Nintendo isn’t the only company cashing in on the nostalgic gamer market. This week Target started selling a handheld game system that plays a single game: the Oregon Trail.

It’s available in stores for $25, and while it’s not listed on the Target website yet, you can use BrickSeek to see if its in stock at a Target near you.

Lathe26/AtariAge forum

Since this is a new device, I’ve read multiple reports from folks who’ve said it’s not even on store shelves yet, and they had to ask an employee to get the game system out from storage. If that happens to you, these numbers may come in handy:

  • DPCI: 087-10-2886
  • UPC: 885561095975

The Oregon Trail handheld game is designed to look like an old school computer. The power button is the thing that looks like a disk drive. And there are a few basic buttons including an Enter key, Y and N keys, a volume control, and a direction pad (which has an awkward-looking design.

Sure, this is a single-purpose device that only plays a single game. But it’s a classic and if you were in an American school with a computer class in the 1980s or 90s, there’s a good chance you played this game… and died repeatedly of dysentery.

So really what we’re talking about is spending $25 to relive a piece of your childhood.

Or you can save your money and just play The Oregon Trail in a web browser.

The handheld version of the game is available exclusively at Target stores. Target is also the exclusive retailer for an Oregon Trail card game that launched a few years ago, so the company clearly knows there’s a market for this sort of thing.

via AtariAge, /r/retrogaming, and cheapassgamer

Support Liliputing

Liliputing's primary sources of revenue are advertising and affiliate links (if you click the "Shop" button at the top of the page and buy something on Amazon, for example, we'll get a small commission).

But there are several ways you can support the site directly even if you're using an ad blocker* and hate online shopping.

Contribute to our Patreon campaign

or...

Contribute via PayPal

* If you are using an ad blocker like uBlock Origin and seeing a pop-up message at the bottom of the screen, we have a guide that may help you disable it.

Subscribe to Liliputing via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 9,547 other subscribers

14 replies on “Target is selling a $25 Oregon Trail handheld game system”

    1. I actually quite like the Arduboy. I don’t have an official one, but it’s an open design that’s really easy and cheap to make at home. I actually made this in only 2 hour (+ 2 hours printing), fully compatible with the official system, has a battery life of 30+ hours and cost me ~$10 in materials.

      https://imgur.com/gallery/eUpFP

      I’m actually thinking about making another one with a clam shell design, like a tiny GBA SP.

  1. What’s more interesting is the hardware running the show here. If it’s not just another Famiclone-on-a-chip, but for example an ESP32 or some other competent 32bit microcontroller, you get a screen a controller a battery and a speaker for your $25, and all you need is a new input device and flashing new software to repurpose it.

    1. I dunno… I’ve seen some Android crap smartphones for $25 and they seem much more impressive than this on the hardware level.

      (software too, if you don’t mind bloat and a peeping tom from the Chimerica)

      1. I agree, for a few bucks more you can get a carrier locked Moto E4 at $39 which is a surprisingly decent Android phone. For $2-3 you can get a carrier unlock code on eBay. It should have no issues running most Android apps from the Play store. I picked one up and never registered it with the carrier but am using it as single purpose device for another application and couldn’t be happier.

        1. I bought a Moto E (3?) a while ago on sale for about $30. Pay as you go T-Mobile. Took the SIM card out of it before I even turned it on. Makes a great MP3/podcast player. Much better than the Sandisk Clip I used to use.

Comments are closed.