Changes

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:

=;First-party boxes:Use the official branding of a console, with the support of the company who made it. More often than not, modern console manufacturers are not the ones who come up with the idea, and are usually approached by some other company who offloads some or all of the work of getting it running.;Third-party boxes:Use their own branding because they don't have a license to use the actual companies' trademarks. A legal ruling for emulators has allowed them to use the name of the console in marketing (such as advertising the ability to play games from a specific console on the packaging), but not as the name for the box itself. 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 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 have been found using emulators illegally, due to a prohibition in the emulator's license (like commercial distribution or locked down hardware), resulting in many controversies unfolding over the matter. ==First-party boxes===

|Official SEGA product designed to only emulate the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive. Includes 42 games. Interestingly, it has the same specs as the (S)NESC. The emulator used was develop developed by [[wikipedia:M2 (game_developer)|M2]], who are best known for handling emulation of various re-releases of games including several Sega ports and the 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.

|Offical CAPCOM product designed to emulate CPS1 and CPS2 arcade games. Includes 16 games. Scheduled to launch October 25th, 2019.

===Third-party boxes===

|$299.99-$499.99 <small>(Deluxe bundle)</small>

|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).

|?<br/>(Genesis-on-a-Chip ?)

==ControversiesControversy==Some of those products have attracted ===Poor catalog===A first party box may prove to be lacking due to its game catalog missing some essential title. This is often the ire of parts result of the emulator community over messy licensing issues not necessarily related that continue to the product's qualityplague consoles today, but ones related as many games are a nightmare to relicense due to open source emulatorssome external factor. In some cases, itIt doesn's because negotiations with open source emulator and/or frontend developers fell through and t help that first-party boxes often lack the company used a "lesser" option as a replacementability to load games externally. In others, an arrangement was reached, contracts and money were exchanged only for This is done to prevent the project maintainers manufacturer from having to turn out not to have gathered admit support for cartridge and disc formats that the complete consent of all contributorsemulation community uses, 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 would by GPLv3 obligations. And of course, the company might be acting malicious towards emulator developersextension imply support for unofficial emulation.

Since the problem with these is primarily a meta problem that doesn't These limitations have much caused many to do with the product's actual quality, and is a controversial subject even within emulator developer circles (some well-known developers such as byuu did eventually agree [[Modding Consoles/Flashcarts#NES.2FSNES.2FPSX.2FMD_.28GEN.29_Classic|modify]] their systems just to work with the likes of Hyperkin, after all) this section is about listing some be able to get more use out of those casesit.

* Capcom Home Arcade: Capcom has licensed (with compensation) FinalBurnAlpha from ===Licensing===Some of the products have attracted the ire of parts of the emulation community over issues not necessarily related to the projectproduct's maintainerquality, however this has lead but ones related to some [https://wwwopen source emulators.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 In some of FBA's code comes from)cases, as FB Alphait's license isn't cleared to allow for commercial use because negotiations with open source emulator and many of those /or frontend developers think fell through and the FBA's license is an ugly mess of contradicting licenses that should not existcompany used a "lesser" option as a replacement.* Retron5 (Hyperkin): Is using RetroArchIn others, Snes9xan arrangement was reached, Nestopia, VBA-M contracts and Genesis Plus GX. While they did release their source code, money were exchanged only for the latter four 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. Retroarch's Sometimes, it might have to do with an incomplete source code used was partial, and had DRM going against release from companies that have to abide by GPLv3 obligations. And of course, the company might be acting malicious towards emulator developers.

Outside of Since the emulation communityproblem with these is primarily meta, people have complained that some of these products are lacking or disappointing. This and is mainly due to controversial within emulator developer circles, they may not affect the selection of games determined to be "worthy" of being preloaded to experience that the system. The issue of not having certain games have caused many to [[Modding Consoles/Flashcarts#NES.2FSNES.2FPSX_Classic| modify]] their systems just to be able to play the games they wantbox 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 Solutionssolutions=={{WIP|section}}If you still want some kind of "emulation box", but 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 other SoCs are relatively single-board computers tend to be cheaper and offer more than a first-party boxesbox will:*;Nvidia Shield TV (:An Android TV box fast enough for 2D & and 3D emulation of many consoles).;LattePanda*LattaPanda (:A Windows 10 computer with integrated Arduino. Fast enough for Saturn emulation.)*;ODROID (Decent :Has decent speeds for Saturn emulation).*;Raspberry Pi (Eg. :A very popular single-board computer that can run projects like Lakkaoff an SD card. It recommended You'll want to use the a Raspberry Pi 3 or higher newer for decent performance.)It is best if you use some kind of For more convenience, a [[Frontends|frontend]] to run the emulators as it will provide more convenienceis recommended with these devices. ===Distributions===These Linux distributions offer complete emulation packages for single board computers and other systems. {| class="wikitable" style="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]|ARM, x86|[[EmulationStation]]|[https://archive.recalbox.com/ {{RecalboxVer}}]|{{✓}} ||{{TBD}}|-|[https://chimeraos.org/ ChimeraOS]|x86|Steam Big Picture|[https://chimeraos.org/download 28]|{{✓}} ||{{TBD}}|}

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