Time really flies when you’re having “fun” eh? August 10th, 2020 saw the great creation of Retroid Handhelds, and now, six years later, Retro Handhelds is celebrating its next birthday as well as its plot to take over the world, or as Stubbs would say, “Pass 100,000 Subscribers”. But if you’re not aware, we couldn’t do it on our own, and throughout the last six years we’ve had a lot of support and talk with the friends we made along the way.
From RetroGameCorps, who’s also celebrating his 6th anniversary (congrats Russ!), to Rob the Retro Tech Dad, Mike from TeamRetrogue, and everyone else along the way who’s helped us along the way across the Website, Discord, and YouTube channel. With a special nod to Producer Sony, who’s been helping plenty behind the scenes and even more recently.
Unlike last year, when Retro Handhelds Turns 5 came out, and I helped dish the entire history of the channel out, I’m just going to recommend you go back and check it out yourself. From the podcast timeline, to the Youtube Channel, and all the way through how much the website has evolved, there’s was a lot to cover last year and I don’t think I could do it any better this time around. So I just want to touch on the big things from 2026.
The YouTube Channel
Since August of 2025, RH has gotten a more colorful facelift for the year, and has pushed up from 78,000 all the way up to 95,000 subscribers. So to the 17,000 people that dropped in over the last year to check things out; thank you. As well as that, Zu has been going outside a lot more too, as his grassy outdoor thumbnails have only gotten more appealing in the last year. And that’s likely thanks to the robotic lawnmower he picked up along the way.
For those that love it, the Podcast is just as fun as its always been. Getting the new colorful facelift along the way, and bringing in some new faces, and some old ones returning as well. This year we introduced “RH After Dark”, a Thursday night podcast for Stubbs to pull just about any bullshit he could along the way, and to have even more fun with Rob when the sun goes down.
The Website(s)
And I can’t get through another year without thanking Andrew for the ridiculous amount of work he’s put into the Retro Handhelds website this year despite everything else going on around us. If you checked out last years article, you’d have seen a major shift in design language for the website over the last few years, but things went a step forward this time around with, what I think is the best design yet.
And that wasn’t even everything. With who knows how many hours and sleepless nights. We got handheld.deals and handhelds.wtf to help round out everything we have to offer. Getting you numbers, firmware links, and more. This may be why he’s always so grumpy on stream. Man just hasn’t gotten enough sleep in the last two years. Genuinely though, thanks to Andrew’s help, a lot of improvements to RH as a whole have been made and no matter how many times he quits, he always comes right back around.
But that’s the major updates for you from 2026! It’s been almost three years since I put out my first review on the Powkiddy RGB30, and I don’t plan to stop anytime soon. If there’s any messages from the team, you’ll be able to find them here, but from the bottom of my heart, and from everyone else at Retro Handhelds, I just wanted to say thank you for tuning in, for reading, for commenting, and for dropping into the Discord where you could yell at Stubbs, Zu, Rapid, Andrew, Nick, Joe, Kalkeg, or especially me for some reason.
I look forwards to continuing my time writing for everyone here, putting out the podcast with everyone, and seeing Zu talk more about the RG477M for who knows how long. It’s been a genuine pleasure, even with all of the screaming. Have a great day, week, month, and year.
Here’s to 6 more years of RH. Hopefully more.
