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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 and locked-down ARM microcomputers and some are more so just "collector's items". They should be avoided as other better alternatives being readily available devices (i.e. like computers, mobile devices, and game consoles) may provide better performance and is cheaper.There are generally 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===

! scope="col"|<abbr title="Manufacturer's suggested retail price">MSRP</abbr>

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

|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 is best known for handling the emulation of various re-releases of games including several Sega ports and the Genesis Virtual Console on the Wii.|-|[https://sega.jp/genesismini2/ Sega Genesis Mini 2]|[[Sega]]|Sega Genesis, [[Sega Genesis emulators|Sega CD]]|$99.99|m2engage|Official SEGA product designed to emulate normal Sega Genesis/Mega Drive games plus Sega CD/Mega CD games and two enhanced Genesis/Mega Drive games. Includes 60 games. Compared to its predecessor, the system has an overclocked SoC, double RAM, and 8GB of NAND storage. Again, [[wikipedia:M2 (game_developer)|M2]], handled the emulation of Genesis and Sega CD games.

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

|TBA$99.99|?m2engage|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.

|[[Sony|Sony Interactive Entertainment]]

|Official Sony SIE product designed to only emulate the PS1. Includes 20 games.

|Offical CAPCOM product designed to emulate CPS1 and CPS2 arcade games. Includes 16 games. Scheduled |-|[https://sega.jp/astrocitymini/original/index.html Astro City Mini]|Sega Toys|Arcade|JP¥ <strike>12800</strike>13511<br>$<strike>129.99</strike>161.99|?|Offical SEGA product designed to emulate various Sega arcade games. Includes 36 games and the test program "Dottori-Kun". |-|[https://sega.jp/astrocitymini/v Astro City Mini V]|Sega Toys|Arcade|JP¥ 19580|?|Offical SEGA product designed to emulate various vertical-oriented Arcade games only. Includes 22 games (23 in the International version distributed by Limited Run Games)|-|[https://www.taito.co.jp/egret2mini Egret II Mini]|Taito|Arcade|JP¥ <strike>18678</strike>15800<br>$<strike>229.99</strike>109.03|?|Offical Taito product designed to emulate various Taito arcade games. Includes 40 games, 10 more bundled with optional paddle+trackball controller, and more purchasable games released in the form factor of SD cards.|-|[https://www.nintendo.co.jp/hardware/gamewatch/index.html Game & Watch: Super Mario Bros.]|[[Nintendo]]|NES and Disk System|JP¥ 5478|?|Offical Nintendo product designed to emulate Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 2 (The Lost Levels).|-|[https://www.nintendo.co.jp/hardware/gamewatch/zelda/index.html Game & Watch: The Legend of Zelda]|[[Nintendo]]|NES or Disk System and Game Boy|JP¥ 5480|?|Offical Nintendo product designed to launch October 25themulate The Legend of Zelda, 2019Zelda II: Adventure of Link and Link's Awakening. International versions have the NES versions available, while the Japanese version only has the Disk System versions.|-|[https://sega.jp/ggmicro/index.html Game Gear Micro]|[[Sega]]|Game Gear and Master System|JP¥ 4980|[[m2engage]]|Offical SEGA product designed to emulate Game Gear games. The form factor is small and is difficult to play by Western users, as the device was meant to not be sold outside Japan. 5 variants of the handheld exist, 4 being in retail and one being exclusive as a Limited Edition for Aleste Collection. Only the Aleste version includes Master System games.|-

===Third-party boxes===

! scope="col"|<abbr title="Manufacturer's suggested retail price">MSRP</abbr>

|$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).

|Produced under license from SegaMiniaturized X68000 personal workstation. Limited run. The standard pack comes with a joypad and two games: Gradius and ChoRenSha 68K on SD cards. Emulates the Master System Full-sized USB keyboard (mechanical switches, X68000 layout), USB mouse, and the Sega Genesismore games on SD cards are available separately. It also has a cartridge port that can load original cartridges to some degreeCapable of booting from third-party floppy/disk images. Very disappointing |-|Pandora Boxes|Unknown|[[Arcade emulators|Arcade]]|$30-$170 (Depends on model and the ensuing outcry has led Sega 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 drop their planned further partnership with AtGames be used as substitutions for their actual Sega Genesis Miniarcade 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==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 open source emulatorsrelicense due to some 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 issuesit would by extension imply support for unofficial emulation. These limitations have caused many to [[Modding Consoles/Flashcarts#NES.2FSNES.2FPSX.2FMD_.28GEN. Sometimes, 29_Classic|modify]] their systems just to be able to get more use out of it might have . Some redistributors of third party boxes that pre-load them with games (which in itself is illegal to do redistribute with an incomplete source code release from companies the game images preinstalled) may contain game images that have aren't 1:1 identical to the originals either due to abide by GPLv3 obligationspossibly cobbling them from various sources. And of course, Use the guides on the company might be acting malicious towards emulator developerswebsite where possible for obtaining game images.

Since ===Licensing===Some of the problem with these is primarily a meta problem that doesn't products have much attracted the ire of parts of the emulation community over issues not necessarily related to do with the product's actual quality, but ones related to open source emulators. In some cases, it's because negotiations with open source emulator and is /or frontend developers fell through and the company used a controversial subject even within emulator developer circles (some well-known developers such "lesser" option as byuu did eventually agree a replacement. In others, an arrangement was reached, contracts and money were exchanged only for the project maintainers to work with turn out not to have gathered the likes complete consent of Hyperkinall contributors, after all) this section is about listing 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 those casescourse, the company might be acting malicious towards emulator developers.

* Capcom Home Arcade: Capcom has licensed (with compensation) FinalBurnAlpha from Since 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 problem with this movethese is primarily meta, and eventually made their own fork) and MAME developers (where some of FBA's code comes from)is controversial within emulator developer circles, as FB Alpha's license isn't cleared to allow for commercial use and many of those developers think they may not affect the FBA's license is an ugly mess of contradicting licenses experience that should not existthe box itself provides.* Retron5 (Hyperkin)Some examples where this has happened: 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, and had DRM going against GPLv3 obligations.

Outside of * 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 emulation community, people have complained that some of these products are lacking or disappointingCapcom Home Arcade. This is mainly due to despite the selection fact that FinalBurn Alpha was developed and released under a license that forbids commercial use (which was taken from versions of games determined to be "worthy" of being preloaded to [[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 systemproject maintainer revealing that he had greenlit its use. The issue resulting fallout led to the creation of not having certain games have caused many to [[Modding Consoles/Flashcarts#NES.2FSNES.2FPSX_Classic| modifyFinalBurn Neo]] their systems just to be able to play the games they want.

==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.:[[Recommended_linux_distros#Emulation_focused|Emulation focused Linux distros]]

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