People love their retro consoles, with new ones seemingly coming out and finding a ready audience year after year. Anbernic is one of the companies really taking advantage of the undying thirst for retro gaming, selling a variety of gaming consoles designed to play all the classic games of yesteryear. Their latest, the Anbernic RG 34XX, is an unabashed take on the Nintendo Game Boy Advance that will, undoubtedly, find a willing audience as soon as it drops.
Like the outfit’s other gaming handhelds, the new console isn’t designed to take vintage game cartridges, so you don’t need to scour the thrift stores, swap meets, and Facebook Marketplace to collect dusty old games from yesteryear. Instead, it has an SD card slot you can use to load game ROMs like a proper one-eyed sailor, allowing you to play games from more than two dozen gaming systems that enjoyed their heydays over two decades ago..
The Anbernic RG 34XX faithfully takes on the likeness of the classic GBA handheld, reprising the 32-bit game console’s curvy shape and compact proportions. It has a bigger 3.4-inch IPS display with a 720 x 480 resolution, although it replicates the GBA’s 3:2 aspect ratio to ensure games from that console look as good as they did in Nintendo’s original device from 24 years ago. You also get the same control layout as found on the Advance, with a D-pad and action buttons on the right, although they expanded it to have four action buttons instead of two. They also added shoulder and trigger buttons to make it compatible with newer titles.
Based on the photos, it looks like they’re also releasing a version with an analog stick instead of two extra action buttons, although we’re not sure if that will go under a different model name. Either way, they’re equipping it to play far more than the GBA library, ensuring it can handle titles that require more control inputs than the original handheld.
The Anbernic RG 34XX runs an unspecified 64-bit Linux flavor, so you can use it with all sorts of emulators available in the open-source platform. According to the outfit, this allows the device to be compatible with not just the GBA, but over 30 retro game consoles, from really old systems like the Atari and NES to somewhat younger machines like the Sony Playstation and Sega Dreamcast. it comes with built-in Wi-Fi, by the way, with support for multiplayer gaming for supported titles and Moonlight, so you can stream AAA titles from your gaming desktop to the compact handheld.
A mini-HDMI slot allows you to hook it up to the TV for gaming on the big screen, while Bluetooth connectivity lets you pair it with Bluetooth controllers if you prefer gaming with your favorite gamepad. Other features include 32GB of built-in storage, two SD card slots (so you can load a heck of a lot of games), a USB-C slot, and a lanyard hole, so you can secure your GBA around your wrist like it’s 2001.
The Anbernic RG 34XX goes on sale starting December 16th, priced at $70.
