Buying a retro game console

As a retro gamer myself, my opinion is that going for original hardware and even hardware emulators like the MiSTer only makes sense if you then use a decent CRT as the display.

Using an LCD adds unacceptable delays, even if you get a very expensive upscaler (though they do reduce it a lot, but not entirely) at which point you lose all of the advantage of using original hardware or an expensive hardware emulator.

If you're going to play on an LCD, just use a PC with the Duckstation, Mesen, Dolphin, MAME, Final Burn Neo, and PCSX2 emulators, which will get you all of the popular retro systems emulated more than good enough. Retroarch can be added if you need some of the other systems.

Note also that if you play on a sufficiently high-res and high-refresh monitor, there are some really convincing CRT simulation shaders, including realistic phosphor delay.

There's two exceptions to the above: N64 emulation is still not perfect, and if you want to play something more obscure, the available emulators may just not be good enough, such as for example the CDi and 3DO. In those cases, real hardware is better even if you don't have a CRT.

Edit: Oh and of course handhelds are honestly best played in handheld form factor. Either get original hardware, or one of the million small handheld emulation devices, all these systems are emulated near perfectly.

> I highly recommend not bothering at all with legitimate hardware. As I’ll dive deeper into in this guide, original hardware is expensive, hard to use with a modern TV, and prone to breaking. Retro game cartridges and discs are often more expensive than modern games. Retro consoles can often be very expensive too.

It really depends. My father found my old consoles in the loft and I decided to get them working.

- PlayStation 1,2 and Dreamcast are easy to get, easily to repair. Normally the biggest problem will be CD/DVD-ROM drive that is bad. These consoles are extremely reliable other than the DVD/CD drive. Repairing such as this are simple and can be done in literally minutes, with a screw driver.

- Games are relatively inexpensive for PS1, PS2 and Dreamcast. Yes Marvel vs Capcom 2 and Castlevania Symphony of the night will £500 for a copy, but the vast majority of games can be found in Good Condition for £5-20. Absolute mint condition games will be about £30-50. I buy a couple of games a month for each console and have a nice small collection of classic games (not anything too crazy, but decent).

- I was missing cables for the consoles (long since lost). I got official controllers, and cables for reasonable amount of money. Memory cards were cheap. I did have to take apart the old controllers and service them, but again nothing major.

- If you have a slightly older (late-2000s/early-2010s) LCD TV, the upscaler will actually work properly and the games look pretty reasonable. You can get HDMI upscalers for a reasonable price for these consoles. Cheap upscalers can be bought online for PS1/PS2 and Dreamcast and the results are "OK".

Emulation is obviously easier, with a few caveats. You must find a BIOS for the PS1 and PS2. These can be easily found with some googling. Also DuckStation has licensing doesn't allow it to be repackaged for your <linux distro>, so you have to use their app image or download & compile yourself. Which is a bit annoying, as I don't really know what to do with AppImages.

> "For Wii it’s better to use a Wii U, because they support HDMI."

If you are going to buy a Wii U for wii games, make sure you buy one that actually has a gamepad, since they are useless without one (efforts are currently underway to make a working replacement, but currently you need a whole computer to pretend to be one)

I read Retro console, see in comments people talking about PS2. There's even someone mentioning they bought a PS3, implying it is a retro console.

Man, I have a PS3 here. Not really as part of a retro collection, it was just the PS3 I bought close to the end of PS3 days. I never thought of that thing as retro. I now feel extremely old.

Either way, yeah, owning original hardware is something for hobbyists. To play ancient consoles as they were meant to be played you will be looking for CRT TVs, sometimes you will need to repair shit.

If you just want to experience old games, emulation is the way to go. Retroarch is an amazing tool for that, especially if you take the time to adjust settings (such as shaders for example) to make the pixel art look better on modern monitors.

I went down this rabbit hole, and am now the proud owner of a PS2 (Slim), a PS2 (Fat), a PS3 (Fat), a PS4 Pro and a PS5. I also own a Nintendo Switch and a Gaming PC.

