A US start-up has launched a portable gaming device with a unique smartwatch design. The Retro Gaming Watch is a gaming wearable just like a mini Game Boy SP. You can wear the Retro Gaming Watch on your wrist and flip it open to play retro games. The developer of the Retro Gaming Watch – Jason Rogers is raising money for the device via a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign.

Features

The Retro Gaming Watch is a tiny game console that can be worn on the wrist and used as a watch when not playing games. The watch screen of the Retro Gaming Watch can be flipped to reveal a mini game console. It also features hardware and software for the emulation of classic games. The early bird rewards for the Kickstarter campaign start at $159 while the top backers will get their devices by November 2024.

It is noted that the Retro Gaming Watch is not meant to play games while it is on your wrist. Rather it is to be played when off the wrist and it is placed on a wrist strap for use as a watch. There is a small display for basic watch functions as well as a 1.54-inch 320 x 320 pixels internal LCD with a 60Hz refresh rate. The 1.54-inch LCD is for gaming purposes. Four action buttons are present in the Retro Gaming Watch in addition to a D-Pad, a magnetometer, an accelerometer, and a single speaker.

The Retro Gaming Watch is equipped with a Renesas/ Dialog DA14706 chip with a 160MHz application processor and two ARM Cortex-MD processors for sensors and Bluetooth. The gaming console also features a 2D GPU, 1.5MB of internal memory, and 8MB of external QSPI RAM. The device also comes equipped with an Efinix T20 FPGA to create custom video game hardware with custom cores to emulate popular 8- and 16-bit game consoles. The Retro Gaming Watch is therefore well-suited for playing emulated classic games with its FPGA handling the bulk of processor tasks.

The developer claims that the Retro Gaming Watch can offer up to two days of battery life when used as a smartwatch but 2-4 hours of playtime for 2D games.

Pricing & Availability

The Kickstarter campaign will determine the further trajectory of the Retro Gaming Watch. If sufficient funding is raised from Kickstarter, then the Retro Gaming Watch will probably have a machined steel body. Otherwise, 500+ pledges will translate to an injection-molded plastic body for the console. Beta testing options are also open for a $350 pledge and a March 2024 delivery of the watch.

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