There’s something satisfying about legacy gaming systems, with their dust-covered cartridges and unique port interfaces. Regardless of how powerful consoles are today, the charm and allure of seasoned consoles cannot be ignored.
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Planning to encapsulate the powers of 30 retro machines into one, an Indiegogo entrepreneur is looking for funds for the aptly named Super Famicom K1 — possibly the most powerful retro gaming system ever conceived.
Requesting a humble US$5000 funding goal, the Famicom K1 will use Nvidia’s Jetson TK1 development board as a base. A rather powerful base. It has the company’s Tegra K1 SoC at heart, featuring more grunt than the Xbox360 or the PlayStation 3. It seems a bit overkill then, but considering the Raspberry Pi struggled to play PlayStation 1 titles, the extra power will come in handy. Other add-ons will include Bluetooth for wireless controllers, HDMI out, and two USB ports — one 3.0 and another 2.0.
Previous DIYers longing to play old games on a television again were required to use the Raspberry Pi with either Emulation Station installed on the OS, or booting into RetroPie — a dedicated emulator-sorting OS. Due to the system’s lack of power and limited storage options — often the builder would need a large SD card for ample games — it became quite difficult to play any games released after the turn of the century.
The Famicom K1 aims to emulate a host of system-specific titles, including most of Nintendo, Sega, Atari and even PlayStation 1 and 2 games. And seeing that the console will run a Linux blend, the developer notes that it can be flashed with SteamOS in the future.
DIYers can buy the Jetson and shove it in a personalised console case themselves, but the Famicom K1 will be placed in a classic NES case, for US$365. The developer hopes to begin shipping the consoles by October 2014.
