Video game console

Ryan Cohen, the Chewy founder who showed Wall Street skeptics that he could take on Amazon AMZN in the pet category, now has a new quest that could also be viewed as mission impossible: Creating a future for the GameStop chain.

GameStop announced today that it has appointed Cohen, and two associates from his time at Chewy, Alan Attal and Jim Grube, to its board. Cohen’s investment firm, RC Ventures, has been building up a position in GameStop, and now holds a 13% stake, according to Reuters .

Investors apparently already are thinking of Cohen as a savior. The stock shot up in response to the news, as it has other times when Cohen increased his stake. GameStop was up almost 13% at Monday’s close, and at $19.94 a share the stock is five times higher than the below $4 lows it hit over the summer.

Cohen sold Chewy to PetSmart for $3.35 billion in 2017, and exited the company a year later. Wall Street didn’t fully appreciate his e-commerce genius until Chewy’s successful IPO in June 2019, which valued the company at four times what PetSmart paid for it, and Chewy’s ongoing success in proving it has a path to profitability.

With Chewy, Cohen created a powerful alternative to Amazon by focusing on customer service, and connecting with “pet parents” who think of their cats and dogs as beloved family members, and are more obsessed with what is best for them, than which retailer has the best price.

GameStop presents a tougher challenge – a retailer many consider as outdated as Blockbuster, a business built on sales of gaming consoles and game discs and cartridges in an new age when content can be downloaded rather than bought in a store.

Cohen today wasn’t commenting on his plans for GameStop, other than releasing a statement with GameStop saying he hopes to bring “our customer-obsessed mindset and technology experience to GameStop” and that he believes it “can enhance stockholder value by expanding the ways in which it delights customers and by becoming the ultimate destination for gamers.”

But Forbes.com interviews with Cohen over the past year, as well as insights about his e-commerce philosophy shared by RC Ventures representatives in recent months hold clues as to what his likely playbook will look like:

Spot the trend before anyone else sees it coming.

With Chewy, Cohen’s brilliant idea was realizing that pet owners, especially younger, millennial, first-time pet owners, obsessively love their pets, and that they wanted a retailer that didn’t just talk to them about price (a trap the pet superstores fell into to compete with Amazon) but that showed it loved pets as much as they did.

Chewy still was vigilant about matching Amazon and other competitors’ prices, but the difference was it didn’t treat its customers as if all they cared about was price.

Cohen got the idea for Chewy when he saw how enthusiastic Zappos customers were and he thought “Wow, if customers can go bananas for shoes online, imagine if we could do it when it came to pet customers who are fanatical and are obsessed with their pets like I am,” he said in an interview a year ago.

Now, with every pet retailer and startup pet brand talking about “pet parents” and how pets are family members, it.s easy to forget that back when Chewy was born most pet retail marketing still was viewing pets more like farm animals than family members.

It’s hard to know at this point what visionary insight Cohen has into the world of gaming retail, but one thing that is certain is that gamers, in their own way, are as obsessed as pet parents. Tapping into that passion could be a winning formula.

Fix GameStop’s e-commerce

GameStop has been working to become a better omnichannel retailer, but it still has a lot of catching up to do, and Cohen, along with Attal, who was chief operating officer and chief marketing officer at Chewy, and Grube, who was chief financial officer, can speed that up.

The pandemic helped boost GameStop’s e-commerce sales by 257% during the third quarter but its website could benefit from the kind of digital makeover Cohen can help direct.

A cleaner, easier to navigate website would help GameStop expand its product offerings into new game categories, and potentially broaden its customer base.

Out-do Amazon using Jeff Bezos’ playbook

Cohen has said that when he built Chewy he studied Jeff Bezos’ 1997 letter to shareholders. In that letter, Bezos talks about the importance of relentlessly obsessing on customers, and keeping the focus on the long term.

“It connected with me intuitively to such a large degree, when you think about the strategy of establishing yourself as the market leader in a specific category, and the willingness to make bold bets in exchange for scale and market leadership,” Cohen said last year. He followed that guidance at Chewy, moving aggressively to scale quickly and become the dominant online altenative to Amazon in the pet category.

