For a while now I’ve wanted to pick up a hacked SNES or Raspberry Pi in a small SNES case to emulate my favorite games on my TV. It’s both for me, and for my daughter (5) who has successfully played games like Spyro Reignited with little help from me. I think SNES would be an incredible entry point for her. That said, after some digging it looks like a Gen2 Amazon Firestick may be the better option?
Just hoping to get some advice on the simplest, most straight-forward option for me to play SNES ROMs on my smart TV, with support for two controllers. I’m even open to buying a complete package with the work already done for me, so long as I can add ROMs of my choice to it. I just don’t know where to get something like that, and everything I’ve searched looks a little overwhelming to put together. I’m fairly tech-savvy, but I don’t know that I’m up to the task of physically assembling devices and circuit boards like some of these kits seem to require.
Your advice is greatly appreciated!
Easiest? An SNES Classic if you can find one for sale. It is really just a trivially hackable linux pc that comes with SNES controllers and has a nice interface. For something you can definitely buy new and don’t want to have to hack anything, probably a steam deck with the dock and a controller because of how easy it is to set up. All of those options are much more expensive than something like a raspberry pi with retropie, but they are easier.
All of the SNES Classics I’ve found are either counterfeits, or listed on marketplace for $200, stating that they usually sell for $400, so I have to assume those are probably counterfeit as well. It sucks because I remember seeing one years back at a Bed Bath & Beyond of all places, but wasn’t financially stable enough at the time to sensibly buy one. Regretting that in 2025.
But an SNES Classic would be incredible, if only for the aesthetic and knowing it’s all going to work through HDMI.
I need to find a good guide for putting a Raspberry Pi together and setting it up for emulation.
Damn, sorry for suggesting it in that case. I didn’t have a hard time getting the SNES Classic at the time, but the NES Classic was a fight. I ended up having to spend far more than it was worth to get one.
Retropie has a video on their setup guide that can help with the emulation front. Setting up a Raspberry Pi itself can be a little annoying if you’ve never done it before, but there are tons of guides out there. Just keep in mind that they run off of a microSD card, so you usually install by using a card reader on a PC and installing the image onto the card before you do anything else.
I actually stopped using all of Pis because of little annoyances that added up, but I am a very picky bastard so don’t let that totally dissuade you.