As I watch AYANEO's product sharing livestream to fill you all in on Pocket Advance news, a comment went by my screen that stopped me in my tracks. The YouTube translation picked it up because... well, I don't speak Chinese, but that said, I know what I saw, and it's going to please a lot of retro gaming handheld enthusiasts, and those who are thinking of picking up the ANBERNIC RG SP, you may want to wait a little while.
Arthur Zhang, the CEO of AYANEO, stated in today's livestream that they are indeed working on a GAME BOY Advance SP-inspired device, just like they're doing with the Pocket Advance, and it will likely also fall under the KONKR brand, which is their more "budget-friendly" sister brand in comparison to AYANEO's more premium lineup.
I'll admit, his words are all I have to go by, but it's nice to know that Arthur and co are seeing the popularity in clamshell, portable handhelds and will be addressing that themselves in the form of a new retro handheld. Their comment "haven't figured out how to do it yet" can mean a couple of things.
Either they haven't bothered looking at designing it yet, or they have, and they're coming across challenges such as the form factor, the shell design probably not pairing with a lot of higher chipsets that require cooling, or it comes down to creating a really sturdy hinge in this small form factor. Those are my guesses. It could be as simple as they can't source the RAM yet, like many other handheld manufacturers.
It's clear that AYANEO are more interested in the budget-premium handheld market, seeing as their Pocket Advance is slowly being teased into existence, and the Pocket Air Mini that originally launched at $99 sold like hot cakes. They know there's interest and a market, and I think they'll likely want the KONKR Pocket SP to hit that demographic perfectly, so no wonder they are working on it.
As of now, we just have to wait. AYANEO and KONKR are always launching handhelds, almost every few months, one is being launched, so I can expect to see more information on this before EOY. We'll keep you updated as usual via our free weekly newsletter!