Amazon, in recent years, has lost some of that customer focus, with the growth of its ad business for its search engine results, and its other businesses. Cohen could be looking at GameStop as a new opportunity to build an Amazon alternative in the games and gaming category.

“Amazon feels more like an online flea market where just the amount of product is so overwhelming that being able to provide a more focused, first party experience,” is an advantage, Cohen said last year. “I still like buying product first party, and knowing it’s coming from the retailer.”

What could go wrong?

A lot. Gamers, and parents and others looking to buy any kind of game, have plenty of other options where they can buy physical copies of video games, or other toys – Walmart WMT , Best Buy BBY , and Amazon being the top competitors.

While gamers still like having physical copies of games for trade-in value, the downloadable and streaming universe could eventually wipe out that demand, just as Netflix NFLX eliminated the need for Blockbuster.

Finally, it is easier to build a brilliant company from scratch than to fix a bad one. GameStop has succeeded in narrowing its losses recently, but it ended fiscal 2019 with a net loss of $470.9 million, and a drop in comparable store sales down 19.4%.

With Chewy, Cohen set out to be the one-stop shopping site for pet parents. If he can do that with gaming, and move beyond video games to broader games offerings, plus throw in some e-commerce magic, he just might be able to pull off mission impossible.

Update, 01/23/2023: We’ve reviewed our recommendations and are confident these are still the best retro consoles you can buy.

The State of Retro Gaming in 2023

You’re spoiled for choice when looking to play retro video games in 2022. There’s no need to purchase dedicated hardware since you can use a PC , Android smartphone , Mac (especially the new Apple Silicon models ), or your Raspberry Pi to scratch the nostalgic itch.

But buying (or building) something purpose-built for gaming has its benefits. This is especially true if you want to go the handheld route, with pocket emulators and handheld gaming systems hitting their stride since the launch of the Nintendo Switch in 2017.

You may also be able to repurpose some of your existing gaming hardware for retro purposes. This gives you a choice between playing the latest releases and dipping into old favorites, all on a single piece of hardware. That way, you’ve always got one main device to play on, whether it’s portable or connected to the TV in your living room.

There are also options for collectors who value owning games in their original format, whether that’s a cartridge or CD. Generally speaking, these mediums outlast the original hardware on which they were designed to be played. The sands of time are not kind to old silicon, and repairs can be costly and beyond the scope of many owners.

Hardware emulation is one area that purists may want to explore. If you crave an authentic experience that mirrors the original hardware to the point where software emulation simply isn’t good enough, there are DIY and ready-built projects designed just for you . Budget, stock availability, and your ability to take on a DIY project are the only limitations standing in your way.

Finally, let’s not forget about the various officially licensed “mini” consoles released by Nintendo, SEGA, and Commodore (among others). These shouldn’t be discounted if you’re after a plug-and-play gaming experience, but they generally offer little in the way of customization and fall short of what the platforms above are capable of.

Not all of the platforms below can play ROMs, and many make use of original or re-issued media that has been officially licensed. If you are looking at a solution that depends on ROMs, make sure you understand the legal implications of dumped software and know that downloading copyrighted material could land you in hot water.

Best Retro Console Overall: PlayMaji Polymega

The PlayMaji Polymega takes the crown as the best overall retro console—no other retro system offers functionality quite like it. It’s a modular multi-system retro gaming box of tricks that offers support for the PlayStation, Sega Saturn, Sega Mega CD, Sega 32X, Neo Geo CD, TurboGrafx CD, and PC-Engine CD out of the box, for a starting price of $449.

From there you can buy additional modules for $79 each to add support for the original Nintendo Entertainment System , Super Nintendo , Sega Genesis family , and NEC TurboGrafx-16 family consoles . Support for the Nintendo 64 will be added in an upcoming module, as well.

PlayMaji’s console allows you to dump your original media to the internal 32GB SSD or removable media (in a file format only the Polymega uses) so that you don’t have to get your cartridges out all of the time. However, the Polymega doesn’t work with standard ROMs, so if you don’t have the physical game, you won’t be able to dump the files and use it with the console.

Emulation is solid, with the console powered by an Intel Coffee Lake processor with 2GB of DDR4 RAM. It’s a PC, but a purpose-built modular one that aims for plug-and-play ease of use.

The Polymega is an undoubtedly expensive way of playing retro titles, and once you’ve shelled out for additional modules and controllers, you can easily spend over $1000. But it’s a one-of-a-kind project that celebrates both original media and software convenience, with solid emulation and upscaling abilities .

If you like the idea of physical game collections but are looking for a cheaper route, consider the Evercade VS . This retro machine also relies on software emulation but uses proprietary physical game cartridges with officially licensed game collections from Team 17, Atari, Namco, and more. The console supports four players and mostly targets emulating retro arcade games and early home console classics.

Best Retro Console Overall

PlayMaji Polymega

Play original CD and cartridge games with the PlayMaji Polymega, a modular software-based emulator. Swap out modules to expand compatibility and save your games to internal or removable storage while reaping the benefits of software emulation including save states and custom rendering options.

Best Pocket Emulator: Retroid Pocket 2+

A good pocket emulator should do one thing well: play retro games using software emulation in a small, portable package . The Retroid Pocket 2+ from GoRetroid delivers both in terms of performance and form factor, and it does it all for less than $100. This emulator is new for 2022, building on the success of the hugely popular Retroid Pocket 2.

The portable handles retro systems like the SNES, Sega Genesis, and Neo Geo easily, but can also handle more demanding platforms like the Dreamcast and Sony PSP. While the Pocket 2+ comes with PS2 and GameCube emulators, this system is not well-suited to those platforms due to the screen size and the button layout.

The presence of Android 9 means you can load up on mobile games too. However, this isn’t the best emulator for mobile games, as the screen isn’t great for a mobile phone game’s aspect ratio, and running Android can be a bit slow.

The Retroid Pocket 2+ sports a 3.5-inch 480p display with an aspect ratio of 4:3, which is perfect for the retro systems it works best with. These older titles were designed with 4:3 CRT displays in mind, so you won’t have to put up with unnecessary black bars on either side of the screen.

Controls are adequate with two analog “slider” style sticks, a directional pad, four face buttons, two bumpers, and two triggers. The display is touch-enabled, and there’s a built-in rumble for emulators and games that support it.

If you’re looking for something a little more rugged to play older games on the go, consider the Anbernic RG351MP . It’s more than enough for 16 and 32-bit emulation, including favorites like the SNES and Sega Genesis, and the original PlayStation. It’s built like a tank with an all-metal enclosure, and it runs Linux rather than Android.

Best Pocket Emulator

GoRetroid Retroid Pocket 2+

Emulate most platforms up to and including the Sega Dreamcast and Sony PSP on the Retroid Pocket 2+, a portable and highly capable Android-powered pocket emulator.

Best Retro Gaming Handheld: Valve Steam Deck

If you can get your hands on one, the Valve Steam Deck is currently the best handheld gaming platform that money can buy. At the time of writing, demand is off the charts, and the Steam Deck has yet to have a full worldwide release—though Valve has confirmed that production is ramping up as the world emerges from a global semiconductor shortage .

The Steam Deck is a Linux-powered handheld computer capable of playing many of the Steam games you already own thanks to Valve’s Proton compatibility layer. On top of this, it makes for a highly capable retro handheld platform. Emulators are waiting to be downloaded in the Discover app that comes with the Steam Deck, with projects like EmuDeck , RetroDeck , and RetroArch making the process easier than ever.

The Steam Deck can emulate many platforms, from 16 and 32-bit classics like the SNES and PlayStation, right through to the Wii, Xbox, PlayStation 2, and even the Nintendo Switch. A project called Steam ROM Manager can add these games to your Steam library for easy access, complete with album art.

You can even install Windows on your Steam Deck if the native Linux support isn’t good enough, which provides a better experience when hooking up your portable to an external monitor.

Valve has built a truly fantastic all-in-one portable, starting at just $399. The biggest issue you might have is getting your hands on one.

If Steam Deck availability has got you down or you’d rather have a more Windows-centric experience, give the Aya Neo Next (and the upcoming Advance version) a look. It’s part of the latest wave of Windows handhelds, and it outclasses the Steam Deck in raw performance—which is why it costs more than Valve’s portable as well.

Best Retro Gaming Handheld

Steam Deck

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ Read Review Geek’s Full Review

Take your PC gaming library anywhere with the Steam Deck, a powerhouse portable console. Steam Deck features a variety of controls to accommodate every game and can dock to a TV for full-screen gaming. It also has a growing library of emulators and tweaks aimed at retro gaming.

Best Retro Gaming Home Console: Xbox Series X or Series S

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could use a current-generation games console as an emulator machine, so all that power doesn’t go to waste? That’s exactly what you can do with an Xbox Series X or Series S console. Not only are these powerful gaming machines for playing Microsoft exclusives like Halo: Infinite and the Game Pass library, you can even use them to run retro emulators too.

This is possible thanks to a Developer Mode tweak that allows you to install the RetroArch multiple-system emulator on your console . Once you’ve loaded up on emulator cores and ROMs you can play almost everything up to and including Nintendo 64, PlayStation, and even PlayStation 2 games.

Which of Microsoft’s consoles you opt for largely depends on what you’re looking for from your machine. If you want a console that targets 4K and has an optical disc drive—handy for playing those older Xbox 360 and original Xbox titles—then the Series X is the better buy. It also has double the storage, costing only $200 more at $499.

The Series S is a great buy for anyone looking for a console that primarily targets 1080p, with some 1440p applications. It lacks a disc drive and isn’t as powerful as the Series X, plus it only has a 512GB SSD. It’s arguably one of the most cost-effective pre-boxed systems you can use to play games from various generations.

It’s also worth shouting out the Nintendo Switch as a boxed and ready-to-go console for playing both new and retro games. With a Nintendo Switch Online membership , you can play NES and SNES titles, or opt for the Switch Online Expansion Pass and get access to N64 and Sega Genesis titles as well.

Best Retro Gaming Home Console

Xbox Series X

Play retro games on your Xbox Series X by installing RetroArch in Developer Mode. You can then restart your console in retail mode and still play the latest releases and Game Pass titles.

Best FPGA: MiSTer FPGA

MiSTer is an open-source project that aims to emulate consoles and arcade boards at the hardware level. It does this using an FPGA, or field programmable gate array, a chip that is capable of being reprogrammed to behave like the original hardware . This is the next best thing to playing on original hardware, thanks to the tireless effort of enthusiasts working on the project for years.

If you want to use MiSTer, you’ll need to build a system using the Terasic DE10-Nano FPGA ($215), a compatible USB hub, inputs like a keyboard and controller , some way of connecting to a network and microSD cards, a method of cooling your MiSTer, and a case to put it all in.

Building a MiSTer is a project that will cost upwards of $500, and you can add modules for reading original cartridges and arcade boards, or simply use ROMs. It’s not the cheapest way to play retro games, but if you want to build and customize your gaming experience, this is the way to go.

The MiSTer project relies on cores to emulate consoles, arcade cabinets, and home computers at a hardware level. Many cores are near-perfect replicas, while others are under active development. You can join a community like the MiSTer FPGA Forum to stay updated on the latest releases and even get involved yourself.

If the accuracy of FPGA emulation appeals to you but building a MiSTer seems like a tall order, take a look at the Analog Pocket . This device allows you to play original Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance cartridges out of the box. You can also get adapters for playing Game Gear and other systems, or pick up one of Analog’s other FPGA-based systems like the Mega Sg (Sega Genesis), Super Nt (SNES), Duo (NEC PC-Engine and similar), and the Nt mini (NES).

FPGA for MiSTer

Terasic DE10-Nano

The heart of the MiSTer project, this FPGA is used to mimic original hardware, including bugs and quirks that were present on the original console. Though the FPGA is the heart of the MiSTer, you’ll need additional hardware like USB hubs and microSD connectors to complete the project.

What About Official “Mini” Consoles?

There is a full range of officially-licensed “mini” consoles available, and these are viable options if you’re in the mood for some plug-and-play fun. While emulation quality can differ between them, they all generally hit the “good enough” barrier, considering the main draw here is the ease of use.

Most of these systems are comparable in terms of overall pros and cons. They have a limited selection of games available, which could mean some of your favorite titles aren’t present. Some, like the discontinued SNES Classic Mini, can be “hacked” to play more games or even entirely different systems using multi-system emulators like RetroArch.

Out of the box, they provide a decent retro gaming experience with no need to mess with software, upload ROMs, or bring cartridges. They all come with period-appropriate controllers, though these are generally wired. Perhaps worst is the supply issue, with many now only available through resellers at inflated prices.

Nintendo fans might want to start with the NES Mini Classic with 30 games including Super Mario Bros. , Metroid , and The Legend of Zelda . There’s also the SNES Classic with 21 games including Super Mario Kart and Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting , ideal for using the two included controllers.

SEGA kids might prefer the SEGA Genesis Mini for playing classic titles like Sonic the Hedgehog , Virtual Fighter 2 , Space Harrier 2, and Ecco the Dolphin. In better supply than most of these is Sony’s PlayStation Classic , with epics like Final Fantasy VII , Tekken 3, and Ridge Racer Type 4 pre-loaded.

If you were a retro home computer fan, you might find the C64 Mini more to your tastes. It outputs at 720p, features a classic joystick, and lets you play old classics like Speedball , California Games , and Impossible Mission (plus its sequel) in one tidy package. Unfortunately, the keys on the keyboard are non-functional and just for show.

Perhaps one of the best examples of its kind is the A500 Mini , an Amiga clone that includes both Amiga 500 and Amiga 1200 emulation abilities. The console includes the ability to side-load your own Amiga ROMs and comes with titles like Worms , Simon the Sorcerer , and Zool in the box.

Perhaps none of these “mini” consoles are more compelling than Capcom Home Arcade , a pricey yet stunning 16-in-one system housed in a pair of “competition class” arcade controllers in the shape of the Capcom logo. Play classics like Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo , Alien vs. Predator and Final Fight using the built-in CPS 1 and CPS 2 emulator.

SEGA Genesis Mini

Sega Genesis Mini – Genesis

SEGA’s Genesis Mini is one of the best examples of a mini home console emulator, with 42 games including Sonic the Hedgehog , Streets of Rage 2 , Golden Axe , and Phantasy Star IV .

The Best Raspberry Pi Kits of 2023

Best Raspberry Pi Overall

Raspberry Pi 4 Model B

Best Budget Raspberry Pi

Raspberry Pi Pico RP2040

Best Raspberry Pi Starter Kit

RasTech Raspberry Pi 4 4GB Starter Kit

Best Raspberry Pi for Learning to Code

CrowPi2 Raspberry Pi Laptop for Deluxe Kit

Best for Retro Gaming

Raspberry Pi 3 A+

In the latest in a long string of u-turns, retractions, and good old fashioned back-pedalling, Microsoft have announced that the new Xbox One will not require a Kinect to operate.

This goes against what had been previously known, and was revealed in an interview between IGN and Chief Xbox One Platform Architect Marc Whitten.

Whitten made it clear that “like online, the console will still function if Kinect isn’t plugged in”, though this admission seemed begrudging following a long defence of the benefits offered by the Kinect.

“Xbox One is designed to work with Kinect plugged in. It makes gaming better in many ways – from the ability to say “Xbox On” and get right to your personalized homescreen, to the ability to control your TV through voice, Smartglass and more.”

Gamers will also be able to turn the Kinect off completely when it’s connected, so that none of its sensors (bar the infra-red) will be “collecting any information”.

“You have the ability to completely turn the sensor off in your settings. When in this mode, the sensor is not collecting any information. Any functionality that relies on voice, video, gesture or more won’t work.”

The interview also revealed further details about the new console, including the news that there will be no cross-console voice chat between the One and the 360 and that the Xbox One will come boxed with a chat headset (though we’d seen this in the recent unboxing of the console ).

Microsoft also recently released a seven minute video detailing the new Xbox controller. Though they also disappointed fans by stating that the wired version of the controller would not work with PCs until 2014.