Hands On: This $50 Handheld Plays Pretty Much Every Game From Your Misspent Youth

Hmmm buttons look cheap...

@Deanster101 They do but they've got good reviews from pretty much anyone who's used it.

Just another machine promoting piracy.

I read this has a bright screen that has a lot of screen tearing.

I understand the appeal for something like this. But it is a piracy machine. I'd much rather a functional clone GBA system, that supports original cartridges, but has a modern quality screen, rechargeable battery and maybe a speed-up function and save states.

Why is NL even promoting this?

@The-Chosen-one Because it might interest some readers, surely.

I have a 3DS with retroarch, so I don't really see the point of these, but it might be nice for some people. And really looks pocketable.

I remember the previous BittBoy didn't allow games to be saved, I wonder if they changed that for this version?

This looks real nice!

I could swear the PSP was released years ago. Although, for GBA games the 3DS is actually the greatest, because they run natively, no emulation needed and therefore no glitchy audio/video or other compatibility problems. In fact, if you look into it, disregarding the Switch, the (New) 3DS is actually the perfect handheld for playing older games. It can run every Nintendo handheld game: GB (emulated), GBC (emulated), GBA (native), DS (native), DSi (native), and 3DS (native), as well as NES and SNES, and Game Gear - and the emulators for these are all in one way or another developed by Nintendo. Even more have been developed by talented hackers. It's mighty impressive considering the 3DS's limited power.

We have a powkiddy x16 , much bigger screen than this looks to have. Nes/snes/gb/gba/Genesis/cps2/neogeo

You don't mention some important details. For example. Are they shipped from China, US or EU? Also shipping isnt worldwide

Every person reviewing this on YouTube mentioned really distracting screen tearing. I think I'm going with an LDK game or maybe a GPi case

The LDK Landscape is very similar, but far better.

@The-Chosen-one there's a difference between reporting and promoting. If there's a sponsored link though, then yeah, it's promotion....
As you were!!

I just bought the LDK game with the old Gameboy style though the other one has a analog nub.

Works great for what it is. Super Mario Kart is slow though.

Some people really like to moan don’t they. When I see articles I’m not interested in I usually just don’t read them. Weird how that works

What next? An article showing how to hack out Switches to play roms.

As a couple have already mentioned; there's supposed screen tearing. That'd be distracting and a deal-breaker for me; either the review unit didn't display the issue, or something else.

More Chinese garbage, no thanks.

NintendoLife shouldn't promote this kind of stuff !

I'll have to look into this. I've been wanting a good handheld emulation machine that can run GBA titles well, since my NDS has been long defunct, and I just... don't enjoy playing games on the GBA SP.

Portability is a plus but I’d rather just buy an Arcade1Up cab and mod it with a Pi....which I already am.

Slow news day, better report on the Chinese emulation handheld of the day.

"Anti-pirating white knight brigade"
You nailed it!
I have many, many of these devices. All fully loaded. Not sure it's hurting anyone's bottom line as I also 2 Switches, Wii U, several wii's, gameboys of all generations as well as countless software titles.
Some people just don't understand the value of retro preservation...

This would be tempting, but my old PSP does a wonderful job of playing older systems like the NES, Genesis, Game Boy, TG16, and PS1.

About the only thing it struggles with is SNES games. So, while this does look pretty damn cool, my PSP is still a fine trooper when I want to play older games.

@Blizzia Just another machine promoting piracy.

All you have to do is wait for Nintendo to get around to releasing all the retro games you want to play...LOL

I'm sure it won't take more than a couple of decades and I bet Nintendo is smiling on you because of your comment....if they saw it. Win-win, right?

Except the screen tearing makes this pretty much trash. Playing a game like super Mario world gives me a headache after about 30min.

@Crono1973 Here's the catch: I don't want to play any retro games I've played them already when they came out, and there's no need to keep replaying them.

I'll play the new games they release.

@Blizzia I see, you just don’t want others to play retro games either until Nintendo gets around to re-releasing them.

To these people complaining about emulation:
1: nintendo doesn't give an alternative to re-buy most games.

