After I set up the Fire TV Stick to fix YouTube, I had a thought. This runs Android. Android runs emulators. And I still have every console I grew up with.
An hour later my 6-year-old was playing Super Mario Bros. 3.
The Setup
RetroArch is a free, open source app that plays classic games. I sideloaded it on the Fire TV Stick and pointed it at a library of games from consoles I grew up with — NES, Super Nintendo, Genesis, Game Boy.
That’s it. One app, one stick, done.
My son now has access to every game I played as a kid. He doesn’t know that. To him it’s just “the game thing.” He picks one, plays it for a while, gets bored, goes outside. Exactly how it should work.
What He Actually Plays
He doesn’t care about having 9,000 games. He plays maybe six:
- Super Mario Bros. 3
- Sonic the Hedgehog
- Pokémon Leaf Green
- Mega Man X
- Banjo Kazooie
- Whatever I suggest when he asks “what did you play when you were little?”
That last one is the whole point.
The Part Nobody Talks About
I grew up in the 90s in Schuylkill County. We had a Super Nintendo and a stack of games from the flea market. No internet, no updates, no in-app purchases. You turned it on, you played, you turned it off.
There’s something about sitting on the couch with my kid playing the same games I played at his age. He’s terrible at Mega Man. I was too. He gets frustrated and wants to quit. I tell him to try one more time.
I didn’t set this up because I’m nostalgic — well, that’s not entirely true. I set it up because the alternative is games designed to keep him playing forever. Fortnite has psychologists on staff. Super Mario Bros. 3 was designed by a guy who wanted you to have fun for an afternoon.
There’s a difference between a game that respects your time and a game that monetizes it. My kid doesn’t know that yet. But I do.
The Cost
- Fire TV Stick 4K Max: $30 (already had it from the YouTube project)
- RetroArch: free and open source
- Watching my son win a Boulder Badge for the first time: worth every minute of setup