Less than 24 hours after learning that AYN would be raising prices on both the Thor and Odin 3, while basically putting the Odin 3 Ultra on ice, more grim news was revealed. Retroid confirmed that “the RP6 12GB model will have to be discontinued.” Adding insult to injury, it was also announced that the 8GB Retroid Pocket 6 will see a $15 price increase starting on Monday, March 2.
As you probably could have guessed, the reasoning behind Retroid’s decision is the same as AYN: “ongoing shortages and sharply rising costs for both RAM and storage.” However, on the bright side, Retroid confirms that “all existing 12GB orders that have not yet shipped will remain unaffected.” So at least some of you out there should be able to breathe a sigh of relief.
While there’s about a week of a buffer before AYN’s price changes take effect, and two days before Retroid’s, there’s no such luck for the 12GB Retroid Pocket 6 model. After learning of the news, I tried to see if I could snag a silver model, only to see that both the D-pad top and Stick top variants are already listed as “Sold Out.”
To make matters even more frustrating than they already are, it would appear that the scalpers have already surfaced. When scrolling through just the first page of results, I thought seeing a listing for $459 was bad enough, but even further down, I came across another one with a Buy It Now price of $599.
For reference, that’s more than the cost of the AYN Odin 3 Max, which is still priced at $449 over at the AYN website. With that, you get a vastly more powerful handheld thanks to the Snapdragon 8 Elite, which is paired with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. All of that is to say, please don’t spend that much on a Retroid Pocket 6, especially when better handhelds are available for less.
