Are the retro "mini" consoles worth it?

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I hope someday I can afford to get either the Sega Genesis Mini or the PSOne mini. Or even a Super Nintendo mini.

They're a helluvalot cheaper than the current gen game systems and have a lot of classic retro games I loved as a kid like Earthworm Jim, Ghouls, n. Ghosts, GoldenAxe, Streets of Rage, Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Super Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog, Resident Evil: Director's Cut, plus many I would love to try like Castlevania: Bloodlines.

You can get "Sega Megadrive & Genesis Classics" on Steam (PC) and I think on the consoles as well.

If you play with a controller, it is much like playing the games on something like what you describe (the mini version).

I got a Sega Genesis mini once and when I played Sonic 2, I immediately regretted it. The sound design was completely off key for the music in every game even on cartridges. How they messed this up, I'll never know. Oh, and how about this. They padded out the collection with a bunch of filler generic games. It was a ripoff.

With the exception of the PlayStation Classic (which is what you call the PSone mini), which is absolutely garbage if you don't mod it since it suffers from a weak game selection, poor emulation, and nearly half the games are the PAL versions released in Europe so they run at only 50 Hz as opposed to 60 Hz, the rest of the retro mini consoles are fine and have great libraries included without modding them to add more ROMs.

But these systems are also so old that any toaster of a PC can emulate them just fine (and obviously won't need to be modded to add more games to them if you emulate them on PC) so it can also depend on if you want to have the look of a retro console or not (and even then you could also go for a Raspberry Pi 4 + one of the Retroflag Pi 4 cases designed to look like a classic console as an option).


Unfortunately what you got was not a Sega Genesis Mini.

You bought one of the Atgames consoles which are not bootlegs or knock-offs but Sega has absolutely nothing to do with the systems other than licensing the Sega and Sega Genesis brand names to them. And these Atgames systems are notorious for being pieces of crap.

The actual Sega Genesis Mini (and Genesis Mini 2) was actually designed by Sega themselves and the emulation was done by M2, a company that actually knows what they're doing when it comes to emulation (we're talking 'lots of companies use them for emulation when it comes to rereleases of retro games on modern systems' here), are actually good.

Unfortunately I don't own a PC and I have to do everything online through my smartphone. Plus I'm kind of a stick-in-the-mud when it comes to game consoles...

I think I'll consider the Sega Genesis mini because it has the most variety of games I want to play.

I'd probably look for one of those $50-100 handhelds that emulate multiple systems, personally.

Fair enough.

Good luck with that!

I never got any of them and I have no interest. I simply don't need another console hogging up space and power outlets/TV plugins when modern consoles have the same video games available.

I got the PlayStation Classic for free, and I still felt ripped off =)

I'm sure the others are fine, if you can find them at a decent price. I personally don't have a use for classic games via HDMI, but the game lineups look pretty good.

I hear the super Nintendo mini is the cheapest way to play Earthbound.

I was going to say the cheapest way is Virtual Console...but that got shut down recently

But can it run Mario Paint?


Didn't think so

Maybe?
I know the Wii can run it.

I had a very small Mario Paint phase, that's why. I still plan on cosplaying a gijinka version of the Robot if I make it to Connecticon.

I have the mini NES and SNES, and they're worth it.

I think im definetly gonna try and get a Sega Mini someday, but I wont ask for one for my upcoming birthday. My mom is under a lot of financial stress at the moment...

Maybe for Christmas?


It sucks that I have no source of income.