Wii U RetroPie Console Looks Gorgeous

What to do with your broken gaming consoles? Gut it and turn it into a different gaming console! Sudomod forum user [banjokazooie] has concocted his own RetroPie console from the husk of a WiiU controller — an ingenious demonstration of how one can recycle hardware to a perfectly suited purpose.

[banjokazooie] actually used an original shell for this build, but if you happen to have a broken controller around — or know someone who does — this is a great use for it. A Raspberry Pi 3 is the brains of this operation (not counting [banjokazooie]), and it features a 6.5″ HDMI display, a Teensy 2.0 setup for the inputs, a headphone jack with automatic speaker disconnection, dual 3400 mAh batteries, an external SD card slot, and a lot of hard work on the power supply circuit — although [banjokazooie] reports that the hardest part was cutting to size a custom PCB to mount it all on. The original plan was to see if the idea was possible, and after a three month effort, it appears to work beautifully.

The total cost  was approximately $195 USD — but with the stipulation that you don’t fry anything in the build process. There haven’t been any issues to speak of so far despite a three hour battery life when playing the N64 emulator (the only provided figure). A full parts list is provided here, and thorough documentation of the power circuit is on GitHub.

For a classic handheld take on the same concept, we featured two RetroPie Game Gear mods last year.

[via /r/raspberry_pi]

Filed under: handhelds hacks, hardware, Raspberry Pi

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