2: buying the physical gba etc. games usually doesn't make nintendo any money anymore. It's usually a second hand copy, or something a games store dug up at a sale or something.

3: as people have mentioned: it's a good way to preserve games!

@nintendoknife I also have mega drive, master system, pc engine & arcade games running on my N3DS. It is indeed a retro gaming powerhouse.

I own a Bittboy V3, same internals as the pocket go. Lovely little machine but yes the screen tearing on a lot of the emulators is terrible, I do not recommend it at all (get an LDK).

I would really like one of these if I could buy games legitimately.

@Crono1973 Exactly. Unless they already own the games and the appropriate device to play them on. You know, like... The original console. If I want to play Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword, I pull out my GBA.

@nintendoknife idk chief personally i prefer the ps vita because the oled screen is friggin amazing... the switch has the advantage of n64 support though

@Blizzia What if you want to play a retro game that you don’t yet have? Isn't giving money to some used game shop instead of Nintendo even worse than piracy? I mean, that game shop had nothing to do with making or distributing the game.

@Heavyarms55 @Heavyarms55 It's a victimless crime. The original copyright owners are NOT making any money on the original carts. It's all 3rd party sales now. Nintendo or the developers are making no money on these originals any more... unless they remake them for a newer system. Many of them will never be remade. Unlike some people I actually did purchase most of the games that I emulate now, long ago. I paid my money. Either way, it's old nostalgia stuff; stop huffing and puffing about it.

@Blizzia I want switch to let me buy the old classics to curb such things.

@tendonerd Then you're at the mercy of whatever they choose to "remake." (They're selling you emulated originals as "remakes") My favorite games from the past weren't always the most popular. There's no way they'll ever remake them. Also, if you get a switch, you'll basically be limiting yourself to Nintendo authorized games only. What about all of the other systems that also made great games?

Lmao it's so funny to see so many people crying over articles about emulation or portable emulation consoles
Stop doing like emulation shouldn't be a thing, you know it was a thing, it's still a thing today and it will always be a thing. When all your cartridges will die, you'll be happy to be able to be able to play some old games which are not being used anymore, by anybody, on tons of hardware. Thanks to emulation we have huge archives of old games that nobody could ever play today if they want to
So nah, selling a console only compatible with cartridges isn't a good idea, at least it's not when you want to make money from it
Cartridges are better, but dump and backups don't die like cartridges and save batteries.

I'm curious if anyone knows the answer or who can point me in the right direction. Is it just a case of "Well the law says..." when people are struck down by the IP holder for passing around bootleg digital copies of an item (books, TV shows, movies, video games, etc) when there is no legit way of acquiring the item outside of the second-hand market where the IP holder does not get a share of the selling price or is it something else? I can understand Nintendo not liking the idea that people are downloading Super Mario Bros. when there are several ways of purchasing the game in 2019, but I've seen other companies issue C&Ds and takedowns for other media items not available for purchase. Ex. Viacom removing old Nick shows from YouTube and torrent sites that are not officially available anywhere under any format, or old Dell and 4-Color comics that have never gotten any kind of omnibus reprint 40-50 years after the initial release.

I've gotten bans from other sites for asking this question and if it violates any ToS, I humbly apologize.

@wiggins It's not a victimless crime. Wide spread piracy discourages the sale of new products. Plenty of people are content to steal old content rather than buying new content.

lol at the people who cry over piracy

@Heavyarms55 You know what encourages widespread piracy? Making digital content impossible to legally acquire. Nintendo literally just have to throw their games on an eShop to massively decrease chances for piracy. Since the advent of affordable online streaming and purchase options for music and film, piracy has seen a massive decrease. There are dozens of research articles on this. Music streaming actually boosts concert sales which is where most of the revenue for artists comes from (selling merch, etc). It shouldn't come as a surprise to ANYONE that pirating Nintendo games is as common as it is because Nintendo aren't offering a legal alternative.

@technotreegrass In many cases the law requires you "protect your IP" to avoid loosing the rights to said IP. Companies (read lawyers at those companies) interpret this in different ways.

