by Doc – Owner, Founder, Wants Smell-O-Vision On the Next Anbernic Handheld
I have a special connection with the 3DSes I had as a teenager, and even though their buttons no longer work after years of storage nor do they have their save data any longer, I can’t help but smile when I see a Nintendo 3DS. God, what a fantastic lil’ product it was.
Anbernic has made a killing off of copying the form factor of Nintendo handhelds, improving them with an analog stick, building it with a stripped-down Android phone platform (without normal phone functionality like SIM cards) and producing color variants just like how Nintendo used to do. Everybody knows that these exist specifically to be emulator boxes for adult gamers with money, there’s no question about that. They’re too identical to the classic Nintendo form factors to be anything otherwise. Take a look at these:
Yeah, they remade the entire Game Boy Advance line, as well as the OG Game Boy, and Nintendo DS Lite models as well. Obviously this isn’t a “remake”, it’s best described as a “mimic” or “clone” or something that suggests it’s not close to a 1:1 copy, but let’s be real… we know what we’re looking at.
And man does this gimmick seem to be selling good. The AYN Thor (not an Anbernic product, but an even more popular handheld) spawned several cottage industries of Thor accessories last year when it launched with many Etsy stores selling custom grips, cases and joysticks by the thousand, and still wasn’t able to keep up with demand. If some rando is selling a thousand joystick caps, how many millions of people bought a Thor?
Anbernic is wondering the same thing. The Thor was pretty clearly meant to mimic the 3DS, but with a second joystick on the right (instead of the pencil nub-esque New 3DS stick) and a crisp, quality screen. 3DS emulators seem to be the most popular search for Thor-related queries in my own anecdotal experience, too. The Thor’s a 3DS, just without 3D, and that’s its market.
It looks to me like Anbernic wants their own 3DS equivalent, hence the name “DDS”. Subtle. Well, I already have a Thor, so unless it comes with stereoscopic 3D or something close enough that the 3DS emulators can work with it, I’m not interested. Still though, if I didn’t have a Thor, and I wasn’t going to pay $500 for one, that ~$300 price tag looks pretty good. I’m not putting that kind of money down though!
Yet.
But I’ll definitely stay tuned.
