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Comment by kp1234321 | Hacker News Reader

Would anybody else much rather get a raspberry pi and $30 in supplies to make it themself?

I think it's nice to have a Thing That Just Works once in a while. I never use consoles (my ps4 sits unused) because every time I turn it on, I have to mess with updates and stuff. I just want to turn something on, play it for 10 minutes, and stop. This will be perfect for me.

I recently did this. I bought a case, a controller, an SD card, and other stuff detailed in Jeff Atwood's Retropie blog post. I hooked all this up to my TV, installed retropie, FTP'd ROMs over, and...

The gamepad I'm using works in emulation station, but doesn't work when I'm in the ROM. apparently it's due to thi issue: https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/issues/564

I still haven't fixed it because I can't bring myself to screw around debugging a linux system after a long day of coding.

So, I have no doubts that many people can and should use a retropie. But, my childhood gaming experiences didn't involve the location of the RetroArchs/config folder, and I'd really rather my attempt to relive that experience as an adult didn't, either.

I too recently went down this route, while my experience with Retropie was relatively smooth, I'd would recommend also giving Recalbox and Lakka a try, I feel they're a bit more polished atm (at the cost of limited configuration). Recalbox uses EmulationStation simular to Retropie, while Lakka uses libretro. I settled on Recalbox.

Yeah I tried doing a whole RetroPie route about a year and a half ago using wireless Xbox 360 controllers. Remapping controls for different consoles was a huge pain in the ass at the time. I'm sure it has improved since then, but I don't have the patience right now in case it doesn't work as smoothly as I would like.

It did however play PS1 games using a RPi 2 almost perfectly using the original 240p resolution of the games.

No. This looks cool, is ready to use and apparently hassle-free. Plus I don't have to pirate the games.

It'll come out to the same cost when you factor in the controller. This seems sturdier, includes all the games (legally), and can be easily resold when you inevitably get bored and realize you purchased a 30 year old console system.

Too pessimistic. Some people, such as myself, haven't stopped playing these games since the 80s. I can beat SMB easily within ten minutes, but I still get a lot of enjoyment every run. (To say nothing of the other fantastic titles!)

Plenty of people have moved on to better technology and more sophisticated games, but let's not assume every player would get bored of these true classics.

I have a RetroPi setup with a ton of games that plays great... I'll still be picking one of these up on the 11th.

No. It's in impulse buy territory, Just Works, is legal, and doesn't require an investment of my time doing something that's, frankly, just paint-by-numbers (in that it's not a particularly interesting project).

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