(And at some companies said lawyers seem to be really eager to push towards a very agressive stance (probably to show they are needed and to earn more money... ))

@Crono1973 No, it's not worse than piracy to buy it in a used games shop. Someone is actually getting paid, unlike with piracy. And I won't want to play some random retro game. I've played the retro games when they were new, why should I replay them now when they're outdated as hell and frankly not very pretty to look at (except Super Mario 64 and a few others which still look decent when we go that far back).

I simply don't see any need to replay those old games again. Heck, my favorite game is probably Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword, and even that I won't be replaying again unless I find myself with zero other games to play, because it is pretty outdated.

And my backlog has been at 50+ games for the past 8 years so I doubt it'll happen anytime soon.

@tendonerd Too bad, there's clearly not enough demand for it.

@Damo does it have a headphone jack or the sound is speakers only?

@Skegg So with retroarch could I play gameboy advance and PC Engine games on my new 3DS? That would be great! I don't understand why Nintendo didn't make it easy to play GBA and DS (I mean digitally)games on 3DS...

Just got mine this morning in the post. I'll play with it over the weekend.

One thing all reviews say that you can order the SFC coloured buttons. This is wrong.

It COMES with these buttons at no extra cost.

I like the Gameboy buttons though.

Soulja boy's new handheld stuns the crowd!

Looks cool, but I'll keep using my CFW New 2DSXL.

@Anti-Matter @retro_player_22 Switch is made in China you know...

@Blizzia I've speculated why switch doesn't push virtual console stuff forward. Wii u still has it and they don't want to hurt people who bought that. They don't want to hurt indie sales because super Metroid and Metroid fusion are better than axiom Verge type of thing. Or that damned online service of theirs seems more valuable if you can't buy Mario 3.

@technotreegrass a cnd is better than having your life ruined with an actual lawsuit and a suppression order to ensure the public never heard of the lawsuit. It's not about costing sales of something old it's about how it's their right to do what they want not anyone elses.

Like when I catch people at my grand parents house trying to break in. My grand parents are long dead and no one lives there. The burglars defense is oh the house is abandon. Nope my family still owns it. Surprise I have a gun and the cops have been called. I can't tell you how intense and blubbery people get because... It's just an abandon house. I could just let them be on the property and do whatever... But nope. My family holds the rights. No one else seems to have the balls to defend the house when there's a van in the driveway.

Copyrights cost money and lawyers to defend. Not everyone has money enough to care or even sell off the rights.

@cryptologous We're not entitled to that content by right and the lack of a legal alternative for purchase doesn't make theft okay. You can make all the arguments you want, doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that I sympathize with you and want to play many of those classic titles on modern equipment. It's still piracy, it's still theft, it's still wrong. Piracy drains sales of new products and hurts content creators.

@cryptologous Furthermore legal music streaming and piracy are nothing alike. Streaming music makes money via ads and subscription fees. Piracy just denies content creators.

@Heavyarms55 Responding to your first reply, I don't disagree. I didn't say piracy wasn't theft. I simply said I understand why people pirate Nintendo games. In Nintendo's highly specific case, I'd argue piracy only hurts Nintendo in that they spend countless resources trying to fight piracy. There is a very easy fix to the majority of piracy issues and that is actually selling the games people want to play. We aren't dealing with the issue of obsoleteness here. Nintendo aren't a small business selling vases. They are a corporation refusing to make digital files available for paying customers. The only people who are hurt by this whole situation is said customers who's only options to play a game are:
a) potentially spend massive fees trying to find physical versions of games that are no longer sold for consoles that are running on fumes (I've seen copies of Smash Bros Melee going for over $200 online in less than mint condition)
or
b) break the law and download the game online
I agree that it is a crime, but the victims in Nintendo's case aren't Nintendo's creators. No one at Nintendo is making any money off of games they aren't selling anymore. The victims are people who want to play Nintendo's classic titles and can't because Nintendo gives them no way to do so.

