The Nintendo Switch is a pretty sweet piece of gaming hardware. Gaming on the go, what’s not to like? But if there is one thing we can complain about, it’s the lack of a Virtual Console, which Nintendo has promised, but still hasn’t materialized. A guy took matters into hands and created his own Switch clone that not only plays classic Nintendo games, it emulates over 50 other consoles.
Tim Lindquist, an electrical engineering student, began the pet project of making a Switch clone that can play any number of games you desire. To do so, he used Broadcom BCM287 processor (ARM architecture) that runs a light version of Linux with emulators on top. He calls his creation Nintimdo RP.
The body looks very similar to a Switch, with a sizable 7-inch touch LCD display in the middle and the controls on the left and right. It even has the same button and joy stick placement. Unfortunately, unlike the Joy Cons, they are not removable.
While not as thin or perfectly crafted as the Switch, it is still an impressive creation made with a bunch of random third-party parts. Inside lives a cooling system, 10,000mAh battery (dwarfing the Switch’s 4,310mAh battery) and a motherboard that has two standard-sized USB and HDMI ports for external displaying.
One of the most interesting details of the Nintimdo RP is the five-LEDs at the top that displays battery life, volume and power status.
Lindquist uses a RetroPie emulator with EmulationStation to re-create a home screen similar to the Switch’s. This allows him to play a massive library of games, comfortably beating the Switch’s minuscule (but growing!) game library.
Raspberry Pie emulators have been around for a while now, but this may be the coolest implementation of it yet. You can check out the timelapse of Tim Lindquist’s project down below.
