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An '''emulation box''' is an unofficial term for a device built with for the specific purpose of running emulators. They generally consist While it can technically be any small computer, the emulation boxes we list here are primarily single-purpose embedded devices intended to capitalize on nostalgia despite a multitude of overpriced better alternatives being readily available (like computers, mobile devices, and locked-down ARM microcomputers and some game consoles). There are more so just "collector's items". They should be avoided as your computer will generally provide better performance overall.two types of boxes:

==Cartridge Emulation boxes are frowned upon because, aside from a first party box's value as a collector's item, the hardware in an emulation box is often nothing more than a cheap, locked-down, ARM-based==These emulation system-on-a-chip, and the price you pay for obtaining it is marked up by the designer in order to make easy money. To make matters worse, numerous boxes uses orginal game cartridges have been found using emulators illegally, due to a prohibition in the emulator's license (like commercial distribution or CDs and cannot (without hackinglocked down hardware) load ROMs directly, resulting in many controversies unfolding over the matter.

===First Party Boxes=-party boxes==

|[[Canoe]]|Official Nintendo product designed to only emulate the SNES. Includes 21 games. Uses the ''exact same hardware '' (motherboard, SOC SoC and all) as the NES Classic, but with a different firmware.

|m2engage|Official SEGA product designed to only emulate the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive. Includes 42 games and is scheduled to launch September 19th. Interestingly, 2019it has the same specs as the (S)NESC. Unlike the other "minis", this one may offer The emulator used was developed by [[httpswikipedia://www.polygon.com/2019/6/4/18652108/sega-genesis-mini-mega-drive-tower-price useless add-onsM2 (game_developer)|M2]] that , who are purely best known for aesthetics handling emulation of various re-releases of games including several Sega ports and provide no additional featuresthe Genesis Virtual Console on the Wii.

|[https://www.konami.com/games/pcemini/gate PC Engine / TurboGrafx-16 Mini]

|TBA$99.99|?|Official Konami product. Includes 57 games (58 in Japan) and has about an equal mix of American and Japanese exclusives. The Japanese market will get casing and branding has the same regional differences as the original (Japan is the original white PC Engine, while Europe will get is the Core Grafx revision. In , and the US, players will get USA is the TurboGrafx-16 case design). Price The emulator used was developed by [[wikipedia:M2 (game_developer)|M2]], release date the same company that did the Sega Genesis Mini and full games list to be revealedother console ports.

|<strike>$99.99</strike> $4020|[[PCSX-Reloaded#PlayStation_Classic|PCSX-ReARMed]]|Official Sony product designed to only emulate the PS1. Includes 20 games. Uses [[PCSX-Reloaded#PlayStation_Classic|PCSX-ReARMed]] as its emulator.

|modified version of [https://github.com/xugamezhouyuhua/neogeominiemu NJEMU]|Offical SNK product designed to only emulate the NEOGEO. Includes 40 games. Uses a [https://github.com/xugamezhouyuhua/neogeominiemu modified version of NJEMU]

|[[FinalBurn Alpha]]|Offical CAPCOM product designed to emulate CPS1 and CPS2 arcade games. Includes 16 games. Uses [[FinalBurn Alpha]] as its emulator. Scheduled to launch October 25th, 2019.

===Third Party Boxes=-party boxes==

|$299.99-$499.99 <small>(Deluxe bundle)</small>|[[Mednafen]], [[Mesen]], [[Kega Fusion]], and [[MAME]] |Modular system. First emulation box with CD supportand one of the few to run on an Intel processor instead of ARM. Emulates PS1, Saturn, Genesis, Sega CD, 32X, TG-16/CD, Neo Geo CD, NES, SNES(only disc-based systems are supported out of the box, cartridge-based systems requires a separate add-on for each system).

|Emulates NES/GBC/GBA/Genesis/SNES and includes cart readers for those systems. Uses [[RetroArch]], [[Snes9x]], and [[Genesis Plus GX]] |Emulates NES/GBC/GBA/Genesis/SNES and includes cart readers for its emulationthose systems.

|$79.99|? <br/>(Genesis-on-a-Chip ?)|Produced under license from Sega. Emulates the Master System and the Sega Genesis. It also has a cartridge port that can load original cartridges to some degree. Very disappointing and the ensuing outcry has led Sega to drop their planned further partnership with AtGames for their actual Sega Genesis Mini.|-|Arcade1Up Home Arcade|Arcade1Up|[[Arcade emulators|Arcade]]|$200-$500 (Depends on the game)|[[MAME]], [[FinalBurn Alpha]], [[RetroArch]], and MOO <small>(their own commercial emulator)</small><ref>https://www.reddit.com/r/Arcade1Up/comments/a02870/hack_original_board_not_just_replace_w_pietc/</ref>|Officially licensed recreations of selected arcade cabinets. Emulates whatever arcade cabinet they can get the license for. Many have criticized its short height (about 3/4 the size of a normal cabinet), lack of a CRT monitor nor any filters for it, and minor inaccuracies compared to the original. Many hobbyists have even gone as far as to replace the main motherboard with a Raspberry Pi just to use [[MAME]] instead. |-|Pandora Boxes|Unknown|[[Arcade emulators|Arcade]]|$30-$170 (Depends on model and peripherals)|[[MAME]], [[FinalBurn Alpha]] (Older ones) / [[RetroArch]] (Newer ones)|A kind of plug & play device filled with hundreds of pirated arcade game ROMs, which was designed to be used as substitutions for actual arcade boards in commercial arcades. Emulation quality is always hit or miss, with issues like unbearable slowdowns, input latency, and screen tearing in some games.

