On a Reddit post over on r/ayaneo, Arthur Zhang, the CEO of AYANEO, has responded to the recent concerns expressed by the retro handheld community with promises and detailed plans for the company to improve in 2026.
The Response
On a post in the AYANEO Discord, AYANEO’s initial response to the criticisms of their business practices was to shine a bit of a negative light on the creators and community members who criticized them, stating that they believed these individuals were “acting in bad faith” and had “chosen to position themselves on a moral high ground to judge or publicly shame us”. This, understandably, rubbed some people the wrong way, and didn’t help to resolve the frustration that many individuals were still feeling.
AYANEO Initial Criticism
The Promise
In a bit of a surprising turnaround, Arthur Zhang chose to publicly respond to these criticisms head-on, with promises of improvements and changes regarding international customers starting in 2026. The main issues that AYANEO wanted to address were:
- The responsiveness of customer support
- The speed and quality of after-sales service
- The shipping timelines and fulfillment order of crowdfunding projects
In an effort to resolve the issues above, AYANEO is launching a 2026 Service Improvement Plan. While you can read the full plan in detail below, the changes that AYANEO are trying to implement can be summarized here:
- Expand and better train their customer support team to more deftly handle current and future customer emails and inquiries
- Creation of a dedicated email group (he**@****eo.com)Â to handle unresolved legacy cases, including clearing out any accumulated emails within the next 7-10 business days
- Improve the after-sales experience by improving their replacement policy and compensation process for repairs, returns, and warranties
- Improving product quality control by adding more critical inspection checkpoints, strengthening collaboration with their supply chain, and conducting regular audits
- Move more products to be sold on their official website in in-stock or pre-order form
- When launching on crowdfunding platforms, provide more frequent and transparent updates and more strictly control delivery timelines to reduce delays
- Suspension of planned releases like the AYANEO Pocket Play until existing issues have been resolved
- Trial global simultaneous releases and fairer inventory allocation to reduce instances of inventory making it into the hands of non-backers before fulfillment
- Arthur has promised to become more personally involved in Discord, Reddit, YouTube, and other overseas communities to improve communication and accountability
AYANEO 2026 Improvement Plans
Moving Forward
The adage “I’ll believe it when I see it” exists for a reason, but AYANEO taking the time to respond to these criticisms with detailed and well explained plans for improvement is a great first step. This is a prime example to those in the retro handheld community to see that our opinions matter, our voices are heard, and we can encourage change in those who make and sell these retro emulation devices we love so much.
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I think these changes are definitely for the best. Glad to see them taking the criticism seriously
You said it. “I’ll believe it when I see it” is exactly what comes to mind reading this.
They responded how I expected them to respond for damage control. Whether anything changes (for the better) remains to be seen…
not to lie im still a bit angry at the first post blaming customers and consumers on the shortage and issues. however i do understand that they seem to be trying to improve , but “ill belive it when i see it”
The whole reddit post has this, “ChatGPT write me an apology letter to fans of ayaneo while shouldering some of the blame” feel to it. I can’t quite put my finger on what, but it feels completely disingenuous.
The response is all fine and good, but personally, I will never crowd fund their projects, I’ll just wait for devices to be available to direct order, or not at all.
The thing is… there are other great choice companies to buy handhelds from. If AYANeo want to truly compete for our coin, he have to deliver at LEAST as well as the competition, if not even more to win us back.
Never backing these days. They shouldn’t even be crowd funding at this stage to begin with. Even though that gaming phone they announced appears to have potential it’s still a hard pass. Nothing will improve while they continue to spit out model after model in quick succession. They need to work on a different revenue model.
Not to mention, ayaneo 3 windows handheld, costing over $1000 is also there, so! But Big pass on the phone thingy! But they do themselves. Being too cocky gets you nowhere, they sure seems to not learn it, yet! But “I’ll believe it when I see it”!
a promise for future behavior is good but it does not make me feel as though they have addressed me and my concerns or offered me anything except this promise for future behavior… that’s why it feels bad, cause it is bad…