Responding to your second reply,
I think you misunderstood me. I'm pro streaming and anti piracy. Streaming massively decreased piracy. Given a fair deal, people will choose to purchase content rather than pirate it most of the time. There's even a cognitive bias called the sunk cost effect that dictates people are more likely to lean towards things they've made investments in than things they haven't.

Piracy only denies content creators if content creators are creating content and selling it. Piracy doesn't deny anyone anything if no content is being made or sold. Can't stress this enough; I absolutely agree that breaking the law is bad. But imagine what'd happen if instead of spending countless resources sending notices to every website that provides Nintendo ROMs, Nintendo just sold the games people so desperately want?

@Heavyarms55 Without piracy so many people around the globe wouldn't be able to discover the world of gaming. That's what happened to me! Not everyone has the money to play games. What do you do if you are a little kid with no money and an old Pc? Or what do you do if you are poor? Piracy made me love videogames and music, made me discover them, and that made me spend countless money on those hobbies when I grew up. Legal or not, some people has no other choice, and maybe that path may lead to them actually being part of the creative force inside the videogame industry. In my case, piracy in music made me discover countless artist and also, made me love it. Now I try to produce music of my own thanks to piracy. Also: I'm studying 3D Animation thanks to piracy. I also know how to edit videos, pictures and do 2D animations thanks to piracy (because as you may know, the applications to do all of that kind of stuff, ain't cheap at all). Piracy might be illegal, but it also creates opportunities to people who doesn't have other choices. It opens doors to people.

I have one of these and feel I've got to express that these are nowhere near as good as reviewers are making them out to be. The screen refresh is awful, everything has tearing and almost nothing runs at a consistent full speed. NES and SNES are particularly bad, which given the button layout (and the site this review is on...), you might've expected to be alright. Also worth noting, you can't just turn them off either as it corrups data on the SD card, you have to go through a shutdown process before actually flipping the off switch - very irritating for a device you might expect to use while on the move. If you want something like this, better to spend an extra 10-20 bucks or so and get the LDK handheld. Even better, find a second hand PSP Go - the emulation quality, feature-set and overall experience is vastly superior and the size is roughly equivalent.

@Heavyarms55 Depends on who you spin it, ofcourse everyone knows this will be used mostly for pirating games but at times, like say the TMNT arcade games there is no other way to play them these days, you gonna play 500 usd for a 30 year old arcade board?
One could say, this device is used for home brew programming and running backups of you owned games for convenience.

Pretty cool, but my CFW PSP can do all of that too.

@Blizzia No, it's not worse than piracy to buy it in a used games shop. Someone is actually getting paid, unlike with piracy.

I understand now. If we paid people for ROMS it would be better than piracy?

@Braok The screen is great but no one's actually developed any worthwhile emulators for it. The worthwhile emulators are still the PSP emulators, and despite those being mighty impressive in their own right, they're locked down to the PSP's max clock speeds, and can't take advantage of the Vita's much more powerful hardware. That being said, a homebrew developer recently appears to have found a way to access the Vita hardware from inside the PSP 'emulator', so who knows what the future will bring.
I'd also say the PSP Go's screen comes very close in quality to the Vita 1000's OLED.

@Cwiiis As you also mentioned the PSP Go, in case you didn't know already, I'll mention that some clever guy created a cable that can be used to adapt regular PSPs' Memory Stick Pro Duo cards to the PSP Go's M2 card format. This also means that you can use the cable to adapt an MS Pro Duo microSD card adapter to M2. The adapter cable fits inside the Go's housing, you can't even see it's there. It is extremely useful if you have a bunch of games (or media, if you use your PSP as an MP3 player) and don't want to fork out briefcases full of money for a large M2 card. Check it out:

https://m2adapter.cart.fc2.com/

@khululy It's like I told the other guy, we are not entitled to that legacy content by right. We are not owed access to it. So yes, if the only legal way to play that game is digging up a 500 dollar 30 year old arcade cabinet, sorry, but that'S the only way to play it.