==ControversiesControversy=====Poor catalog===A first party box may prove to be lacking due to its game catalog missing some essential title. This is often the result of messy licensing issues that continue to plague consoles today, as many games are a nightmare to relicense due to some external factor. It doesn't help that first-party boxes often lack the ability to load games externally. This is done to prevent the manufacturer from having to admit support for cartridge and disc formats that the emulation community uses, as it would by extension imply support for unofficial emulation. These limitations have caused many to [[Modding Consoles/Flashcarts#NES.2FSNES.2FPSX.2FMD_.28GEN.29_Classic|modify]] their systems just to be able to get more use out of it. ===Licensing===Some of those the products have attracted the ire of parts of the emulator emulation community over issues not necessarily related to the product's quality, but ones related to open source emulators. In some cases, it's because negotiations with open source emulator and/or frontend developers fell through and the company used a "lesser" option as a replacement. In others, an arrangement was reached, contracts and money were exchanged only for the project maintainers to turn out not to have gathered the complete consent of all contributors, some parts are licensed as a strictly non-commercial license, and similar issues. Sometimes, it might have to do with an incomplete source code release from companies that have to abide by GPLv3 obligations. And of course, the company might be acting malicious towards emulator developers. Since the problem with these is primarily meta, and is controversial within emulator developer circles, they may not affect the experience that the box itself provides. Some examples where this has happened: * Retron5: Its problems are explained at [[Retron5#Controversy|its page]].* Capcom Home Arcade: Koch Media (under license from Capcom) announced that they would use [[FinalBurn Alpha]] as the backend for games on the Capcom Home Arcade. This is despite the fact that FinalBurn Alpha was developed and released under a license that forbids commercial use (which was taken from versions of [[MAME]] before they had relicensed in 2015). When other FBA developers were questioned on the issue, they were completely unaware that this happened, resulting in the the project maintainer revealing that he had greenlit its use. The resulting fallout led to the creation of [[FinalBurn Neo]]. ==DIY solutions=={{WIP|section}}If you don't want to be limited by any consumer product, but still have something you can technically call an "emulation box," you can make one yourself! These single-board computers tend to be cheaper and offer more than a first party box will: ;Nvidia Shield TV:An Android TV box fast enough for 2D and 3D emulation of many consoles.;LattePanda:A Windows 10 computer with integrated Arduino. Fast enough for Saturn emulation.;ODROID:Has decent speeds for Saturn emulation.;Raspberry Pi:A very popular single-board computer that can run projects like Lakka off an SD card. You'll want to use a Raspberry Pi 3 or newer for decent performance.

Since the problem with these is primarily For more convenience, a meta problem that doesn't have much to do with the product's actual quality, and [[Frontends|frontend]] is a controversial subject even within emulator developer circles (some well-known developers such as byuu did eventually agree to work recommended with the likes of Hyperkin, after all) this section is about listing some of those casesthese devices.

* Capcom Home Arcade: Capcom has licensed (with compensation) FinalBurnAlpha from the project's maintainer, however this has lead to some [https://www.google.com/search?q=capcom+home+arcade+illegal&oq=capcom+home+arcade+illegal controversy] and outrage by fellow FBA developers (who didn't agree with this move, and eventually made their own fork) and MAME developers (where some of FBA's code comes from), as FB Alpha's license isn't cleared to allow =Distributions===These Linux distributions offer complete emulation packages for commercial use and many of those developers think the FBA's license is an ugly mess of contradicting licenses that should not exist.* Retron5 (Hyperkin): Is using RetroArch, Snes9x, Nestopia, VBA-M and Genesis Plus GX. While they did release their source code, the latter four have a non-commercial license. Retroarch's source code used was partial, single board computers and had DRM going against GPLv3 obligationsother systems.

{| class="wikitable" style=DIY Solutions"text-align:center;"! scope="col"|Name! scope="col"|Architecture! scope="col"|Frontend! scope="col"|Latest Version! scope="col"|Active! scope="col"|[[Recommended Emulators|Recommended]]|-|[[RetroPie]]|ARM|[[EmulationStation]] fork|[https://retropie.org.uk/download/ {{RetroPieVer}}]|{{✓}} ||{{✓}}|-|[[Lakka]]|ARM, x86|[[RetroArch]]|[http://www.lakka.tv/get/ {{LakkaVer}}]|{{✓}} ||{{TBD}}|-|[https://batocera.org/ Batocera.linux]|ARM, x86|[[EmulationStation]] fork|[https://batocera.org/download {{BatoceraLinuxVer}}]|{{✓}} ||{{TBD}}|-|[https://www.recalbox.com/ Recalbox]*Nvidia Shield TV (Android TV box fast enough for 2D & 3D emulation of many consoles)|ARM, x86*LattaPanda (Windows 10 computer with integrated Arduino|[[EmulationStation]]|[https://archive. Fast enough for Saturn emulationrecalbox.)com/ {{RecalboxVer}}]|{{✓}} ||{{TBD}}*Odroid (Decent speeds for Saturn emulation)|-*Raspberry Pi (Eg|[https://chimeraos. Lakkaorg/ ChimeraOS]|x86|Steam Big Picture|[https://chimeraos.)org/download 28]|{{✓}} ||{{TBD}}|}

==References==<references /> ==External Linkslinks==