• expired

R36S Game Console 64GB US$17.92 (~A$27.91) Delivered (New Users Only) @ Factory Game Direct via AliExpress

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Apparently this is one of the trusted resellers, plenty of good reviews at the very least

As always, don't bother buying a bigger SD card, most would say to straight up turf the card you get either way as they're that bad a quality. In any case, don't pay more for their shit card.

I've got a couple of these. Anything you wanna know, shoot. For the price, this is a great little machine and an excellent stocking stuffer.

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Comments

  • +7

    Got this last time it was cheap. Great console, haven't had time to upgrade the sd card yet but having lots of fun. Now looking at playing half life 1 and 2 through portmaster, will see how it goes

    • +1

      That's awesome that you can run HL on a pocketable device now - guess i've got another playthrough coming up.

      • … and installed - seems to run pretty well, though I haven't hit any busy scenes yet.

    • +2

      Seeing Half-Life 2 and Portal recently definitely impressed me, though I don't know how well they'll run. Doom 3 running on mine was incredible…until it crashed every single time the first time you try to use an elevator. HL2 I can't imagine to be a joyful experience on here, but HL1 is definitely playble, as are a few of it's expansions. Some of the ports they've got over at Portmaster are incredible, GTA3/Vice City, Quake 3, and Serious Sam are highlights for me, run absolutely fantastic with zero compromize.

    • If you play for half an hour, do your hands hurt? I couldn't use my Nintendo DS much because it just hurt too much.

      • +1

        This is the same reason I don't bother looking at these mini devices myself. I got hand cramps using the joycons on a Switch, but I can play a PS5 for hours at a time, so I definitely need a larger device than the 2-4 inch mini devices.

        • I hear you. I think I gave myself RSI when I was younger playing games, then later in life World of Warcraft. The PS5 controller very comfortable, but man my PS3 controller is so much lighter.

          I've ordered an R36S anyway. If I don't like playing it I'll at least have fun setting it up.

          • +1

            @Loopholio: Spot on. It is the setup that is super enjoyable!

            • @boxall: I hear that. When I bought an R4 cart (before they were banned) for my Nintendo DS I enjoyed making it do things it wasn't intended for. Having access to every NDS game made didn't interest me. I mostly played Mario Cart online until it got too heavy to comfortly hold and use.

          • +1

            @Loopholio: For this reason I'm considering a Retroid 5, but then that device has the same SOC as the phone I'm using right now, so I might as well just get a controller grip for the device I have now.

            ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

  • +2

    Couple of questions: can I save game progress (i.e. can I save progress in a game like Sega's Alex Kid?). Also, where does one source the games for the SD card?

    • Yes you get the same features on the emulators. For most things it appears to use retroarch, and i have been able to save game states without issues

        • +1

          The default card comes with quite a few games. The rest can be found online. Look at www.fmhy.net for some guidance on roms and emulation.

          Also look at old deals for same console in here, and browse the comments as people point to some useful guides

        • +2

          And getting the games themselves?
          That we cant help.

        • Have a look at this comment otherwise Google/Google Reddit.

            • +2

              @Lizard Spock: There's also gonna be thousands of games on the included card that you can backup for yourself if downloading copying your legally owned carts that you totally legally own is too much effort.

              Everyone everywhere, here, Reddit, wherever, gets their comment removed when you link to such things, but Google the "Megathread" and whatever console you want, and you'll more than likely find everything you need, with no ads or viruses.

                • +6

                  @Lizard Spock: Legally, it's so stupid honestly. I can go to Cashies and I can pay 50 bucks for their overpriced copy of …actually I'll give you a real one from the other day, I could go to Cashies and pay 119 dollars for their sealed (platinum lmao) copy of Liberty City Stories on PSP, and then break out my ancient ass old PSP, and play it on there, and have not a penny go to anyone other than the guy at Cashies…or I could download it and play it on this thing, with a dual stick camera patch no less, and then there isn't some dude making 120 (!!!) bucks off selling your pre-owned game to boot.

                  If you won't sell your old games, don't complain when people pirate them. And also, since I said LCS specifically. Bought it on PS2 in the day, bought it on PSP, bought it again digitally to play on the Vita. Bought it as a PS2 classic on PS3. Bought it on Android when that version came out too. And then I went to fire it up on my RG556 the other week and they updated it, made me need to link a Rockstar account and send them proof of purchase (so I had to dig through my Google account until I found it almost 10 years ago fortunately) and then wait a day or two after emailing that to them for them to unlock the game on that ONE device (so (profanity) me if I want to play on my phone, I'd have to do it all again), absolute joke. Know what worked perfectly fine and didn't ask for more more more? When I threw the PS2 ROM onto the PS2 emulator on my Xbox.

