Blaze's latest cartridge-running machine, the Evercade Nexus, officially launches today. It's a retro handheld that's been years in the making, building on the company's formula that made the OG portable, the Super Pocket, and even arcade cabinets like the Evercade Alpha, which absolutely won't fit in your pocket. That might sound like a gadget brings nothing new to the table, but actually, it could become a precedent for keeping physical gaming alive.

Those of you who want to cut to the retro console chase can grab the Evercade Nexus for $199.99 at Amazon. My one-liner as someone who's spent hours with the handheld so far is that it's a fantastic offline solution for playing well over 700 games, and the fact that it comes with both Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie is a selling point in its own right.

If I know my readers, though, you'll want to know exactly what the deal with the Evercade Nexus is and whether it holds up against the many Linux and Android alternatives out there. It might surprise you to hear that the latter is no - it doesn't - but that's because the latter is a trick question that distracts from the fact that this is a fully fledged console platform that runs its own library of physical cartridges, including native ports, and has zero reliance on the internet in the big 2026, and that's worth supporting.

I could easily split the players who are most likely to vibe with the Evercade Nexus into three camps.

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