Powkiddy Y6 offers retro gaming in Chromecast-sized package

Powkiddy is known for producing affordable retro handheld consoles, but the company's latest product is designed as a "set and forget" retro console that plugs into your TV. 

The Powkiddy Y6 is a small TV stick (think Google's Chromecast or Amazon's Fire TV Stick) with an HDMI port on one end, a USB-A port on the other, and a USB-C port for power and microSD card slot on the side. The stick is 100 x 37 x 15 mm (3.9 x 1.5 x 0.6 in) and is meant to be plugged into the back of a TV, thus being tucked out of sight.

The Y6 includes two controllers that look like clones of Sony's DualShock 2 controllers (which sold with the PlayStation 2). The controllers are wireless and feature two analog sticks, four shoulder buttons, a directional pad, ABXY face buttons, and buttons on the front for Start, Select, and "Mode." 

The Y6 stick has an Amlogic S905X2 SoC with four ARM Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 1.8 GHz and a Mali-G32 MP2 GPU. This SoC is fairly common in low-cost Android TV boxes. The unit packs 1 GB of RAM and 8 GB of storage, although it ships with either a 64 128 GB microSD card. The Y6 supports microSD cards up to 256 GB. 

Powkiddy pre-installs EmuELEC 4.3 on the stick, which is a modified Linux distro designed for retro gaming on low-powered ARM chips like the Amlogic S905X2. As such, the Y6 is decidedly a retro gaming device. While it may be possible to load some third-party applications (or a web browser) on the stick, it likely won't be able to stream media from services like Netflix, Hulu, or YouTube out of the box. 

While Powkiddy claims the Y6 can play games released on the Nintendo Gamecube and Sega Dreamcast, it's unlikely to play anything but the simplest titles on these platforms. Based on reviews of similar devices, the Powkissy Y6 can likely handle anything from the Sony PlayStation 1 and prior, including the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), and Sega Genesis/Mega Drive. It may be able to handle 2D PlayStation Portable (PSP) games and less-demanding Nintendo 64 (N64) titles, but that's probably the limit of the stick's gaming prowess.

Like other Powkiddy devices, the Y6 is competitively priced. It's available on AliExpress for US$46.99, with two controllers included. 

Buy the Powkiddy RGB20S retro handheld console from Amazon.