It's the console equivalent of a musical groovebox. Selling the idea that you just need to buy this device and you can make music/games too! It'll be a lot harder but it'll be more "fun" because you're limited creatively.

That's an interesting take!

It would be neat if it was easier to broadcast the experience of playing the game to more folks like how playing back a song recorded from a groovebox doesn't require much more than a device with speakers than can play an audio file.

I have been making games for the PICO-8 since it came out. I actually learned how to program on an Amiga 500. I know why fantasy consoles exist.

Not trying to yuck in anyone's yum, just point out that yes this is great and so is the deck...

The total fantasy is the part where someone thought this keyboard would be useable, and called Amstrad like cursor keys "gamepad" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_CPC#/media/File:Schnei...

The "fantasy" part of this things is the price... For that price I can get a full computer/ chromebook that supports Linux, I wouldn't put more than 100 bucks on something like this when ALL it can do I can do it with Termux on an Android phone...

Absolutely true, but typing on a screen is a royal pain in many contexts. I like this design because it looks like a moderately rugged industrial computer that's not a clamshell and has a useful keyboard (I grew up with things like ZX Spectrums so this isn't the negative for me that it is for many others).

It is indeed quite limited, but I like terminal environments and (again) grew up with very constrained menu-driven software, so this is less of an toy than a very customizable tool; I'm not really interested in the game console emulation. One that can fit in a cargo pocket and is surprisingly affordable. The lack of a touchscreen or camera are pluses for me.