Retro Gaming’s Journey From MacGyver To The Masses

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I’ve been spending a lot of time recently in the retro gaming world, although I remember playing many of the games I’m enjoying the first time around. In 2024, hardware for retro gaming has become increasingly portable and increasingly powerful, able to replicate the experience of many home consoles and handhelds comfortably,

I’ve decided to explore this new class of devices; before then it’s worth going back a few years to see where this rush of hardware started. For that, I need to go back to lockdown, a time when many finally started personal projects that had been waiting for a moment ‘when there’s more time.’ My project was building a new GameBoy using the credit-card-sized Raspberry Pi single-board computer, a collection of cases and parts, all wrapped around a Nokia 3310 battery.

The result was my own version of the RetroflagGPI. At first glance, it’s the classic Nintendo Gameboy, but thanks to the Raspberry Pi, it runs many emulators (playing ZX Spectrum games on a GameBoy is weird). However, with the processing power needed, it runs out of steam once you get to around the Super Nintendo and Sega Megadrive level of emulation. 

At the time, that was fine for me; my gaming history goes from the ZX Spectrum to the Nintendo Gameboy to the Windows PC (with an honourable mention to the Neo Geo Pocket Color), so it comes as no surprise when I look back and see that the majority of handheld playtime was on Gameboy titles and the ZX Spectrum on the PC.

Much of that comes down to the tinkering nature of retro gaming: a Raspberry Pi running on a microSD card with a tiny 320×240 display, open-source software with minimal technical documentation… It all seems rather fun on the one hand but frustrating on the other. Once the RetroflagGPI was set up and ‘mostly working,’ I decided that ‘it plays the old games I want’ was enough for me.

The complexity I found during lockdown is being reduced as the retro gaming scene grows. It’s never going to be a ‘just works out of the box’, yet there are several respected hardware manufacturers, various emulators, front-ends and operating systems to choose from, all looking to make this scene more accessible and friendly.

Technology moving from odd bits of kit lashed together at home to something suitable for the average consumer is always a great journey to follow. That’s where I’m going over the next few months.