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Comment by joshbaptiste | Hacker News Reader

I really wish Nintendo or Sega would come out with an official retro WiFi appliance that allows one to buy classic games from an "App Store" and play multiplayer player games over the network. They have the extensive catalog of retro games to make money (NES/SNES/N64 or Master system/Genesis) and it wouldn't take that much hardware to do it.

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Isn't that what Wii with Virtual Console is?

Yea but it involves finding and purchasing a (most likely) used Wii. I'm a casual gamer and never heard of virtual console. A dedicated retro console would fare better and be cheaper IMO, just like this one (without any such features) which sold out in seconds on Amazon.

To add to that, you've got to buy a sketchy 3rd party HDMI adapter to plug your used Wii into a modern TV.

The Wii U and 3DS both support Virtual Console for a variety of old Nintendo consoles (more for the Wii U), and the Switch presumably will too. Though, Nintendo being Nintendo, transferring purchases between consoles is rarely possible.

As a casual gamer who likes playing the games of my childhood. I'd prefer a dedicated retro rig that (due to minimal requirements) could be the same form factor as an Amazon FireTv stick without dealing with the "hacky" nature of the emu scene or purchasing a full blown console.

Which one is sketchy? The Sewell wii2hdmi adapter is great. I use it for competitive Melee all the time.

They could just put an OrangePi Zero in a case and kick it out the door, all they would need to do is slap a HDMI header on there, the PHY is the same. The Allwinner chip they chose is very similar to the H3 chip it appears.

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