                  Honestly get (profanity), you deserve to be pirated at that point. Sue me, I dare you.

                  • +1

                    @TheDukeOfNukem: Nobody messes with the Jesus Nukem!

                    • @Lizard Spock: Duke Nukem 3D runs great on this thing too.

                      I'm part of the problem though for downloading it illegally on here. I've genuinely lost count of how many things I've bought Duke 3D on, even got the (questionable in legality) Mega Drive cart. Think the only version I don't own is the PS1 version, I'm the third person, in the world, to 100% Duke Nukem 3D's PS3 trophy list. I'm definitely the problem. Own the goddamn 20th anniversary edition on Xbox, PSN, Switch, and Steam. I literally bought everything you sold. Even Bulletstorm's rerelease, on PS4, Xbox, and Switch again. No Steam this time though, guess you got me after all.

                      • @TheDukeOfNukem: And after all this time, name finally checks out!

                      • @TheDukeOfNukem: But have you purchased the evercade Duke carts? 😄

                      • @TheDukeOfNukem: I don't suppose you're like me and have a physical big box copy of all the Duke Nukem editions? Including the originals, 3D expansions like Duke Caribbean: Life's A Beach and all the unofficial expansions.

                • @Lizard Spock: I've ordered a model which includes a card before. The card itself is absolute trash. IIRC, it took over 10 hours to back the card up.

                  In other threads, I've seen that some of the roms may have issues or be modded. Best off to source them from somewhere else.

  • Hey op thanks for answering questions: how does this compare to RG35XX / Plus?

    • +5

      This is cheaper.

      • +3

        But lower quality.
        It's best value but for more premium device go up to an anbernic

        • At this price its almost a throwaway. I have a steam deck, but might just nab one

    • +1

      This is a clone of the old RG351.

      Being a knock off it’s not Anbernic quality. It’s okay but not Anbernic.

      • +1

        I got a RG35XX and it recently started to be weird. Many games i play have super weird colors like the game is corrupted. Im using Samsung sd cards which are fairly new. I checked in windows that the cards have no corruption. I dont think Anbernic is consider great quality to start.

    • +1

      RG35XX doesn't have joystick. Better quality though

    • +3

      The RG35XX has nicer build quality, the Anbernic badge of pride, video out, GarlicOS (if that's your thing), wireless controller hookups, and much more.

      The R36S is a shitload cheaper, plays more or less all the same games, and has two joysticks. Of the two, honestly, I'd go price and dual sticks, but to each their own.

  • Is this the one that can be used to connect to a tv via HDMI? Also, the price is showing as $23.37 USD? (not logged in, as a new user)

    • +1

      No video output for this one

      • Thank you for confirming

    • Some sites will say they have versions that offer video out, like Nzgm said, there's no video output. Anyone who says (or sells) otherwise, is lying.

  • Any games could support multiple players over wifi network?

    • I've seen people on the R36S Reddit achieve multiplayer through hooking a USB C to C cable between two of the consoles, but the device does not have inbuilt WiFi, so you'd have to buy a dongle, and then a second dongle for a second console, all just to test it, you might be able to, but I wouldn't buy this if that was what you were specifically looking to do.

      • alright. thx.
        was trying to find 2 dirt cheap consoles to play with my kid.
        maybe I've to stick with my Android devices.

        • +1

          I’ve heard you can do this on the Miyoo Mini Plus, I think it was mentioned in the Retro Games Corp review on YouTube.

  • +2

    Don't ask, just buy.

    Banger for the price.

  • +1

    Does this have retro games preloaded? I’m looking for one that has Sega Master System games already on there… don’t want to have to download anything on it, what would be my best option?

    • +1

      respectfully - learning how to do it. its very very easy. game+'rom' in google and you're off to the races

    • There's boatloads of pretty much every system but Master System on it. Google "Master System Megathread" (or whatever console you want) and you'll find your way.

      I'd explain less pretentiously, but every time someone does, they get their comments deleted. But trust, it's easy as pie.

