In the last years, Retro gaming has started to win ground. Hundreds of games are already released for the latest consoles, many YouTube channels started to review these old gems and many sites are sharing info and many more stuff for these games, making new gamers to learn more about and of course, play these games.
So, if you are a Retro fanatic, you already know that an PC emulator is the best solution to play again these games and with more capabilities from the original hardware, like save states, video recording, various filters for better image and sound and of course, you can add a better controller to play them.
But the best experience is when you are using a console to play these games on your TV. I am sure that many gamers are having their PC next to their TV already and playing these games, but nothing can compare with the original hardware.
So, let's see some Retro consoles, who are promising that you can have this experience playing old games feeling like the original.
The first console is the Retrode. Retrode is a mini console and can accept original 16bit cartridges and controllers.
Retrode project has stopped for a while, but recently a german company took on its production and thanks to this, you can can find it again, for €64.90.
You can connect and some hardware addons, in order to run games from other systems too, like the N64 for example. The full packet costs €120.
Another solution is the RetroN5. RetroN5 is bigger from Retrode and is similar to SNES. It's also more expensive, as it costs €169.
It can run games from NES, SNES, MegaDrive, Genesis, GameBoy, GameBoy Color and GameBoy Advance, with better graphics and sound (it has an HDMI output) and it comes with a bluetooth controller. You can save your games everywhere (it supports up to 10 save slots for each game), supports game cheats and you can connect your original controller, too.
Good games, back in the day, were also on PCs too. What about the Commodore C64, Amiga 500, Atari 800XL and ZX Spectrum? For those machines, your solution is the MCC (Multiple Classic Computer).
MCC-TV is a small console-emulator, costs €99 and comes with 255 C64 and 45 Amiga 500 games pre-installed. The difference with MCC-216 is that it doesn't have the connections for keyboard and mouse (it has an onscreen function and the mouse emulates the analog joystick), thus it doesn't have the classic 9pin connector (for joysticks). You can add more emulators in it, by using an SD Card.
For the hardcore retromaniacs, there is the Mist. Mist is a board and can be programmed so you can emulate everything.
This board is designed to support 8 and 16bit PCs and consoles, like Amiga, Atari ST, Atari XL, ZX81, ZX Spectrum, C64, Atari VCS, Atari 5200, Colecovision, Apple II, Sega Master System, NES, Odyssey2 and many more.
In the beginning, you had to do some things in order to run emulators properly, but now you can buy it ready, so you can put this board in any case you want, like a broken consoles (like many already do with a Raspberry), in an arcade cabinet etc. Costs €199.99 but it can do more than the systems above.
The sure is that the solutions are not stopping here. You can buy a Raspberry PI and make it a retro machine, you can play old classics with a modern console, like Wii, PSP, PS3 etc and of course, there is the PC and can run everything.