Wave Launcher, an Android launcher built around the PlayStation-style XrossMediaBar design, has reached its V1.0 release. The milestone drop was announced by Retro Handhelds following months of development and community testing led by Ruby, the project’s head.
Wave Launcher is an Android-based interface that recreates the look and feel of the XMB, the menu system made famous by the PlayStation 3. It supports personal game libraries, rich metadata scraping, trophy tracking, and multimedia playback on top of that classic layout.
A full-featured V1.0
The release build is controller-first: the entire interface supports gamepad navigation with Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo controller prompts, customizable button layouts, and an on-screen virtual controller for setups without a physical pad. Touch support is included but not fully finished.
Game management covers collections, recently played tracking, favorites, and automatic playtime statistics, plus seamless switching between multiple storages and micro SD cards with hot swap support and deduplication. Emulator selection can be fine-tuned per platform and per game.
Asset scraping pulls from multiple sources including SteamGridDB, ScreenScraper, RetroAchievements, Google Play, and Hasheous, with direct scraping from real PSP, PS3, and PSP Minis sources, and extended support for donors covering NDS, 3DS, and DSi. A built-in image cropping tool and multi-language scraper support round out the setup.
Multimedia is a strong point: a full video player and music player in a modernized PS3 style, a photo gallery with slideshow support, custom sound systems with coldboot sounds, and individual audio volume controls. UI customization includes wallpaper styles, fonts, interface scaling, status bar options, and boot logos ranging from PS3 and Wave to GammaOS, AYN, Retroid Pocket, and Anbernic themes.
Extras and availability
System features include built-in FTP support, a browser-based Wave Portal for managing wallpapers and scraped games, Discord Rich Presence with per-game icons, automatic app updates with Obtainium JSON import, and full support for dual-screen devices including per-screen orientation and automatic single-screen mode when docked.
Achievement tracking works through RetroAchievements, with Dusklight (Twilitrealm) achievements also supported. Migrations from Cocoon, XOrA, and ES-DE are in development for future releases.
Wave Launcher is available for download from its official page and GitHub. In testing by Retro Handhelds, the launcher has run well across a number of devices, with the Retroid Pocket 6 singled out as a favorite so far.
Source: https://retrohandhelds.gg/wave-launcher-drops-v1-0/
Giancarlo Viterbo is a Filipino Technology Journalist, blogger and Editor of gadgetpilipinas.net, He is also a Geek, Dad and a Husband. He knows a lot about washing the dishes, doing some errands and following instructions from his boss on his day job. Follow him on twitter: @gianviterbo and @gadgetpilipinas.
Giancarlo Viterbo
Giancarlo Viterbo is a Filipino Technology Journalist, blogger and Editor of gadgetpilipinas.net, He is also a Geek, Dad and a Husband. He knows a lot about washing the dishes, doing some errands and following instructions from his boss on his day job. Follow him on twitter: @gianviterbo and @gadgetpilipinas.
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