What's interesting is that it's presumed to have a MIPS processor running at a significantly higher clock speed than the processor in the PSP. This would naturally lead one to assume that this could do emulation twice as well as the PSP, but due to a number of factors (including a worse GPU, perhaps?), that's just not the reality. NES games play well, so do 8-bit Game Boy games. Genesis games play well too, as do 68000-based arcade games. SNES it doesn't do well, and the Game Boy Advance? Forget about it. By contrast, the emulation scene- both official and homebrew- is far, far stronger on the PSP.

I'm wondering if that could change, or ever will change, considering the SF2000's small user base. I would dearly love to see a custom firmware that would wring every drop of power out of this admittedly dated chip.

So, I just received this budget-priced doodad in the mail, and its design intrigues me. I popped its SD card into my computer and noticed that nearly all of the games are in a special proprietary format with title graphics in the header. For instance, the familiar SMD format used for the Sega Genesis (aka Sega Mega Drive, which the extension abbreviates) has become ZMD, while Game Boy games are now christened ZGB. All Game Boy games use this extension, by the way, including the wildly different Game Boy Advance hardware that ended the product line.

The lone exception to this are the arcade games, tilted heavily in favor of the Neo-Geo and CPS. (If you bought this for 1980s arcade games, and especially pre-crash games like your Pac-Mans and Donkey Kongs, you're in for some serious disappointment.) These use the same ZIP files as MAME (although which MAME, specifically? The checksum would probably offer some clues...) but there's also a 59K header file and a "skip" file of unknown utility.

It's possible to add your own ROMs in a special folder on the SD card, but this of course doesn't include a title graphic, so you're just stuck with a plain list of file names. Three ZIP files are included by default, presumably the three games in the Sonic Wings/Aero Fighters series, but the one I tested didn't work. I've dropped four of my own games from my MAME 2010 collection into the folder to test them... really simple stuff like Donkey Kong that even a potato like the SF2000 should have no trouble emulating. Hopefully these tests will bear fruit. I just have to wait for the system to charge first.

Judging from preliminary tests and YouTube videos, I can state the following about the SF2000 and its performance...

• The D-pad is much too stiff, with up being especially difficult to trigger. Luckily, the analog thumbstick directly beneath it comes in clutch, and works great for most games (particularly fighting games).
• The interface is straightforward, with categories for Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance (a lost cause on this hardware), NES (as Famicom), Super NES, Sega Genesis, and MAME. Basically you're getting all the food groups of a healthy retrogamer's diet, except the Turbografx-16 (aka PC Engine) and Atari anything. Game Gear and Master System might be possible by renaming the extension of each file to SMD (I need to test this to make sure), but beyond that, you won't get a chance to color outside the lines. You get what you get, and that's it.
• There are tons (and tons) of games included on the SD card, though. More than you'll probably need, and more than the SF2000 can realistically run. Regarding that...
• NES emulation is solid across the board, aside from occasional weirdness like double-speed music in Sunsoft's Batman (perplexingly named Batman 2, with Return of the Joker being labeled the first). The music in all games is slightly off, but not offensively so, and the control and graphics are fine. The previously mentioned stiff D-pad actually works well enough for NES games, or at least ones like Mighty Bomb Jack that primarily use cardinal directions.
• Genesis emulation is maybe just a leeeetle bit weaker. You hear occasional quiet or flat notes in Streets of Rage 2's awesome soundtrack, and C is mapped to the R button, with no option to switch it to something more sane. This means you're going to be jumping with a shoulder button. However, it tries very hard to maintain full speed and for the most part, nails it. I had a quite pleasant Space Invaders '91 session on the SF2000, and unlike Streets of Rage 2, the soundtrack was as fantastic as ever.
• Game Boy emulation is slightly blurry. I suspect all the games use bilinear filtering, and this being an SF2000, of course there's no way to turn that off. Some sound channels also sound off-pitch, something that stuck out when I started the intro for Batman: The Animated Series. Those low notes just don't sound right. Having said that, the game still plays well, as does the Game Boy version of Tetris, which is somehow better than the arcade game by Atari.
• I haven't tried Game Boy Color games. It doesn't hit the sour notes than classic Game Boy emulation does, from what I've seen in YouTube videos. I'm almost afraid to play Game Boy Advance games on this thing, and the footage I've watched leads me to believe that it would be a waste of time.
• I haven't tried Super NES games, but understand that performance varies. It's never quite as solid as the Genesis emulation, and is pretty hopeless when you get to the Super FX-enhanced games. No Super Mario World 2 for you, I'm afraid!
• The big surprise is MAME. There's a pretty significant number of flashy Neo-Geo and CPS games, and while the CPS1 games run somewhat poorly, the SF2000 slam dunks Neo-Geo and CPS2 games. How is this thing running Mars Matrix of all things as well as it does? The relatively demanding Rise Rage of the Dragons also seems to run about as well as it does on the Neo-Geo. If you're a Neo-Geo nut, you'll be well served with the SF2000.

In conclusion, heck yeah this is worth $24, unless you're already drowning in handheld systems. The SF2000 doesn't offer much the Vita or the 3DS or even the PSP doesn't already offer (and the anemic selection of pre-1990s arcade games is... grating to this rapidly greying gamer), but this offers way more fun for $24 than you could ever shake out of a Tiger handheld back in 1988. Also, the fact that there are barely disguised configuration files and ROMs all over this SD card suggests that it's only a matter of time until someone hacks this machine, or at least figures out how the headers work and greatly expands its already mammoth library.