Good all in-one retro devices?

[FishyFish]

I’ve not played retro games very much for quite some time now, but I’ve got a hankering to do so again and I’m out of touch somewhat.

 

What is the best way of playing retro games these days, ideally something I can plug straight into a TV and use a wireless controller, also with a good variety of formats covered including, if possible, home computer stuff like the Speccy, C64, Amiga etc.

 

Thanks

 

 

[Count Buffalos]

MiSTer, if you want the  gold standard.

[WizRider]

An inexpensive and easy route is via a Playstation Mini.

The official firmware wasn't up to much (not many games and poor emulation) but with the latest 'jailbreaks' you can simply plug a USB memory stick into one of the controller ports, boot into an up-to-date version of Retroarch and play all games from the 8bit era right through to PS1 and possibly Saturn emulation.

 

It's VERY easy and you can plug it straight into your TV.  If you ever want to go back to the regular firmware, you simply unplug the USB memory stick.

[FishyFish]

34 minutes ago, Count Buffalos said:

MiSTer, if you want that gold standard.

 

Thanks. I didn't give a budget (maybe around £100), but one of those is probably going to be more than I want to spend by quite some margin!

 

14 minutes ago, WizRider said:

An inexpensive and easy route is via a Playstation Mini.

The official firmware wasn't up to much (not many games and poor emulation) but with the latest 'jailbreaks' you can simply plug a USB memory stick into one of the controller ports, boot into an up-to-date version of Retroarch and play all games from the 8bit era right through to PS1 and possibly Saturn emulation.

 

It's VERY easy and you can plug it straight into your TV.  If you ever want to go back to the regular firmware, you simply unplug the USB memory stick.

 

Thanks Wizrider.

[Vimster]

Would have said Raspberry Pi 4 but those things are like hen's teeth now. 

Maybe an old laptop is another good shout. For 8-bit stuff it wouldn't need to be that recent. 

[Lorfarius]

I'd say a Series S. So easy to soft mod and just run your entire ROM library off a USB stick. Plus you get to play GamePass and all the modern stuff, often see them on FB Marketplace for £130-£150.

[AK Bell]

Some cheap second-hand mini-PC? Or even an old PC if you have the space. 

 

Getting emulators to run on PC is relatively easy. Might take a bit of initial effort to get things installed and running, but it's just windows and there is plenty of stuff out there. 

 

You could get something like batocera running on some SD card too and run it as its own OS too. 

[Barnard]

A cheap Android box and Retroarch would do the trick.  Something like this https://www.amazon.co.uk/Android-Allwinner-Quad-Core-Cortex-A53-Ethernet/dp/B08DRYPSDY/ref=asc_df_B08DRYPSDY/?

 

You can create console/computer game playlists and enable a thing called Kiosk mode where it can all be browsed easily. 

 

Only thing I'm not sure about the use of a physical USB keyboard, although the speccy and c64 emulators have onscreen keyboards. I've packed mine away so I can't check. 

 

The box I had played everything up to the GBA nicely.  The dedicated ScummVM android app worked great as well.