While most gamers are looking forward to the release of the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X, some are looking for something a little more retro. The FunKey S is a huge hit on Kickstarter, and not only can it play a bunch of old-school games, but it's also small enough to fit on a keyring.
The concept began in 2017 when it was originally called Keymu and was just a prototype posted to YouTube. Similar to the tiny working SNES that a fan carved, the working, tiny, foldable console drew a lot of attention. Since the response to the prototype was overwhelming, the developer decided to try to get a team together to mass produce the tiny console.
The FunKey is "Ultra-compact, foldable, powerful and comfortable," and yet the world's smallest foldable console. This amazingly tiny console is 1.67 x 1.75 x 0.54 inches and has an ARM Cortex-A7 @ 1.2 GHz processor and 64 MB DDR2 RAM. It can hold 128GB of games from Gameboy, Gameboy Advance, the best and worst games from the PlayStation 1, Sega Genesis, and more.
While sales for regular consoles have gone down, sales for this tiny console have skyrocketed. The Kickstarter goal of $35,000USD was met and exceeded almost immediately, and is almost $170,000USD at the time of this article. And for about $73 USD plus shipping, retro gaming fans can grab one of these tiny FunKeys for themselves. Shipping is estimated to begin in November 2020, which is incredibly fast for a Kickstarter.
Although most old games won't get and don't need a remake, that doesn't mean that players shouldn't be able to play them with ease. And this tiny console is the perfect size to carry around everywhere, making old-school games even more fun and accessible.
While the keys and screen may be too small for some people's hands and eyes, this console is a cheap, portable, and easy way to relive childhood favorites like Pokemon, A Link to the Past, or even the original Final Fantasy 7. There are only three days left in this extremely popular Kickstarter, so gamers will have to be quick if they want to get one for themselves.
Source: Nintendo Life, Kickstarter