Everyone Loves the Switch’s Joy-Cons, and Now You Can Use Them with Your RetroPie Handheld

The Switch is Nintendo’s fastest-selling video game console of all time, and is also the fastest-selling console in general in Japan and the United States. A big part of that success is probably due to the unique Joy-Con controllers, which can be reconfigured in a number of ways. So, it’s not surprising that gamers want to use Joy-Cons on other game consoles as well.

As we’ve shown you a number of times, if you want to play games from a lot of different consoles, RetroPie is a great choice. Now you can play them with Joy-Cons by following Christopher Foote’s tutorial. To start, you’ll need a pair of Joy-Cons; but, don’t worry—they won’t be modified and you can still use them with your Switch.

The actual console is built on a Raspberry Pi 3, so you’ll need that along with a handful of other parts. Those include: a touchscreen display, a battery and charger, an audio amplifier and speaker, and some miscellaneous switches, jacks, and screws. You’ll also need a 3D printer, or to pay for the parts to be printed professionally.

From there, it’s just a matter of assembling all of the hardware with the 3D-printed parts and installing the Pi image. The overall package is a bit bulkier than a Switch, but the Joy-Cons can still be disconnected in the same way. And, as you can see, they work great for retro gaming.