    • If only there was some sort of… organisation that… archived such files…

  • -1

    Expired? I'm seeing $48.99.
    Must be a new accounts only thing.
    I see the deal price before signing in, but it more than doubles after signing in

    • +3

      In the title

      R36S Game Console 64GB US$17.92 (~A$27.91) Delivered (New Users Only) @ Factory Game Direct via AliExpress 👍

    • Create a new account to buy it.

      • Hey is there an easy way to create a new account without getting locked out?

        • I just used a different email address.

        • Type temp email in Google, it's a random email generator. Sign up using that email address you'll get a verification code in its inbox, bobs your uncle.

  • What is the battery life like on these?

    • Depends what games you're playing, if you wanna play Game Boy, you'll get shitloads of time. If you play higher up stuff like Quake 3 or Grand Theft Auto's native ports, you'll have a lot less, but still on the higher end of games I've played, I'd say it's fair to expect at least 3/4 hours out of a charge on full brightness and volume. I beat Vice City on a single charge last year with it (I used the carpark glitch to get infinite money but otherwise beat every mission) and it was still going strong. The battery indicator is a load of shit though, it'll say 100% for ages and it'll never really be that accurate unfortunately. It gives you a warning when it's getting low (15/20% and then every minute or two it'll say to plug it in)

  • Probably a stupid question but up to what console does it play games? Can it play N64 and PS1 games?

    • +2

      I've been playing symphony of the night recently so yes for PS1, and like 95% yes for n64 (people report it can lag a little, I haven't tried)

    • PS1 is pretty good. N64 struggles, some games are playable but many struggle. If N64 was the main reason for getting one I wouldn’t get this.

    • All PS1 runs fine at full speed, many (but not all) will also be full speed with enhanced textures turned on too which makes them look a LOT better, Tony Hawk looks honestly halfway to PS2 with it on.

      N64 is hit and miss. The unit includes a few different emulators and some run better than others. For example, I beat GoldenEye perfectly fine (on easy mind you, the controls are still shit lol) but there was a few missing textures on levels, using the default emulator. I'm currently a few levels into The World is Not Enough and it has a fair few texture issues on the default emulator so I swapped to Glide N64 or whatever it's called and it runs flawless full speed, no texture issues…but if I load GoldenEye on that emulator, the texture issues are gone but speed is significantly worse. For N64, if you can bothered messing around a bit, you'll find a lot of playable games, if you can't, you'll still find a fair few.

      Dreamcast and PSP are in a similar boat, though more reliable overall than N64 in my experience.

  • Had mine for ages and still running the card it came with no dramas.

    • It's hit and miss. My first one it worked fine for everything except GTA3 & VC, no matter what I did, both would crash when starting the actual game. Menu would load fine, but would crash when launching. Swapped to a new card and it was fine. My second one I tried to delete and then copy over my games the other day, ended up deleting other stuff and being weird as shit, presumedly didn't have the advertised capacity and was self deleting after 32GB, had other cheap cards do that, in either case, I flashed the OS onto it fresh and it's been going okay since but everyone says it's a time bomb. Hit and miss. I hope your's lasts forever, I know they're not much these days, but buying a memory card definitely drops a bit of the overall value and fun.

      • I just play old arcade games I used to play as a boy at timezone and I love it,

        • Hell yeah! I use the SF2000 for a lot of arcade stuff because many of them run much better than they have any right to, and feel great with the SNES dogbone style controller. Simpsons Arcade and X-Men vs Street Fighter, as well as OutRun, are my MAME go tos.

          • +1

            @TheDukeOfNukem: Outrun. What a game that was. We used to have a 3 hour lock in on a Friday at our Timezone. $10 for unlimited credits.
            That was heaven. Man I miss that shit.
            I could finish Double Dragon on one credit so would play everything else. Gauntlet was fun and SuperSprint.

            • @furiousgeorge: Bro, the Arcade 1UPs of Simpsons and OutRun bring me so much joy to look at. What I wouldn't give for them to do an OutRun 2 cab. That and Crazy Taxi, I'd be done, like, with life. Doesn't get any better.

              • @TheDukeOfNukem: Wonder Boy was my jam.
                Anyone want to sell me an original Wonder Boy cabinet now I can afford it? PM me. 😎

                • @furiousgeorge: I never got around to WB beyond a few hits in Sega rerelease compilations unfortunately. As a yougin' I had a "10000 in one" that was an N64 style controller that plugged into your TV with 4 AA batteries, and it had a Mega Drive controller you could plug in and a light gun. Despite the controllers, it was just a NES on a chip machine that had hundreds of games, not thousands, from the NES library.

