The kits that are easiest to buy right now are the more expensive ones that come with too many accessories or ones that most people won't actually use, and for the sake of your storage performance, it's best to hand-pick your microSD card rather than getting a cheap, no-name bundled version.Īt a bare minimum, you'll need a USB-C or microUSB power adapter (for the Pi 4 and the Pi 3B+/Zero 2 W, respectively), plus a microSD card big enough to hold your games.
Raspberry Pi boards are often sold as part of a kit that includes a power adapter, a case, a microSD card, and other accessories, but at this point, we'd advise you to ignore them. Advertisementįurther Reading Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W: 5x faster than the original for $5 more If you want a more future-proof Pi board that you can do other things with, that's when it's worth stepping up to the 4GB or 8GB Pi 4 models, but the extra memory won't make a difference for a dedicated emulation box. But none of the emulators that will run well on a Pi require a ton of RAM, so if you can find it, the 1GB $35 Pi 4 is a fine choice, too. A good default option is the $45 2 GB Raspberry Pi 4, which seems to enjoy slightly better (albeit not great) availability than the other iterations as of this writing, and smaller retailers like CanaKit charge a ton for shipping. The heart of your retro console-and likely the biggest expense, especially given the ongoing worldwide chip shortage-will be a Raspberry Pi board. Shortages of chips and other factors will make that nearly impossible in 2022, but we'll try to keep the bill of materials under $100. When putting together our emulation box in 2016, we tried to stick as close to the $60 asking price of the NES Classic Edition as possible.
$0 to use one you have, $15 for a SNES-style pad, or $60ish for a new console controllerįurther Reading Supply chain woes lead to a “temporary” Raspberry Pi 4 price hike The essentials Raspberry Pi console bill of materials If you enjoy retro gaming and are looking for a winter project, building your own mini-console-or sprucing up one you built years ago with a new case and different software-is still a great way to spend a little money and time. But enough has changed in the last few years-the Pi's hardware, the accessory ecosystem, the operating system, and even the emulators themselves-that we're totally overhauling that guide with new product recommendations and pointers. We've updated that guide a couple of times over the years, and a lot of the advice in it is still useful. Years ago, in the heyday of the NES Classic Edition, we put together a guide to building a retro emulation box with a Raspberry Pi board, the RetroPie operating system, and a few other fun accessories. Further Reading Hands-on: NES Classic Edition puts old games in a very small package
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