As you’ve probably heard if you’ve been paying attention to Nintendo-related news over the past few months, the company is getting ready to release a Mini NES this holiday season that will fit in your hand and include 30 games. And while that’s great and we’re super excited about it, YouTuber lyberty5 has seemingly beat them to the punch—and punched a lot harder with a custom-made, hand-molded “SNES MICRO.”
The guts of the machine are relatively simple: Just a Raspberry Pi Zero (presumably running RetroPie; more on that in a second) and a USB hub. It’s the shell where the real beauty comes in, which starts as a basic box made from plastic. From there, the SNES-looking exterior is made from clay and molded using a combination of hands, blades, and a rotary tool. We’re not going to describe it too much, because we’d rather you listen to the soothing, How It’s Made-like narration.
We’ve actually seen a few similar Raspberry Pi fueled projects before, like the handheld Game Boy Zero. Your own gaming machine is actually pretty easy to make for yourself (minus the artistic casing), since all you really need is a Raspberry Pi capable of running RetroPie, an emulation platform that allows you to run games from virtually every retro console.
I can say from experience that it’s a relatively painless and straightforward process so long as you follow this helpful guide from Lifehacker, so check it out to learn more about how this sort of thing works, and maybe you’ll find yourself inspired enough to get as creative as lyberty5.
Image: lyberty5
