant’s most iconic titles are part of the growing collection.

On the other hand, with a third-party handheld like the RG34XXSP, you can play pretty much any ROM for any game system, going all the way up to the Dreamcast. There’s no waiting for your favorite retro game to land on your device, and subscription costs don’t exist. The only thing limiting what games you can play on the handheld is your ability to find ROMs, and if you know how to use Google, that won’t be a problem.

For example, if you want to play a bit of Super Mario World for the SNES, as long as you have acquired the ROM, you can do that. Maybe you have plans to play a little The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap for the GBA SP. Then maybe you want to spend some time with Crazy Taxi 2, an underrated Dreamcast classic. You can also make that happen, thanks to the RG34XXSP’s surprisingly capable H700 quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 CPU. And this is all on a device that feels like a modern version of the classic Game Boy Advance SP. It’s sort of wild when you sit back and think about it.

In several ways, the deck is stacked against Nintendo, since companies like Anbernic operate in a bit of a gray area when it comes to emulation. Still, the company had a chance to release a similar official handheld device as a follow-up to the SNES and NES Classic, but chose not to — and at this point, it’s arguably too late.

These handheld makers don’t follow the same rule book as Nintendo

Piracy is difficult to compete with

To be fair to Nintendo, it’s not really possible for the company to compete with emulation-focused games from companies like Anbernic and Miyoo as far as game selection goes. For example, for a game to land on the Nintendo Switch Online, particularly when it’s a third-party title, the company is forced to navigate complicated licensing agreements with developers and publishers that are, in some cases, decades old.

On the other hand, Anbernic can, at least for the most part, wipe its hands clean of that red tape and leave everything up to the player when it comes to adding games to their handhelds. That said, if you’ve ever purchased an Anbernic handheld before, you’ll know that they often include thousands of copyrighted ROMS. It’s far from legal, but if you’re less technical and aren’t interested in hunting down your own ROMs or installing custom firmware like Knulli (which is great by the way), when you buy an Anbernic handheld, you already have a built-in library of ROMs at your finger trips, which is great as long as you’re cool with the potential ethical questions that brings up.

This is a battle Nintendo probably can’t win anyway

Even if Nintendo does release a Game Boy Classic someday, it’ll likely cost far more than Anbernic’s cheaper handhelds and will probably feature only a relatively small selection of ROMs. With all of this in mind, if you’re looking for a way to play retro games on the go, it’s difficult to beat devices like Anbernic’s RG34XXSP, both in terms of price and versatility.