Following the disappointment that was the PlayStation Classic Console, which I was totally set on buying; I decided to re-build one myself. I really wanted to have one for nostalgia and to revisit Resident Evil 2 before I play the remastered version on the PS4 next year… unfortunately the overwhelming negative reviews knock some sense into me. So After window shopping on Lazada and Shopee, I ended up with a cheaper yet more capable system. Here’s a quick rundown
- Raspberry P 3i Model B plus : 2,349.75 PHP (Lazada)
- Raspberry Pi Official 2.5A wall charger : 374.75 PHP (Lazada)
- Raspberry Pi fan and Heatsinks : 179 PHP (Lazada)
- Retroflag NESPI Case+ (with safe shutdown/reset) : 1,089 PHP (Lazada)
- Retroflag SNES Wired game controllers 2 pcs. : 1,424 PHP (Shopee)
This brings me to a total of 5416.50 PHP which is still cheaper by 1,000 PHP compared to the PlayStation Classic which as of the time of writing retails at 6,500 PHP locally. I didn’t buy a micro SD card since i got a lot laying around, but the cost can be easily swapped out with the fan and heatsink which were optional. I primarily use an XBox One controller with this but I purchased 2 wired controller for visitors and/or kids who wanna play.
I opted to get the Retroflag NESPI Case+ primarily because it had the safe Shutdown and Reset functionality which works with Retropie 4.4. It also helped that it looked and functioned almost the same as the Original NES Classic from Nintendo. In order to make the buttons on the NESPI Case+ work, you’ll need to install a script on GIThub:
wget -O - "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/RetroFlag/retroflag-picase/master/install.sh" | sudo bash
In order for the script to work, you’ll need to turn a switch to “ON” on the NESPI Cae PCB as shown in the upper left corner of the photo below. The PCB also has a fan header you can use to attach a fan to the case. I attached one to mine along with some heatsinks to help with thermal performance.
I used this guide I found on reddit to build Non-merged rom-set for Final Burn Alpha and load most of the games I played as a kid.
Once everything is put together, it looks identical to the NES Mini.
