The newest addition to Anbernic's line of retro gaming handhelds is the RG-ARC which bears a form factor akin to the Sega Saturn controller. The company has announced that the device, which is currently under pre-orders, will ship this November 20th.

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It's worth noting that there are two variants of the RG-ARC: the single, Linux-based OS RG ARC-S which starts at $70 and the dual Android and Linux OS RG ARC-D which starts at $90. Both models pack the same RK3566 chip and form factor but differs in that the RG ARC-D has a touchscreen and 2GB RAM while the RG ARC-S has no touchscreen and only 1GB of RAM. More details about the differences between the models can be found on the official product page.

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[Citizen_404]

How good is Saturn emulation at this point using the chip they are using?

I have a Powkiddy X55, which has the same chipset...with JELOS, and Yaba Sanshiro it runs the 2 Saturn games I want to play at full speed, I haven't tried upscaling anything.

The real question is, as somebody who owned 2 Saturn's back in the day...what Saturn games do people want to emulate, anyway? I have about 2, but otherwise, I have zero nostalgia for the system.

This looks more like a solution searching for a problem. Maybe if you wanted to emulate a certain game, and needed the 6-button set-up, then, ok, but I would suspect most people would be better off using a different handheld and an external gamepad.

 

[CrakrHakr666]

I just ordered one. I've been waiting so long for a device with 6 face buttons. Only thing that would make it better is at least a left analog for dreamcast games, but dual analog would make this the perfect device. I hope this form factor takes off so I can hope for analog and a better processor in the future.

 

[FateForWindows]

Not normally a fan of these kinds of retro handhelds - more interested in hardware emulation devices or proper clones - but even knowing this thing's limitations and considering how the size would limit its portability, the six buttons, aesthetic and, ironically, lack of analog sticks actually make this look pretty enticing for me.

...Though if they were to make a more powerful model, I'd at least rather have one stick for the N64 and Dreamcast library.

 

[urbanman2004]

I bought this for like $10 and I'm happy with it, I ain't buying any other retro handheld as this is just to play here and there.



All these handhelds do feel kinda pointless.

I bought myself an RG35XX this past May on sale for $45 from Temu and although I intend purpose it for the same use case, I took it out of the box and still have yet to set it up, smfh. Not that motivated since I have other devices around my house that are more readily available that can perform the same functionality. Damn, I'm so fucking lazy, lol...

 

[CrakrHakr666]

Not normally a fan of these kinds of retro handhelds - more interested in hardware emulation devices or proper clones - but even knowing this thing's limitations and considering how the size would limit its portability, the six buttons, aesthetic and, ironically, lack of analog sticks actually make this look pretty enticing for me.

...Though if they were to make a more powerful model, I'd at least rather have one stick for the N64 and Dreamcast library.

I do plan on investigating if there are signs of future analog sticks by looking at the pcb. Sometimes partial plans for future updates are hinted at by layouts. If the pads are there, I may try to mod one on just for that.