Gift Guide: Buying Retro Hardware for Somebody Else

Retro hardware is a great gift and an easy one to get wrong, because the right version of it depends on what the person already owns, and you usually can’t ask without giving away the surprise.

So here is how I’d think it through. Find the section that sounds like the person you’re buying for. If none of them do, tell me what you know about them and I’ll help you land it. I like this part of the job.

First, about stock and timing

I’m one person and I’m still building up inventory, so the shop page shows what I’ve managed to build so far. Plenty of it is one-of-a-kind: a specific console, with a serial number in the listing, that is gone once somebody buys it.

With enough notice I can go get almost any retro console you want. I source it, go through it on the bench, fix what needs fixing, test it properly, and make sure it arrives in a condition you’d be happy handing to somebody. That is most of what I do anyway.

What “enough notice” means: a few weeks is comfortable, a couple of months is better if you want something specific or unusual, and a few days is not enough for anything I don’t already have built. Sourcing is the slow part, and I won’t ship a console I haven’t finished testing.

If you have a date, message me with the console and the date and I’ll tell you right away whether it’s doable. A no now is worth more to you than a maybe later.

If they’re into the mod scene

Somebody with a modded handheld on the shelf almost always wants the other one. The mod scene is cross-platform, and the fun is in having each machine at its best version.

• They have a modded Game Boy? Get them a kitted-out Game Gear: IPS screen, recapped, USB-C power. The Game Gear is the one people put off, because a bad one is a genuinely bad experience and a good one takes real work.
• They have a modded Game Gear? Flip it. A restored DMG-01 Game Boy, or a head-to-head pair with a link cable, goes down well with the same person.

I usually have Game Gear builds listed, and modded Game Boys come and go. If the exact combination you want isn’t up, ask me, because it’s often a build I can do rather than something I have to hunt for.

If they collect originals and keep them original

Different person entirely, and buying them a modded console is a miss. This one wants a machine that is what it was: original screen, original shell, original parts, no aftermarket anything.

That still leaves room for the work to have been done properly. A 30-year-old console with fresh capacitors, clean contacts and a working screen is still an original console. On a Game Gear in particular the original capacitors are the reason most of them sound bad and look worse, and replacing them is restoration rather than modification. What I’d avoid buying a purist is anything with an aftermarket board or a modern screen in it.

Look for the listings where I’ve named a specific serial number and said what has and hasn’t been touched, or ask me to find an unmodified example of something. Boxed and complete is the harder ask and takes longer, so start early if that’s the goal.

If they like custom things

I take commissioned work, and a console reshelled in a color they’d actually pick is one of the more popular versions of it. Tell me the console and the color and I’ll tell you what’s possible, what it costs and how long it takes.

Reshells are limited by what shells exist for that machine, which varies a lot by console, so start with a message rather than a purchase. Nothing gets paid until we’ve agreed on exactly what I’m building.

If they love retro games but don’t own anything

Get them the console they grew up with. It beats getting them the objectively better console nearly every time, because what they’re really unwrapping is a specific childhood.

If you don’t know the year, you can usually work backwards from their age. People bond hardest with the machine that was current when they were roughly seven to thirteen.

A console on its own isn’t a complete gift. Plan on the console, a second controller so they can hand one to somebody, a way to get the picture onto a modern TV, and at least one game they’ll recognize on sight. I sell composite and SCART HDMI converters and authentic tested cartridges. Ask me to check the list before you order, because “it doesn’t plug into the TV” is a miserable thing to discover on the day.

If they own a portable but always play it on batteries

This one is my favorite gift on the whole list, because it fixes a problem the person has definitely noticed and probably never got around to solving.

A Game Gear eats six AA cells in a few hours. A DMG Game Boy is gentler but still runs on four. Anybody who actually plays these has felt it.

A USB-C power dongle plugs into the original DC jack and runs the console off a USB power source, with nothing modified inside the console. The Game Boy and Game Gear ones are $20 to $30, they’re reversible, and they don’t touch the collector value of the machine.

Bundle it with a large USB-C battery pack and you’ve given them a play-anywhere kit. I don’t sell battery packs, because they’re a commodity and Amazon will sell you a better one cheaper than I could. Buy Anker or UGreen and you’ll be fine.

Two things to get right before you order:

• Check which model fits. The Game Gear dongles are built for North American consoles, because Sega wired the DC jack with opposite polarity depending on the region. Japanese and European units need the reverse, which I’m happy to build, but it isn’t the one on the shelf. The listings spell all of this out.
• For a gift, buy the standard version, not the Lite. The Lite is cheaper because it asks the USB source to supply the voltage over USB-C PD, so it only works with a PD battery or charger that can do it. The standard version boosts the voltage itself and runs off any 5V USB port that can give it 2 amps, which covers phone chargers, power banks, laptops and car ports. When you can’t check what the recipient already owns, that difference is worth the ten dollars.

If you’re buying for somebody with more than one handheld, buying two or more dongles takes 15% off, mix and match.

If they only ever had one side of the console war

Most people had exactly one of these growing up, and they know precisely what they were missing. Give them the other one.

• Grew up with an NES? A Genesis, with Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Streets of Rage 2.
• Grew up with a Genesis? An NES, with Super Mario Bros. 3 and The Legend of Zelda. If they’re a bit younger, an SNES with Super Mario World and A Link to the Past.

One or two of the famous exclusives is the right amount. The console is the gift; the games are so they can sit down with it that night instead of shopping for cartridges.

This is most of what drives the love of the Game Gear, by the way. It cost about $150 at a time when a Game Boy was about $90, and it drank batteries, so a lot of kids who wanted one never got one. What they remember is looking at somebody else’s: a full-color backlit screen in 1991, next to the Game Boy’s four shades of green. The Game Gear was the thing you couldn’t have, and thirty years later that is still the one people call me about.

If they mod things themselves

Get them a project. A mod kit is a good evening or two and it ends with their own console visibly better than it was, which is the whole appeal.

The SNES RGB mod board is the one I’d start with. It brings a 2-chip SNES up to the sharpness of a 1CHIP console, it’s $30 assembled and tested, and the install guide is free to read right now so you can see what you’d be signing them up for.

Two hard requirements before you buy it:

• It’s for 2-chip consoles only. A 1CHIP SNES or an SNES Jr already has sharp RGB and gains nothing.
• They need somewhere to plug the RGB output. A SCART-capable display or an RGB-to-HDMI converter, otherwise the mod is invisible.

If you’re not sure a kit matches their skill level or the tools they own, ask me. Tell me what they’ve built before and what’s on their bench and I’ll give you a straight answer, including “this one’s too much, get them that one instead”. A kit that sits in a drawer because it was two steps beyond them is a worse gift than a cheaper one they finish.

If you have no idea which of these they are

Three questions that usually settle it, and none of them give the game away:

1. Is anything they own opened up or modified? Modder. Buy hardware, not a kit, unless you know they finish projects.
2. Do they talk about a specific console, or about games generally? A specific console means they want the thing they remember. Games generally means a flash cart or a bundle gets more use.
3. How old were they in 1990? That one table above does the rest.

And if that doesn’t crack it, ask me. Tell me what you know, what you want to spend, and when you need it. I’ll give you a real recommendation, and I’ll tell you when the answer is that you shouldn’t buy anything from me at all.