I would and have been arguing for years that companies are insane for not re-releasing older content in some fashion, especially now that it's so easy to throw thousands of games onto digital storefronts. But it can't be helped. Personally, I suspect the reason they don't do it is BECAUSE piracy is so common. I've seen plenty of people making comments like "Lol my SNES mini has every SNES game ever released!" and "Why bother with Virtual Console when you can just download 8,126,244 roms and throw them on your Raspberry Pi?" Companies probably know all about it and know they can't possibly compete with that.

@Ankhy186f Nope, sorry. In my family if we couldn't afford something, we didn't have it. That's how the world works. The only time I would sympathize with the "poverty" justification is if you are stealing to survive. You do not need video games to live. If you are poor and on the street and hungry and have to steal, I'm not gonna judge you for that. In fact, if you are struggling to that degree, I have nothing but sympathy for you and would try to help you. But if you're pirating games I sure as hell am gonna judge you. Because your actions and the actions of countless other pirates hurt the industry far more than help it.

Let me say this again, you are not entitled to, or owed access to video games by right.

@cryptologous I did seem to misunderstand you. For that I apologize. I think you make good points about streaming reducing piracy.

But your wrong about piracy not hurting content creators. Even if those creators are not directly earning money off of pirated content, - and pirated content is not limited to games no longer on store shelves (digital or physical) the "homebrew" scene is full of people pirating games still on store shelves - having easy access to pirated content discourages the sale of newer content. Plenty of people are perfectly willing to wait for newer games when they can get older ones for free. Why spend 60 dollars on the new Final Fantasy when you can buy this thing for 50 bucks and load it with the first 5 or 6 titles? Or just outright pirate that new FF title for free next year once someone cracks security on one of the versions.

Also it is such a shame that homebrew and piracy are so closely linked. Because there are a bunch of really talented people out there making homebrew that doesn't touch on piracy at all. But the two almost go hand in hand and "homebrew" has been thrown around as a cover word for piracy.

@Heavyarms55 I should probably clarify my point a little more as it is very specific to Nintendo, the topic at hand. Piracy will always exist, and is undoubtedly a problem. I don't think it hurts Nintendo and their creators in the slightest at the moment though. They expend so many resources trying to combat piracy, modding, fan projects, gaming tournaments, etc. Contrast that with the amount of money they'd most certainly made if they just made their old titles available to play on current consoles (and potentially even on Nintendo officiated emulators on PC as other companies have done so in the past) and dropped the witch hunting, and it seems the only way content creators are being hurt at Nintendo is by having budgets cut so the Nintendo police can send strikes to every Tom, Dick and Harry that wants to try a classic that no longer exists legally.

You can't stop piracy. You can, however, vastly mitigate its effect, and given how much effort Nintendo are putting into combatting it, I can't see any way they aren't having to spend a lot of money fighting fruitless battles that they could easily be recouping through retro sales and pumping into their development departments. If Nintendo were already making their retro titles available, had already opened up to the modding and home brew scenes, were fully on board with sponsoring tournaments (which thankfully they've begun doing in recent years), and were less inclined to shut down fan projects, instead finding ways to regulate IP restrictions (see: Cadence of Hyrule, something that's been an EXTRAORDINARY success), the amount they'd be pulling in would dramatically increase funding for their content creators.

All this is a huge disincentive for pirates. The risk associated with pirating a classic game series vs spending $20 for the first 5 FF games in a Nintendo official emulator devoid of potential viruses and legal ramifications is a massive deal. Modding communities can work on projects utilising official Nintendo game files. Tournaments don't have to be operated using ISOs ripped from the internet, attracting the ire of the dev team because there's no reason a 10+ year old game should cost any more than a few dollars.

Should all this become common practice, then I'd be inclined to agree with your sentiments. But Nintendo already operate with that mindset taken to its logical conclusion; iron fist stranglehold on anything Nintendo related that isn't being made by Nintendo. It wastes money through policing. It forces communities underground. It incentivises illegal practice. Valve has showcased the incredible financial gain from a loose approach and utilisation of sales. Nintendo won't go anywhere continuing on the warpath.

