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.
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.