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Following the crazy demand for Nintendo’s first-party retro gaming emulator, the NES Classic Edition, one might expect the market for retro consoles to explode. There’s already a wide range of unofficial emulator boxes — they pre-dated the NES Classic.
The Super Retro Boy, the next third-party retro-facing console from Retro-bit, takes a more interesting approach. Unlike the Classic, the Retro Boy can play Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Advance cartridges. Those consoles aren’t necessarily hard to find, but given that nearly all of them have some wear and tear, some players — especially those who weren’t playing games when these platforms were new — may prefer to buy something completely new.
The Super Retro Boy’s size and shape mimics the Game Boy Color. It’s small enough to put in your pocket, but large enough that the screen, buttons, and D-Pad are all full sized and feel properly spaced out. For many players who had these consoles, you can pick it up, and it will feel comfortable.
Unlike any Game Boy we’ve ever seen, the Super Retro Boy has four face buttons. The classic “A” and “B,” plus “L” and “R” buttons to mimic the shoulder buttons on the GBA. Given the tall rectangular format, putting the shoulder buttons where they are seems odd. Retro-Bit said the version we tested at CES is a prototype, and the company may move the shoulder buttons to the sides in the final version, which is expected to hit stores in August.
The Super Retro Boy also has a couple of modern tricks up its sleeve. Well, just one trick — a rechargeable battery that gets a reported 10 hours of battery life and supports micro-USB. The console will also come with a 10-in-1 multi-game cartridge, in case you’re starting a collection from scratch. We don’t know what games will be on it, but you can expect they’ll be relatively obscure.
We played a minute or two of F-Zero: Maximum Velocity on the Game Boy Advance, and scrolled through menus in a Yu Gi Oh trading card game. The screen looks sharp — Retro-Bit calls it an “HD” display, but has not released detailed information on the console’s specs.
It looks better than it plays, though. While responsive, the buttons and D-Pad felt a bit squishy. The D-Pad in particular felt like it may get stuck after a few months of heavy use. Otherwise, the build quality is solid.. I wouldn’t be worried about the case cracking or any of the other problems you may have to look out for in an old-school system.
Despite the modern conveniences, the Super Retro Boy cannot replace any of the original consoles, so long as you find one in good condition. Those consoles, particularly the Game Boy Advance SP, are all very well constructed and, more importantly, allow you to play their games as they were meant to be played.
That said, getting access to three new (old) consoles for $80 is a pretty good deal, and no one wants to carry around three devices when they could just hold onto just one. All things considered, it seems like a decent way to get the most out of games that would otherwise be sitting in a drawer somewhere.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.