The Ayaneo 2S gaming handheld hits crowdfunding, but one factor could make it fail

Ayaneo recently announced the Ayaneo 2S, the refresh of its previous PC gaming handhelds, during a livestream. And now the Chinese company has debuted its portable machine through crowdfunding, looking to fully fund its production.

The Ayaneo 2S Indiegogo campaign has already earned $320,460 out of its initial $6,640 goal, which puts it nearly 5,000% over its goal. According to previously released information, the handheld uses an AMD Ryzen 7840U chip, the same as the Asus ROG Ally’s own Z1 Extreme CPU. 

But what’s new is another model that’s part of the same crowdfunding campaign, the Ayaneo Geek 1S. This one has a 7-inch 1280 x 800 pixel IPS LCD display, either 16GB or 32GB of RAM, and 512GB or 2TB of storage. And the 2S version has a 1920 x 1200 pixel display, 16GB to 64GB of RAM, 512GB to 4TB of storage, better controls, superior motion controls, and more.

Both versions have special crowdfunding exclusive price tags: the Ayaneo Geek 1S is currently $700 while the Ayaneo 2S is $949. Once both models hit retailers, depending on the configuration you select (and there are plenty of options) the highest MSRP for the 2S will be $1,999 while the Geek 1S will reach as high as $1,299.

Ayaneo needs to reconsider pricing

While the Ayaneo 2S specs sound incredible and the fact that you can configure it in so many ways is quite appealing, the pricing is a big issue. It was also an issue with the Asus ROG Ally before official pricing was confirmed to be thankfully lower than $800. 

But as I pointed out before, gamers will simply not purchase any gaming console they deem too expensive and this has been shown repeatedly in the past to be true. Couple that with the cost of living crisis that’s negatively affecting laptop and PC sales, and you have a recipe for disaster if a gaming handheld is too costly.

And that’s exactly the issue here: most configurations are extremely expensive, more so than many lower-cost gaming laptops and PCs. Even the crowdfunding exclusive prices are rather high. If Ayaneo wants to be competitive with the ROG Ally, Steam Deck, and Nintendo Switch, it needs to rethink its current pricing model. 

Because it’s guaranteed that will seriously harm sales, which would be a shame considering how well-designed this handheld appears to be.