Modern smartphones have more horsepower than classic game consoles like early Nintendo, PlayStation, Sega, or Atari consoles, which is why it’s pretty easy to run classic games on a phone or tablet using emulation software.
But some hackers prefer to do things the hard way… and make portable game systems out of actual game console hardware.
We’ve seen a bunch of modified Nintendo Wii projects over the past few years. And now hacker Gman has managed to transform a Sega Dreamcast into a handheld game console he calls the 2DC.
The device features a 3.5 inch, 320 x 240 pixel display, a 5,000 mAh battery, USB-C charging, speakers, game controller buttons and a 3D printed case, along with some electronic components to tie everything together.
The most impressive thing is that it also featured a trimmed down Sega Dreamcast motherboard, so this is a real Dreamcast system rather than third-party hardware that relies on software emulation.
Well, sort of. There’s no disc drive, so the 2DC runs ROMs. And Gman uses a Dreamcast controller emulator in order to get the controls to work with the system.
Gman says the system gets about 2 hours of battery life, and the whole thing measures about 1.2 inches thick, making it a bit chunky compared with other handheld gaming devices, but pretty compact for a Sega Dreamcast.
You can find more details about this project at the BitBuilt forum.
via Gizmodo