A few years ago, the idea of retro gear like TheA500 Mini and the Evercade even existing was far-fetched.
But in 2023, both have been nominated for gongs at the MCV awards!
While both (alongside the Playdate) were beaten by Valve’s Steam Deck (itself capable of some considerable retro magic), it’s testament how the mood towards retro gaming has evolved since the mid 2010s. We’re literally spoiled for choice!
Here’s a look at how it turned out, courtesy of the Retro Games Ltd Facebook page:
The nominations in the Hardware Innovation of the Year category were:
- Evercade EXP (Blaze Entertainment)
- Playdate (Panic Inc)
- Razer Blade 15 2022 (Razer)
- Split Pad Compact (Hori)
- Steam Deck (Valve)
- TheA500 Mini (Retro Games Ltd)
- VelocityOne Flight (Turtle Beach)
It’s quite a tough group, to be honest. While an independent observer might consider the flexibility of the Evercade EXP or the handcrank madness of the Playdate as sure fire winners, the Razer Blade 15 2022 is an astonishing computer. TheA500 Mini is great, but doesn’t do much new that TheC64 Mini or Nintendo’s earlier NES Mini did. Meanwhile, the Hori Split Pad Compact and VelocityOne Flight considerably improve gaming, but don’t really revolutionize anything.
That only leaves the Steam Deck.
To be fair, the Steam Deck is a remarkable piece of hardware. To award the prize to another device, retro or otherwise, would have been wrong.
Of course, we could be completely wrong about this: which device would you have liked to see the MCV Hardware Innovation of the Year award?
[yop_poll id=”1″]
Meanwhile, in a post highlighting the current challenges in getting some new retro gear released, Retro Games Ltd thanks fans.
“On that note big thanks for the love shown to us last night over THEA500 mini not winning the hardware award, while a few people where comparing it to an election result, for our part we think we should commit further to doing what we have been doing already…”
Here’s that post in full:
“So.. small round up of where we are at the end of this week
The next release reveal…
We are slightly behind where we hoped we would be but to get us back on track one of the team is flying out from the UK to China (in a weeks time) for a week to make sure what we are doing is just right.
We always try to give you guys the very best quality product we can, so hopefully you can appreciate we want to make sure this continues product after product, and appreciate the delay in the announcement to you based on this.
Since the pandemic etc getting a visa for China has become a slightly longer process and our team member had to go to a visa agency in London yesterday to speed up the process, and to give you an insight on how much we do, let alone spend maintaining the quality levels, while it would be inappropriate to name them, in the visa queue in front of our guy was one of the worlds most famous British ex football players!
So more news asap we can, also we are considering actually revealing to you all, the timeline for multiple products.. would you like us to do that??
On that note big thanks for the love shown to us last night over THEA500 mini not winning the hardware award, while a few people where comparing it to an election result, for our part we think we should commit further to doing what we have been doing already…
MAKING RETRO GREAT AGAIN!!
That’s our goal!
So as ever thanks to you all and keep watching! #MRGA“
New retro devices are always welcome. Perhaps MCV could add a retro gaming hardware section for next year…?
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