Hyperkin Reopens SupaBoy S Pre-Orders in Crimson and Prime

Hyperkin reopens pre-orders for the SupaBoy S portable SNES handheld in Crimson and Prime colorways at $129.99, letting players enjoy authentic physical cartridges on the go.

Hyperkin has opened pre-orders for the returning SupaBoy S, giving cartridge-owning SNES and Super Famicom players another portable route into their original libraries. The rereleased handheld is being offered in two new colour schemes, Crimson and Prime, at $129.99.

The SupaBoy concept has always occupied an appealingly literal corner of retro hardware: rather than asking players to dump cartridges, download ROMs or construct an emulation library, it effectively turns original SNES-compatible cartridges into handheld games. Hyperkin's SupaBoy family has existed in various forms for years, so this is an updated return rather than an entirely new hardware idea.

That also explains its appeal. The retro-handheld market is now crowded with inexpensive Linux and Android machines capable of impersonating dozens of systems, but there remains something wonderfully tactile about taking an enormous grey cartridge from the 1990s and physically plugging it into a portable machine. It is less elegant than scrolling through a menu and considerably more likely to make airport security curious, but authenticity has rarely been about convenience.

Pre-orders opening today move the refreshed SupaBoy S from announcement territory toward something collectors can actually reserve. For anybody with a shelf of SNES carts wondering why they cannot accompany them to the sofa, Hyperkin once again has a particularly chunky answer.