@Heavyarms55 while this video is more specifically about emulation, it addresses a lot of points from this conversation we've been having. Worth taking a look.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f35i5AVzpsg

@Heavyarms55 Digging up a $500 arcade board is more than most people can muster and even if I did that the original companies will not see a damn penny from it either so on their side nothing changes.
On our side, we get the games that shaped our childhoods and save 500 dollar to boot.
If say, both TMNT arcade games were sold in a bundle on steam for about €15 I would most likely buy them if the emulation was any good and it had some nice extras like on-line co-op.
These games are a part of our modern culture, like old musical pieces and books.
But they won't go public domain because there is still money to be made on it and sure we may not be entitled to playing the games, these companies are not entitled to our money over and over again either.

This is not piracy in the strictest form, because the games this supports are not available for sale anymore. No one is "losing" money because of it. The game companies already got their sale, so whatever happens 20 years later to the cartridge is irrelevant. If this was supporting Switch piracy, then we have a problem. Probably the compromise is BittBoy should pay a small licence fee for every sale. Of course, if Nintendo released their OWN console like BittBoy, and sold games dirt cheap from their eshop, BittBoy probably wouldn't exist, and Nintendo could even claim piracy if BittBoy did exist. Since Nintendo won't fill the market, others have. That's life!

@Crono1973 lol @ post #76 - that's all I wanted to say =)

I'm not even going to get into the piracy debate (again) but seriously @Blizzia - if you don't have any interest in replaying retro games, why are you even here discussing? There's obviously a huge audience for it, myself included. I have a huge retro collection, but that doesn't mean I always want to dig out my original system & carts to replay a game. Never mind the fact that devices similar to this one give you the option to play portably. If that doesn't interest you in anyway, clearly you aren't the target audience. That doesn't mean the audience doesn't exist.

@HalBailman It absolutely is piracy. It doesn't matter if it is the latest generation or not. And I'm not saying no one should pirate anything ever under any circumstances - I have several devices capable of playing roms, including several everdrives, modded consoles, etc... I have no moral issues playing roms of old games I've purchased. But let's not attempt to change the definition of piracy simply because it is convenient.

EDIT: To clarify, when I said "it" is piracy, I was referring to the act of loading roms. These devices themselves are not illegal, unless distributed with roms. Regardless of whether or not Nintendo releases a similar device, emulation has been tried and proven time and again to be legal.

@roadrunner343 I have an interest in reducing piracy as much as possible. Seems pretty relevant here.

I get that you might not wanna play it on the original system, but that's what it is available on. Play it on what its available on, or don't play it. That's my opinion.

I'm not saying there's not an audience for it. I'm saying that most people just buy one of these and pirate their games, and that the retro audience isn't super big, despite having a large vocal group.

If it was as big as people claim it is, surely we'd have had SNES games and more on Switch now.

Nintendo is a lovely company, but they're still a business. They gotta make the big bucks.

@Blizzia I have no issues with people wanting to reduce piracy. I also have no issues with your comment of "Play it what its available on" even if I don't have any personal qualms with play ROMs of games I own - which in many places, is also legal. Again, if you want to do that, I have no issues there.

What I do have issues with, is you repeatedly saying you have no interest in playing old games as if that somehow invalidates others who do. It should not come as a surprise that if you have no interest in playing old games, that it doesn't bother you that it is often difficult or impossible to do so legally.

Saying the retro market isn't big simply because we don't have SNES games on the Switch is nonsense as well and you know it. There have been countless successful examples of reproduction FPGA and emulation based systems. Nintendo also had a vibrant virtual console on Wii, Wii U, and 3DS as well. But I guess that's all moot since it doesn't currently exist on Switch? Retro gamers may be a vocal minority, but your reasoning for it does not back up that claim.

@60frames-please PC Engine I think it can although I haven't tried.

As for the GBA, the 3DS can play them natively I think. You just have to find some injected roms somewhere.

❗️I got one of these to replace my beloved 'Dingoo: A330' which sadly broke and I couldn't find a cheap enough replacement.

I needed something that could do Retro and CPS1 without having to spend too much.

I did have the SNES buttons put in but changed it around to:

🔴X
🟡Y 🟢A
🔵B