ANBERNIC’s square handheld looks almost ideal for retro gaming

ANBERNIC officially took the wraps off its Android-powered RG Rotate handheld a couple of weeks ago, with a reveal trailer that showed the hardware from all angles. Today, the company released a demo video showing off some of the handheld’s features, plus a bunch of classic games it can emulate.

The majority of the video is dedicated to the RG Rotate running games from various different consoles — ANBERNIC says the handheld supports emulators for GameCube, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation 1 and 2, and many more, as well as native Android games. It also shows the handheld streaming gameplay from a PC and wirelessly streaming its own gameplay to a TV.

With a directional pad, four face buttons, and four shoulder buttons, the square-screened ANBERNIC RG Rotate looks great for playing 2D classics, though the handheld’s lack of joysticks will be an issue when it comes to playing many popular games from the past 25 years or so (including a handful of the ones ANBERNIC highlights in the video). You’ll also be able to “Cast to TV wirelessly” and connect a Bluetooth controller, though, for a more console-like experience.

You can also stream bigger games from your PC to the RG Rotate’s display, though footage of Cuphead played simultaneously on a PC monitor and the Rotate’s display seems to show a couple of frames’ worth of latency. There’s even wireless multiplayer, depending on which emulators and games you’re running.

ANBERNIC’s still not sharing when we can expect to get our hands on the RG Rotate or how much it’ll cost. Given how much of the handheld the company’s been showing off lately, official pricing and availability info can’t be too far off.