If i had to design the GCW Zero 2, i would completely drop the focus on retro-gaming and be more among the likes
of the DragonBox Pyra.
The reason why is because no one seems to use it for its intended purpose.
I think i would have liked a bigger screen with dual analogs stick but more among the lines of the Xbox 360 controller,
not the Wii U. (i hate the placement)
We should keep the console as open source as possible, down to the bootloader if possible.
Keeping this mind, the I.MX6 QuadPlus is probably the best processor with uboot available (on some SoCs) as well as a powerful vivante gpu. (more robust than the one found in the GCW0 anyway)
The well-supported ARM cpu, combined with 4 more cores and a much more decent GPU than the 3D decelerator we have in the GCW0, should result in much improved performance.
The downside is that mono-threaded apps will see only like a 50% improvement.
If uboot isn't a requirement, then perhaps going with a Qualcomm Soc isn't too bad.
We still get to have freedreno so that's kind of nice i guess.
Downside is that they require lots of binary blobs so it might not work with OpenDingux.
Another hilarous way, but still an option, is to just use an RPI 3 compute module.
We get to have a 64-bits cpu (albeit with a 32-bits GPU), better performance than the GCW0,
great open-source support (we can just use upstream linux) and this should just result in a much better device overall...
And lastly, Intel and AMD...
It's available in small quantities, you have great support (the best you can have), all the linux distros support it, etc...
It doesn't have to have Windows tho. We could use something like Gmenu2X on top of Debian.
But battery life might not be as good as ARM or even MIPS processors.
But so far, it seems to be the easiest option.
Price should less than 150?, if possible.
Higher than that, and you are probably better off buying an Android tablet or a pyra.
Another great thing to have would be for the GCW0 website to allow developers to upload their emulators/games
to the main website... without having to go through someone.
Right now, the internet thinks there's no software for it, even though that's not true : it's just not on the main website.
Oh, and better build quality. Especially the buttons and the Dpad.
Seriously, they feel like they were designed in China.