Stop Buying Retro Consoles and Start Building Them

Getting your retro gaming fix has never been easier. You no longer need to find an old console at a thrift store or buy an overpriced, officially licensed product to play the classics. In fact, you can even build your own retro gaming console with just a few dollars' worth of highly accessible components.

That’s exactly what Derda Cavga did. He designed and built an ESP32-powered handheld that runs a customized emulator that can play all the best NES games. But while this device works perfectly well, it doesn’t look so hot. For this reason, Cavga has modified the handheld to give it a nicer appearance, and he also slipped in a few upgrades in the process. The details of the build, including the software and the hardware design, have all been made public so that you can make your own.

The system is built around an ESP32-S3 Dev Module. A 2.8-inch ILI9341 SPI LCD display and a MAX98357A I2S amplifier module with a 3W, 4Ω speaker provide video and audio outputs. Eight tactile buttons are installed to serve as the controller, and games are loaded from an SD card. A LiPo battery and TP4056 charging module handle power management, and all of the hardware is installed inside a custom, 3D-printed case.

If you’d like to make your own copy of this handheld, you can find all the information that you need over at GitHub.