Pierre-Louis Boyer is an engineer with a passion for 8bit video games. Last year he developed an easy-to-assemble Raspiboy gaming system as a kit but had feedback that many users would prefer a fully assembled system, not wanting to take on the tasks of assembly and soldering. He's back this month with a crowdfunding campaign to fund his RetroStone system, a fully assembled gaming console.
Retrostone has an HDMI port, four USB connectors, an Ethernet port and a power switch. Up to five users can connect together to play games. Front controls include a D pad, four buttons in a diamond pattern, and two small rectangular buttons that resemble a classic Select and Start configuration. Four buttons on the back of the unit act as L1/L2/R1/R2 controls. A micro SD slot, micro USB clot, and three LCD control nubs are also included.
The controller is based off of a Raspberry Pi platform and called RetroStone Pi, an H3 processor with four cores and 1.2 GigaHertz processing power. RetroStone Pi works with Retrorangepi as a game emulator that can house Gameboy, Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advance, Super Nintendo, Megadrive, Genesis, Atari and MaMe games.
The system comes fully assembled but Boyer has left lots of room for customization, with a commitment to open source hardware and software. He encourages users to build their own games and share with the community, and the front face of the unit has four more button spots and open pins in the pcb for users to build four more functions into the already busy controller.
Retro gamers are passionate about their hobby and that's evident by the 301 comments that are on the campaign page as of this writing. Boyer answers questions to clarify exactly what he expects the machine to do and address concerns over LCD quality, especially if users want to use the RetroStone to convert to a small computer. After taking on early input he's also redesigned the four buttons on the back of the unit into a V configuration instead of the proposed diamond shape. The campaign is already incredibly successful and will end on April 2. First units are expected to ship in June 2018.