It started at 7 AM
I broke down and decided to take a shot at getting the NES Classic, partly out of nostalgia and partly because I was feeling nerdy. I was out of country at the time of the discontinuation announcement, and thought if I was going to get one now would be about the only time.
So I stood in line at a nearby Target with 8 other people, hoping to get a chance at the limited supply. This happened two more times at Targets in my area (New England) before I threw in the towel. Queuing for hours at a time is not my kind of thing.
What is a nerd to do?
Well, you could try your hand at the scalper's market eBay, but given I’m also not one to drop $300 on a glorified emulator, I resolved to do what any self-respecting computer scientist would do: build one, of course! How? With a Raspberry Pi and some determination. The folks over at How-To Geek have a lovely guide on How To Build Your Own NES Classic With a Raspberry Pi and RetroPie which I plan to follow.
All said and done, I spent more money than I wanted. The NES Classic goes for $60 off the shelf (legitimately), and I’ve been set back $130 for all the parts (Raspberry Pi 3, power supply, 32GB micro SD card, custom NES case, and 2 usb controllers). I justify this cost to myself by saying that I’ll have double the gaming capacity than the NES Classic – The RetroPie platform affords emulation for all sorts of systems, from NES to 64, sega, playstation, etc. So it’s FYNE.
Until then, I eagerly await all the parts. Updates to follow.