Turrican, Neo Geo, Home Computer Handhelds & the Future of Retro Gaming | Blaze Entertainment's Andrew Byatt & Sean Cleaver

But starting with the review of the year.

So you've had your sixth anniversary fairly recently, and it's been packed with announcements recently.

What's your assessment of the year so far, starting with you, Andrew? How do you characterize the year? I think it's been, again, one of our

biggest years yet, continue to grow, which is great.

I guess to say six years ago, we launched one handheld with 10 cartridges.

And now we've got this platforms ecosystem, and we've got over 700 games.

of kind of 80-odd cartridges.

And I think some of the biggest names in gaming history joining in year by year, so that's amazing.

I guess most pleased about delivering variety as well, keeping variety there for customers, because I think that's what really makes Evercade fun and fresh and different and exciting for people.

We've continued to expand arcade and home computer and our console libraries.

And as Sean was just intimating, we've got some really fun stuff on the way as well.

And we're not standing still on hardware either.

We've got the Nexus and other stuff arriving which is great but i think knowing that the community can see like a roadmap that goes forward which is really important for us so we know i mean it's funny you talk about we're gonna talk about 2026 today but all i'm thinking about is the end of 2027 at the moment because it's all it's all being worked on quite you know uh quite far in advance as you can imagine to get these deals done um but yeah getting getting that that that continued growth and um and showing people we've got this future of the platform and what's going to happen and it's exciting it's really uh been great and continues to happen this year

oh that sounds good and sean what about you maybe focusing a bit more on perhaps uh fan reaction and what what people what you're seeing people talking about on on the various forums and the feedback that you you see personally

yeah on the media side of things and the community side of things it's been really really fun to offer these teases of things that are happening and we've just released the rare super pocket which has banjo kazooie and we announced that in february and released that now and in between that we announced that banjo kazooie and banjo tooie is coming onto a cart So with a real recency bias, it's been really great to see the reaction to our port of Banjo-Kazooie and what we've been working on with Rare directly.

All of the cool little hidden extras that the communities out there, not just Evercade, but the Banjo-Kazooie community are beginning to find.

That's been really, really fun to sort of see, and it's making everybody really excited for later in the year when they can get both that and Banjo-Tooie on a physical cartridge.

Yeah, I think you surprised people, a few people, by how good that conversion has been.

I know Crazy Burger, who's been on the show a few times, he was effervescent in praise with the Super Pocket version.

Obviously, we haven't seen the cart yet.

So I think that's encouraging to see.

yeah

and that that's a sentiment that's

been echoed to me just come back from the us where people have played it uh seeing reviewers having a go at it uh seeing the community for both advocate and banjo saying we love how it runs this thing is such a surprise it being on a d-pad rather than an analog stick which was you know banjo kazooie's ancestral home for the kind of control scheme.

It's been so well received.

But starting with the review of the year.

So you've had your sixth anniversary fairly recently, and it's been packed with announcements recently.

What's your assessment of the year so far, starting with you, Andrew? How do you characterize the year? I think it's been, again, one of our

biggest years yet, continue to grow, which is great.

I guess to say six years ago, we launched one handheld with 10 cartridges.

And now we've got this platforms ecosystem, and we've got over 700 games.

of kind of 80-odd cartridges.

And I think some of the biggest names in gaming history joining in year by year, so that's amazing.

I guess most pleased about delivering variety as well, keeping variety there for customers, because I think that's what really makes Evercade fun and fresh and different and exciting for people.

We've continued to expand arcade and home computer and our console libraries.

And as Sean was just intimating, we've got some really fun stuff on the way as well.

And we're not standing still on hardware either.

We've got the Nexus and other stuff arriving which is great but i think knowing that the community can see like a roadmap that goes forward which is really important for us so we know i mean it's funny you talk about we're gonna talk about 2026 today but all i'm thinking about is the end of 2027 at the moment because it's all it's all being worked on quite you know uh quite far in advance as you can imagine to get these deals done um but yeah getting getting that that that continued growth and um and showing people we've got this future of the platform and what's going to happen and it's exciting it's really uh been great and continues to happen this year

oh that sounds good and sean what about you maybe focusing a bit more on perhaps uh fan reaction and what what people what you're seeing people talking about on on the various forums and the feedback that you you see personally

yeah on the media side of things and the community side of things it's been really really fun to offer these teases of things that are happening and we've just released the rare super pocket which has banjo kazooie and we announced that in february and released that now and in between that we announced that banjo kazooie and banjo tooie is coming onto a cart So with a real recency bias, it's been really great to see the reaction to our port of Banjo-Kazooie and what we've been working on with Rare directly.

All of the cool little hidden extras that the communities out there, not just Evercade, but the Banjo-Kazooie community are beginning to find.

That's been really, really fun to sort of see, and it's making everybody really excited for later in the year when they can get both that and Banjo-Tooie on a physical cartridge.

Yeah, I think you surprised people, a few people, by how good that conversion has been.

I know Crazy Burger, who's been on the show a few times, he was effervescent in praise with the Super Pocket version.

Obviously, we haven't seen the cart yet.

So I think that's encouraging to see.

yeah

and that that's a sentiment that's

been echoed to me just come back from the us where people have played it uh seeing reviewers having a go at it uh seeing the community for both advocate and banjo saying we love how it runs this thing is such a surprise it being on a d-pad rather than an analog stick which was you know banjo kazooie's ancestral home for the kind of control scheme.

It's been so well received.