                  Until I came into the internet era, that was what formed most of my classic console games experiences / things. I don't remember my first Sega stack. I remember playing Ultimate Flash Sonic in like 2005. I got the odd Sega / Sonic collection here and there on PS2 and PSP and that's where I picked up a fair few Sega classics for the first time. I got bits and bobs, found an original Game Boy in the hard rubbish once and started collecting around 15 years ago (long since sold them all :'( ), but I've never owned any Sega hardware outside of a Mega Drive rerererelease (to play Duke 3D's cart on mostly) and the aforementioned OutRun cab.

                  I'm not gonna ramble any longer, this is long enough without having any point yet. Point is, I started with Nintendo, but I probably prefer Sega for the classics. Nintendo has all time bangers like Mario, Donkey Kong, Excitebike, Balloon Fight, Kirby, PUNCH OUT!!! (lmao about yesterday, Mike), and so on. But Sega is no slouch with Sonic, Altered Beast, OutRun, Golden Axe, Streets of Rage (!!!), Vectorman and so on. Between the two, I probably have a bit more of a Sega lean, especially after the 16 bit era. (Ignoring the Saturn, soz Nights and Panzer), the Dreamcast was banger after banger for me. Crazy Taxi alone has more hours logged than literally anything Nintendo's done for me. Breath of the Wild is fine and all, but does it have the Offspring yelling at me about all they want? No? (profanity) off then.

  • Ultra dumb question… what games does this run? Do I download old SNES, Megadrive games or is this able to do PS1, PS2, N64 or later games?

    • +7

      Checkout this, PS1 and under but gives more of an explanation. This device is tier 1 in the article
      https://www.reddit.com/r/SBCGaming/s/ldnJF65Nhn

      • +1

        That's a great link. Thanks for sharing. Feels like a whole new world of gaming just opened up to me haha.

        • Haha yep. I got one of these to see how it all worked (was cheap so not too much risk) then jumped straight to a steam deck. It’s been great to play some of the old games I bought and never got round to playing originally.

          I think people end up buying cheap and then less cheap and less cheap again ending up with many devices they hardly use though…

          • @anthonyw: Ha! I sold one of these in part justify buying a Steam Deck.

            I've ended up buying two more of these handhelds - they're pretty good for when you want a more portable/pocketable device.

          • @anthonyw: I was hoping to get something under $50 (to put on my Christmas list) that can play PSP games but even if I can just play some Schmups like R-type and Gradius. Maybe some Final Fantasy and then also some Pokemon. That's incredible value for the price of a meal.

            • +2

              @Gamedeals: A lot of PSP games will run, many at full speed. Burnout, Family Guy, Super Stardust, Spider-Man 2, The Simpsons, they all run full speed awesome. More advanced stuff like Star Wars Battlefront 2, OutRun 2006, Spider-Man 3, they'll require frame skip but are still quite playable.

              I can't personally comment on those games (though if there's any in particular you wanna know about, I can download copy over my legally owned copy that of course I own legally tomorrow and see how they go.

  • of course I bought this for $42 last night lol

    • +1

      Cancel that shit, if it ain't shipped yet you should be right!

  • +1

    $5 tax added at checkout. Apparently that's 10% GST on $24.

    • Same here. $3.24 USD GST calculated.

    • Must be them tariffs he was going on about

  • +2

    Yay, I love me some pirated roms. Thanks op

  • Love mine, if I was working at the moment I'd buy a bunch of these for Christmas presents.

  • Any good guides for remapping the buttons on these? Got one for tony hawk but can't find the grind button

    • +2

      I've played literally every Tony Hawk this machine supports. Grind is triangle / Y / whatever your console of choice calls the top face button.

      The DS games are automapped to have the face buttons in the right position, as is the PS1 games, and the two PSP games. GBA is where it gets a bit weird so I'll assume that's what you're on.

      GBA THPS, jump is B, grind is A, grab tricks are R, flip tricks are L. For me personally, if you map grabs and flips to square and circle, grinds to triangle and jump to cross, the early GBA THPS in particular are excellent conversions. THPS2/3 with the normal face button setup is great. To access this menu, you have to press the top face button and the start button together (mine is an older version of the firmware, it may have been changed to the top face button and the middle button between start and select on your's if it's newer), and then from there you can navigate to controller settings. That's assuming you're still running with the default emulator.

