So, I've been getting back into gaming in a big way these last few months, after a low back injury left me sidelined from my other, more physically active hobbies.
The silver lining (or I suppose cat nip) for my ASD brain is modding. In the past 6 weeks, I've modded a ds, a dsi, a wii u, a wii (which underrated as a "turn it on and play the classics" machine), several Android TVs... yeah...
While I've loved all of them (the Wii especially brought me great joy), I wished there was a way to play everything in one spot. A curated console, as it were.
Of course, you know where this is going - emulation.
Through the wonders of Ebay, I was able go score a Lenovo M93p tiny for around $80USD (a SFF pc from around 2014, about same dimensions as wii).
Throw in a faster processor, lobotomise windows, throw on Playnite, Dolphin Emulator and a bunch of personal classic and... well...let me introduce you to my SuperPretendo 5 :)
PS: ChatGPT gen art (and typos aside), I kinda love what it came up with for this.
First: that whole "oh no mario kart is 80 bucks" ragebait stuff is cringe. You don't want to pay that much for videogames? That's cool, but stop polluting everything with negativity.
Second: take that AI slop somewhere else. I'd have more respect for this post if you did this by yourself. You mention not having the skills? How about investing a bit in yourself, get some skills and do it yourself. Even if done badly - that would have been better than this AI cringe.
The hours of tinkering, troubleshooting, and configuring were mine - not AI. The "Super Pretendo 5" exists because I built it, not because of a mockup Sega attack ad from 1993.
If the fun wrapper offends you, that’s your hang-up, not mine. If your big move is policing how I shared my joy, congrats - you win the 'hall monitor of fake internet points" retroachivement.
Okay man if putting it like that helps you sleep at night, then be my guest.