We mentioned back at the start of the year about how Xbox had begun licensing games for physical cartridges in 2025, and that more were planned in 2026 - and it turns out that two massive Xbox franchises are getting the treatment.
As you may have seen over at Time Extension yesterday, it's been announced that Banjo-Kazooie is taking the spotlight as part of a new Super Pocket handheld console developed by Evercade and Blaze Entertainment. The Super Pocket range is designed to provide an ultra-portable experience at a bargain price (£49.99 / $69.99), with the Rare Super Pocket featuring 14 games in all, including the aforementioned first Banjo game.
Here's the list of games for that device:
- Banjo-Kazooie (64-bit console)
- Conker’s Pocket Tales (8-bit handheld console)
- Battletoads in Battlemaniacs (16-bit console)
- Battletoads (8-bit console)
- Cobra Triangle (8-bit console)
- R.C. Pro-AM II (8-bit console)
- Slalom (8-bit console)
- Snake Rattle ‘n’ Roll (8-bit console)
- Solar Jetman: Hunt for the Golden Warpship (8-bit console)
- Atic Atac (home computer)
- Jetpac (home computer)
- Lunar Jetman (home computer)
- Knight Lore (home computer)
- Gunfright (home computer)
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The big appeal of Evercade is that you can expand each of the devices, including the handhelds, home console and the Alpha bartop arcade, by purchasing new cartridges that slot into each system. And so, even if you buy the Rare Super Pocket, you might also be interested to know that DOOM is getting an Evercade cartridge very soon!
Details on the DOOM cartridge are still under wraps right now, but it's been officially teased already:
As if that wasn't enough, we've also got the Activision Collection 2 arriving very soon, featuring loads of games for the Atari VCS/2600 such as Pitfall II: Lost Caverns and River Raid II, while previously released cartridges under the Xbox license include Activision Collection 1 and Rare Collection 1. We assume Banjo will make his way to a "Rare Collection 2" at some point in the future as well (for people who want to play on devices beyond the Super Pocket).
I'm personally a big Evercade fan, and it's great to see Xbox willing to license its massive franchises such as DOOM and Banjo-Kazooie to the company for new consoles and cartridges. Fingers crossed this continues long into the future!