Search for “handheld” on YouTube and you’ll get about a million results for handheld PCs like the Steam Deck, Game Boy mods, and Anbernic.
What the heck is Anbernic? Taki Udon or Wulff Den subscribers don’t need an introduction, but for the uninitiated, Anbernic is a company that specializes in pumping — seriously cranking out — handhelds capable of emulating old gaming systems. It took me about 7 minutes into a Wulff Den video before I purchased the Game Boy-esque RG35XX (in transparent purple, of course).
Anbernic’s newest handheld, the RG ARC, changes things up from the Game Boy aesthetic to a form factor that’s Sega Saturn-inspired. And you know what, even as somebody who preferred Super Mario over Sonic, I’m very here for it.
The handheld connoisseurs over at Retro Dodo have the lowdown on the RG ARC. Drawing cues from the Sega Saturn controller, the RG ARC has a horizontal form factor with six action buttons laid out in a 3 x 2 configuration, a D-pad, and shoulder buttons. Most important of all, its quad-core 64-bit chipset can run old-school games up to the Dreamcast! The DREAMCAST. The lack of an analog stick might make some 3D Dreamcast games impossible to play, but Marvel vs. Capcom 2? A breeze!
There are actually two versions of the RG ARC: the RG ARC-D (for Dual OS with Android 11 and Linux) and RG ARC-S (single OS with Linux only). Both have the same 4-inch IPS display, RK3566 quad-core 64-bit chipset, Bluetooth connectivity for wireless controllers, and HDMI output.
However, the ARC-D has a touchscreen whereas the ARC-S doesn’t. The touchscreen, along with Android, means the ARC-D can play Android games. The ARC-D also has twice as much LPDDR4 RAM (2GB vs. 1GB) and 32GB of eMMC internal storage and 16GB of storage via an included microSD card; the ARC-S only comes with a 16GB microSD card.
For some reason, Anbernic is limiting the fun transparent colors (black or blue) to the ARC-S. The ARC-D comes in ordinary black or light gray.
Price and release date
Anbernic is releasing the RG ARC via pre-sale at Anbernic’s website on November 9 starting at 5 a.m. ET / 2 a.m. ET. The RG ARC-S starts at $69.99 and the ARC-D at $89.99. The prices will incease by $8 to $77.99 and $97.99 after the pre-sale. Handhelds start shipping on November 20.
There’s also a new video of the RG ARC below:
