Can’t Find A SNES Classic Edition? You Can Build Your Own

The SNES Classic Edition is finally available, releasing just before the weekend. Well, okay, maybe “available” isn’t the proper term, since it sold out pretty quickly and is getting snapped up by fans and resellers alike.

But don’t fret. If you didn’t find out, Nintendo promises to have more in stock in time for the holiday season – and if you really want it, there’s actually an option to build your own.

Mashable has posted a helpful guide that breaks down how to make your own system, using a Raspberry Pi set-up and other tools. It actually allows you to customize a system to include games that aren’t on the SNES Classic, like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles In Time and other games like that.

We’ve posted details from this helpful guide over the next few pages, so you can figure out what you need to make your own system. Good luck!

Getting Started

According to the guide, you’ll need the following items to get this project going.

• Raspberry Pi 3
• Raspberry Pi 3 case
• Raspberry Pi Power Adapter
• MicroSD card (at least 8GB, or more)
• USB Controller
• HDMI cable
• USB flash drive
• Kazzo cartridge ripper (if you really need it)

In addition, if you really want to go for the SNES Classic touch, you can get a SNES Raspberry Pi case here, and it shouldn’t be hard to find a SNES-based controller to match. They may cost a little more, but it depends how much you really want that SNES feeling. Other controllers work just as well, so it’s your call.

Now, let’s get to the next step…

Setting Up the Raspberry Pi and Getting RetroPie

Okay, so obviously you want to set up your Raspberry Pi first. Just go through the basic steps in doing this and you’ll be set.

From there, look up a program called RetroPie. This basically has every kind of emulator you can find for classic games. This includes SNES, as well as Sega Genesis, NES and a number of others.

Once you download the image of RetroPie from the site, make sure you’ve got the right model number with your Raspberry Pi. If it matches, use 7-Zip to extract the image to continue your set-up.

From there, pay close attention. You’ll need to take this image and put it onto the microSD card, using something like Win32DiskImager for Windows, or Apple Pi Baker for Mac. Once written, you’ll be able to remove the card, and then place the Raspberry Pi in its place.

Get To Configuring

Once you’ve got the Raspberry Pi where it needs to be, boot it up and begin your configuration, including the set-up of the controller. You’ll want to make sure button mapping is done here before you get started on anything.

After that, look up the ROMs that you want to install. You’ll need to do some Internet searching in this regards, but a number of different sites should have these. Just keep in mind that Nintendo doesn’t really feel fond of the idea of having its games ripped.

You can rip the games with the help of the Kazzo, which you can do here, and there are also a few guides that can help with ripping tools, if you need more information.

Downloading the Games

Once you find the games you want, you’ll need to install.

Start by inserting the USB flash drive and making sure it’s formatted to FAT-32. Once that’s done, create a folder called “retropie” in the drive.

Plug it into your Raspberry Pi and start it up. You’ll then put the drive back into your computer and you’ll see a number of folders created in the “retropie” folder. Look for one named “roms” and go to the SNES folder. Look for whatever games you wanted to download and add them to said folder.

Finally, take the USB out of the computer, put it back into the Raspberry Pi, start it up, and you should see the games.

That’s about it, really. Again, it’s a bit on the technical side with set-up, and you are kind of crossing legal lines setting up your own emulator, but it’s a cheap way to get your own SNES Classic. And with more games, no less.

Mashable actually posted a helpful video that showcases some of the Raspberry Pi set-up, so head on over and take a look!