      If you're working your way through the series, know the two PSP THPS games only let you use the dpad to walk around, and the stick controls the camera, there was no way to change that in game, but with the emulator, you can change it by clicking the right stick (default) in PPSSPP to bring up settings and then from there make a custom controller profile for the games that swaps joystick controls with dpad.

      Long story short, if PS1/GBA/ or the Dreamcast Tony Hawk's, press the top face button and the start button (or middle button between start and select) to bring up the emulator menus. If PSP Tony Hawk, press the right stick to bring up the menu. If DS, it's the left stick. All the emulators can have their buttons remapped to whatever you like.

      • Thanks, I was playing N64 ROMs of THPS 1-3. So the grind it the Y or triangle/up button - good to know.

        Must just be my bad technique, has been a few years!

        • +1

          God, sorry, I forgot N64, I barely play those versions (for reasons probably obvious) by default the buttons you're missing are on the right stick.

          So A is jump, Y (the left one) is kick flip…the right stick up is grind and the right stick right is grab tricks.

          If you map Ollie and flip tricks to the stick you can almost see what a Tony Hawk x Skate control scheme would have been.

          • @TheDukeOfNukem: Huh thanks. So what's the best version to play THPS on the R36S?

            I'd also like to play Driver 1& 2. Got the PS1 version of Driver 1 playing. Any tips for that game?

            Have you got GTA 1/2/3 Playing via ports or somehow?

            What's the most recent FIFA Game that plays well?

            • +1

              @asCMSas: PS1 all the way for me. When you turn on enhanced textures they look pretty comparable to the Dreamcast versions. The DC versions have awkward shadow texture issues at times and you could probably fix it with tweaks but PS1 runs fine out the gate, it's easier that way.

              Yeah, cheat your way past the carpark intro! Jokes aside I have Driver 2 on mine and it runs (as you'd expect) fantastic with default settings, and enhanced textures on. I can't stress enough how much better PS1 games look for turning on that one simple option.

              GTA1 on PS1, GTA2 the DC version is best. 3 and Vice City run through PortMaster. I'll PM you a link to get them running when I'm on my laptop later, if I send it directly they'll probably delete the comment (rightly so). They run fantastic. Chinatown Wars for PSP is also flawless full speed. You can play Vice and Liberty City Stories too but you'll need frameskip to make it playable, I'd stick with 3/VC. Bonus points if you check oit Car Jack Streets. It's a PSP minis game, runs full speed on default settings, it's a top down GTA2 style game from around 2010, some of the OG GTA people are behind it, including (I think) David Jones from the original original.

              FIFA 05 is the last classic one on PS1. FIFA 14 is the most modern one for PSP. There are romhack fan versions out there that mod newer team rosters into the FIFA 14 PSP game, but I've no personal experience with them so can't comment on the performance.

  • Been enjoying Mega Drive classics like Toejam & Earl and Alex Kidd. Great toy.

    • Mega Drive fortunately runs on pretty well everything, a lot better than SNES when it comes to emulation. You can get something a LOT cheaper than this for Mega Drive. The $5 GB300 I got like 6 months ago does a great job with Sonic and the sort.

      Where we're at with these emulator consoles in terms of capability and price never ceases to impress me. 7 or 8 years ago in my second TAFE course I bought a "Retro Mini" that had like a 1.5 inch screen to play GBA games and it played most of them full speed, that was 30/40 bucks and I was wrapped with that. The price / performance has blown up exponentially in the last few years, it's awesome.

  • Showing as Au 48.99. do I need to change my region settings or has this expired

    • +1

      Gotta be a new user, I just opened it in incognito and it's still 23.01 AUD + GST.

      • Thanks missed that

  • Cheers OP, finally pulled the trigger and bought 2 of these for my kids, using 2 diffetent google accounts. Hopefully will be good for some upcoming 4-5 hr car trips.

  • Got one in the last deal posted (https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/873191). Good fun, and great value.

  • I'm new user registered a few days ago for this deal why showing $54?

    • i think its new user = first purchase?

  • my last purchase on AliExpress was June of 2023 - still applied the New User price!
    Thanks OP!

  • Bought 3. Thanks op. Great stocking stuffer for the kids

    • Did you need to make 3 accounts to buy 3? Can't seem to get more than one in cart with the discount

  • Got another, thanks Op. My password safe is full of single use Aliexpress accounts!

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