A600GS Amiga box secrets revealed

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I think we’ve now settled into a pattern, so I’m pleased to bring you the latest retro gaming news below. At the weekend I’ll be back with some more retro reviews, unboxing, and maybe some more news.

Table of Contents

• A600GS internals revealed in tear down video

• 30% off Arcade1Up STAR WARS ARCADE MACHINE

• PCSX2 version 2 - the end of physical PS2s?

• Retro gaming news in brief

• Best video of the week

• Game Over

A600GS internals revealed in tear down video

Amongst the endless Atari re-releases and Evercade repackage/reissues, one impending release has kept me intrigued over the past few months: AmigaKit’s A600GS.

Boasting dual D-sub ports and apparently packaged with a ton of software, I had really high hopes for this box. It appeared to be a productivity-focused alternative to THEA500 Mini, which is essentially just a games machine.

But viewing Toohey's Tech & Gaming teardown video, a surprise has been delivered, and I’m not currently sure how I’m taking it. While I didn’t expect original hardware, I was kind of expecting something a bit more than an Orange Pi Zero 3 inside!

But the host board is pretty impressive, supporting the D-sub, and a couple of other ports. There is also a mysterious pin array, which looks like it can support some form of upgrade, or perhaps a different board? Details of that are currently unavailable.

I will reserve judgement on the A600GS until I get hold of one myself. But, I will say this: I’d have preferred a board with eMMC rather than microSD.

30% off Arcade1Up STAR WARS ARCADE MACHINE

Amazon has a bunch of Prime Day offers this week, and the retro gaming gear isn’t excluded. Arcade1Up has a host of big discounts, but this is the one that caught my eye.

The reissue of the classic Star Wars arcade game is currently discounted by 30%. That means you can now buy it on Amazon for £487, far less than its usual £699.99 retail price.

PCSX2 version 2 - the end of physical PS2s?

I’m a big fan of original hardware for the most part, although I’m more than happy to rely on DOSBox over the high costs of running an old PC.

Not so long ago, my brother-in-law acquired a working PlayStation 2 from a house clearance job, and passed it on for a small fee. Having never owned a PlayStation of any vintage, this was pretty exciting, and the device was found in surprisingly good condition.

However, according to Paul McNally, perhaps I shouldn’t have bothered. He offers a strong argument in favour of using emulation instead of a physical PS2. The new version of PCSX2 has a ton of impressive improvements, not least 4K texture packs for classic games.

Now, this is clearly pretty amazing, but it raises interesting questions. Where does upgrading classic games end? Don’t we play old games in part because we don’t mind - or actually quite like - retro graphics. I can’t imagine playing a 4K version of Turrican, for example.

Or The Hobbit.

Yes, I’m being flippant, and I expect these things will establish or fail, depending on how they’re received. Being able to run classic games on 4K displays is one thing, but perhaps it’s better to seek out displays as close to those that games were designed for as possible.

Check PCSX2’s latest update on the project’s website.

Retro gaming news in brief

Enjoy retro gaming news? Here is some further reading.

• GameCube games get achievements thanks to new Dolphin emulator update

• This article about graphics effects in the first two Duke Nukem games is worth a read.

• An FPGA core for Dreamcast has been unveiled

• A Kickstarter for a new 16-bit style point-and-click adventure called Heir of the Dog was fully funded in just two hours!

Best video of the week

I prefer to keep this section for useful guides and documentaries, but the prospect of a Karate Kid/Cobra Kai beat-em-up was too much to ignore.

It’s not strictly retro, I know, but I think it is going to be a lot of fun when it comes out on the Xbox, PS5/PS4, Nintendo Switch, and Steam in September 2024!

Game Over

That’s all from this edition of RetroGamerBase. Thanks for sticking with me for another week. We’re currently at over 100 subscribers, which I couldn’t do without you sharing the previous editions.

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Until next time, take it easy…