Hyperkin has just re-announced its Retron Jr. console that will play Gameboy, Gameboy Color, and Gameboy Advance titles. The console comes in a tiny cube-shaped form factor and sports the traditional Hyperkin look. On the front of the device are two large buttons for Power and Reset and a USB port to attach controllers. The Retron Jr. is expected to ship with Hyperkin’s wireless SNES style Scout controller. Other ports on the Retron Jr. will include a 3.5 mm headphone jack, power port, and a link cable port which I can only assume means you can connect multiple systems together.
The Retron Jr. is confirmed to run off of emulation rather than the FPGA approach of the Analogue Pocket. This will result in a much lower cost unit but there will be chances that compatibility issues with some titles may arise. Thankfully GB(A) emulation isn’t particularly taxing so this very well could be a good way to get your handheld library onto a modern display with ease! Output resolution will be set to 720P which should upscale nicely on a more modern 4K screen.
It will be interesting to see just how well the Retron Jr. performs upon release. Depending on the price I could potentially see myself picking one up to put in the living room. What do you all think of the Retron Jr.?
