Rose Colored Gaming is a fairly familiar name here on Nintendo Life, with the bespoke hardware and retro goods company producing a host of desirable - and pricey - gadgets in recent years. Often its work produces stylish cartridges and hardware mods, but its now taking a leap into its own range of Game Boy-inspired portables.
First of all, in terms of design, it's a chunky Game Boy shape with four face buttons and another two buttons on the back; the latter will serve as shoulder buttons - it'll also have a HDMI input with the option to use the portable as a controller on the TV, via usb. You can see the different mock-ups below.



In terms of how they'll work, they'll be based off the super-cheap Raspberry Pi PC board - we'd like to think this'll keep costs down, but these custom units from Rose Colored Games are often rather pricey. That brings us the grey area of the fact this will run ROMS, and unlike physical hardware machines like the Retron this'll be a matter of trust and personal ethics when it comes to downloading retro games that you own, or otherwise.
This is taken from the reveal post:
Raspberry-pi based. Plays over 10+ systems at full speed including:
NES
SNES
MAME (Various Arcade)
CPS-1
NEO-GEO
GameBoy
GameBoy Color
GameBoy Advance
GameGear
Turbo/PC - Engine
Sega Master System
Sega Genesis
DOS
Apple 2
Atari 2600And More!
It's a sticky area, but a somewhat inevitable progression for Rose Colored Gaming. It's not one for Virtual Console purists, and as always it's down to how the principle of ROMS is adapted by individual players - backups and convenient access to games you own, or simply downloading any desired retro game?
In any case it's a rather attractive design from the hardware modder, which we imagine will keep producing more conventional retro Nintendo gear beyond this new creation.
Comments 31
InB4 hundreds of emulation controversy comments.
looks pretty cool.
Do want.
Looks like junk. If I am going to buy something I want it made properly. It is the kind of thing I would have made as a school project using perspex and off the shelf parts.
It all depends on pricing... and Raspberry Pi just released a new, quad core at 900mghz board, so I will wait and see how this one goes.
It's a shame the hardware looks so cheap; with those terribly blocky and angular looking buttons, which look like they were all just made to fit one cheap mould. I mean look at the sheer height of those Start and Select buttons...
Also; given that they've went with the same buttons you'd find on a SNES, I think it would have made more sense to make this thing in landscape format and have the shoulder buttons properly on the actual top corners of the unit, like the GBA/DS/3DS/2DS/etc.
I like the idea in principle but I'm not sure about the particular execution.
So, it's like a mobile version of my Raspberry Pi that I fitted to be an emulation station. That's neat, I guess. Too bad it looks clunky and awkward.
As if the angular form weren't enough, the button-labeling is odd. X and Y are switched from their traditional Nintendo positions.
You're just paying for a Raspberry Pi in a nice case. It's not particularly impressive. Why can't it play from the original cartridges? If I can make my own Pi read Game Boy cartridges, there's no reason they can't.
I'm not feeling those case colors at all. They did some amazing work on their GBA/Super Famicom/Super Nintendo designs but these are fugly.
I'd prefer a GBA form factor, and with the new Raspberry Pi, I'd imagine it could do more.
The buttons looks terrible. The gba sp 101 is a better option.
It's going to cost somewhere between $200 and $300, so...yeah....
I'm all for it.
Were Nintendo solidly embracing the potential of its Virtual Console service, I'd feel differently.
Lots of gift horse mouth-looking going on here. I can't wait to get one!
@Dreamcaster-X
They have a wide variety of designs, those are templates. They are also considering taking orders for custom made designs. RCG has a nice track record of making a lot of great designs for various portable units, all of which are highly functional. I wouldn't get too down on the production shots, especially since they have a lot of other design plans.
Another feature of this unit that RCG is making is that it has a built in hdmi port allowing you to plug it straight into your television and playing your roms on a big screen. You can use the portable as the controller or use most usb based controllers and plug it into the PI.
So, how long until Nintendo sues them for ripping off the Gameboy design?
I'd like to build one of these myself though. Been playing with the Raspberry Pi since it first released, and it's a really nifty little device. With the release of the Raspberry Pi 2, I think it's time for me to take advantage of the 3D printers at my college and make a custom handheld.
Nothing else a smarpthone cant do these days
perhaps except play with buttons, instead of touch interface.
I'm confused. This thing has HDMI input or output? And the USB port makes it so you can use the handheld as a controller on the TV? How does that work. Are you sure the USB port isn't so you can plug a controller into the handheld while playing on a TV?
@ZenTurtle Other than ethical reasons of playing your own Roms, that is completely pointless. You are still emulating. You are not playing the actual cartridge. You are just dumping only the rom file and completely ignoring all the special chips the cartridge uses. So if you already have the ability to dump your Roms as you claim, this would be perfect for you. You can use your dumped Roms in this machine, just as you are using your dumped Roms in your other machine. Actually playing the cartridges requires the original hardware or clone systems (not including the retron5 as it only dumps Roms)
@darthllama Sounds good. I know they usually do great designs so I was just surprised to see them leading off with these. If they designed another SNES or Super Famicom type design I would probably be all over it.
Great. More stuff from these guys that no one can buy.
Nothings ever available on that site.
@MyBodyIsReggie Yeah, I've noticed that too. They advertise the out of it but nothing is ever available to buy. They must do low quantities that sell out quick.
Having just scrolled past a link titled 'The Most Painful Torture Devices Of The Middle Ages' accompanied by a picture to illustrate I've completely forgotten what I was gonna say.
@jbopatrick
It reads ROM and reads/writes to the RAM on the cartridge. Then plays the game on the Pi. So I don't think what I have is pointless.
If you want to emulate old games why would you get this and not a DS cart?
If you got a PSP with emulators and a lot of illegal roms then you don't need this.
The ability to play Mario RPG on a plane is very tempting. I would really rather Nintendo let me rebuy it for my 3DS.
Keep in mind that these are rough prototypes. The stage in which you see them is JUST enough to have them 100% functional and not look totally hobbled together with scotch tape and rubber bands. It's a work in progress, but we are inching closer to v1.0 every day
It's not the only device of its kind. Plus there are other devices than can be made to do similar things. I don't love the GB-style vertical design and the idea of the extra buttons in back, but it would make their unit seem different than other emulation portables. I'm interested to see how this project comes along.
On a side note, there are many single-board computers available. Some of them are already more powerful than the Raspberry Pi 2, not that I have any particular problem with the R-Pi boards. They can do plenty and have a lot of support. They're not the only tiny computers available, though.
mame would be the only reason, for arcade beat em ups...
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