After installing a custom firmware on the PS3, I am now able to play my PS2 games, and also have the benefit of using HDMI without an expensive upscaler.

Turns out, the PS3 satisfied my needs to relive childhood memories, although I never had one as a kid growing up.

Also, I started reading books again. A pretty hassle-free childhood memory, to say the least.

For N64 and back, a MiSTer is a good option these days. Because of the Mister Pi and QM-Tech clones and clones of the clones prices have dropped a fair bit.

What I can highly recommend is the (free) RetroArch app for AppleTV. You upload your legally owned ROM files via a simple web interface and you can just pair your bluetooth gamepad with the AppleTV.

Side node: The same thing works on phones, too. While most of the games are not very fun on a touch screen, I've found that turn based games like RPGs hold up remarkably well.

edit: I'm referring to AppleTV the box, not the service

Not true, at least not in this all encompassing clickbait sense. $25 buys you a hackable R36S with 4 core cpu, 1gb ram, runs Debian off dual microsd with dual usb-c for any peripherials, swappable battery, emulation perf up to PSX. There are many more cheap, capable options.

I'd say "retro console" in the linux handheld sense is the best value hobby gadget to buy for the HN crowd.

I'm surprised the author finds emulation not worth covering, that's obviously the best way to play old games in the vast majority of cases. I guess maybe they wanted to keep up the kayfabe that everyone is getting roms from the original media.

Owning multiple Nintendo Switch consoles and have multiple people in the household using the Nintendo Switch Online subscription (the family pack) to play couch split screen type games magical.

Far better experience than traditional emulation.

Mister FPGA is something definitely worth checking out if you're into this stuff.

It is hard to take seriously someone who claims this: "Some rare PS3 models are compatible with PS2 games."

All PS3 models can play PS2 games (just not from disc, who borthers with discs in 2026 anyway?).

"For the purpose of this guide, any game console newer than the Wii is not a “retro console” because you can easily use HDMI to connect them to your TV."

PS3 was released in NA November 17th 2006 BEFORE NEWER Wii was released November 19th 2006, which makes PS3 retro console according his definition.

Thanks to Hen PS3 is amazing console where you can play natively PS1, PS2 and PS3 games (just search "game name ROM" in Google) + you can use RetroArch to play NES, SNES and other console older games. I find it funny even PS3 is nowadays considered retro console considering it has pretty amazing graphics, not that bad from newest games.

I bought mine used PS3 Slim for 40EUR including original dualshock controller and HDMI cable (local classifieds in EU) + we had already two other ipega gamepads we used before to play NES/SNES/N64 and Android games with kids on Android TV (though mostly SNES). This is first console in my life, when I was kid we played games on ZX Spectrum, C64 and later on desktop PCs, consoles were just too expensive/limited compared to versatile PC.

It was the best 40EUR spent on gaming, all it took was to install firmware with HEN and then I can download and play whatever I want with kids, just getting the game in is PITA, since I can't make it to recognize NTFS drive, FAT32 limit kills most of the ISOs, so usually I just copy them through FTP which takes looong time (think 1MB/s).

According author you should not want to buy PS3, I fail to see the reason, it use standard HDMI cable and can emulate lot of consoles and play thousands of games.

My kids also like playing games on their cheap Data Frog SF2000 handhels retro console with tons of games from various consoles on memory card, you can add other games.

> For Nintendo games specifically, the way to play them is to buy a Nintendo Switch or Nintendo Switch 2 and subscribe to the Nintendo Switch Online service for $20

Unless you absolutely need to play these games away from home and a phone isn't good enough, please just emulate on a computer instead of paying a subscription for some mediocre emulators that you can't even own permanently.

Also, the article really should mention why cheap generic HDMI converters are bad instead of just saying they're not recommended (the lower video quality is obvious, but what's less obvious is that they usually have significant latency that may make certain types of games much less pleasant to play)