PS1 Light Gun Games on Modern TV: Worth It in 2026 UK?

There are few moments in gaming as pure as standing a few feet from the television, plastic pistol in hand, blasting away at polygonal terrorists in Time Crisis. The satisfying clack of the Guncon 2, the flash on screen, the ducking behind cover by pressing a pedal on the floor. It was a perfect, self-contained arcade experience, piped directly into our living rooms. For a brief, glorious period in the late 90s, the light gun was king. Then, almost overnight, it vanished. The culprit? The slow, inevitable death of the cathode ray tube (CRT) television.

If you’re reading this in 2026, chances are you’ve felt the specific pain of digging out your old PlayStation, plugging in that iconic orange Guncon, pointing it at your 55-inch OLED and… nothing. Not a flicker. The technology that felt like magic in 1997 is utterly useless on any modern flat-panel display. For years, this entire genre of gaming was effectively lost to anyone without the space or inclination to keep a hefty, back-breaking CRT in the house. But this is not a eulogy. This is a guide to resurrection. It is now entirely possible, and frankly brilliant, to play PS1 light gun games on your modern TV here in the UK. It requires new hardware and a bit of setup, but the result is a flawless, accurate, and deeply satisfying return to one of gaming’s most kinetic genres.

This guide will walk you through exactly how to get your PS1 light gun setup working in 2026. We’ll cover the technology that makes it possible, the specific hardware you need to buy, the best games to revisit, and a clear verdict on whether the cost and effort are truly worth it. The short answer is yes, absolutely. The long answer is how we get you from a useless piece of plastic to pixel-perfect headshots in Point Blank.

Why Your Original Guncon Won’t Work: The CRT vs Modern Display Problem

To understand the solution, we first need to get to grips with the problem. Why is a technology that worked perfectly well three decades ago completely incompatible with the vastly superior displays we have today? The answer lies in the fundamental difference between how a CRT and an LCD/OLED screen draw an image. It’s not just a minor incompatibility; they are polar opposites in their approach.

A Cathode Ray Tube television, the big, heavy box you grew up with, works by firing a single, high-speed beam of electrons from the back of the tube towards the phosphor-coated screen at the front. This beam scans across the screen horizontally, line by line, from top to bottom, illuminating the phosphors to create a picture. It does this incredibly quickly—in the UK and Europe, it repaints the entire screen 50 times per second (50Hz PAL standard). This process is constant and predictable. The light gun capitalised on this. Inside the barrel of a Namco Guncon or a Sega Light Phaser was a simple photodiode, a sensor that detects light. When you pulled the trigger, two things happened. First, the entire screen would flash white for a single frame. Second, the sensor in the gun would start ‘looking’. Because the electron beam draws the screen sequentially, the gun’s sensor would detect the bright white flash at a very precise moment in time, corresponding to the exact horizontal and vertical position of the beam. The console’s internal timing chip knew where the beam was at any given microsecond, so when it received the signal from the gun, it could calculate with pinpoint accuracy where on the screen you were aiming. It was a brilliantly simple and robust piece of engineering.

Modern displays—LCD, LED, OLED, QLED, Plasma—don’t work like this at all. They are what’s known as “sample-and-hold” displays. They don’t have an electron beam. Instead, they have a grid of millions of individual pixels, each of which can be turned on, off, or set to a specific colour. When a new frame of video is sent to the TV, the entire grid of pixels is updated at more or less the same time and then held in that state until the next frame arrives. There is no scanning beam, no sequential drawing process for a light gun’s sensor to detect. Pointing a Guncon at an OLED TV is like using a sundial in a windowless room; the essential element it needs to function is simply not there. The screen flashes, but the gun’s sensor sees the entire screen light up at once, giving the console no timing information to work with. This is why the entire genre went dormant—the fundamental display technology it was built upon became obsolete.

The Modern Solution: An Overview of IR-Based Light Gun Systems

With the old method dead and buried, a new one had to be invented. If the gun could no longer see a signal from the TV, the solution was to reverse the flow of information. The new generation of light guns work by having the gun see a set of reference points around the TV. This is almost always achieved using infrared (IR) light, which is invisible to the human eye but easily detectable by a camera sensor.

The concept is similar to the sensor bar used by the Nintendo Wii, but far more precise. In most modern systems, you place a set of small IR LED emitters around your television screen. Inside the light gun is a small, high-speed camera with an IR filter. The camera constantly looks for the distinct pattern of these IR LEDs. By analysing the position, size, and perspective of these dots within its field of view, the gun’s internal processor can calculate its exact orientation and where it’s pointing on the screen in 3D space. This positional data is then sent to the computer or console, which translates it into a standard mouse cursor movement. To the emulator or game, it just looks like you’re using a very, very fast and accurate mouse. This is a fundamental shift: the gun is no longer a dumb sensor telling the console when it saw a flash. It’s now a smart camera, constantly calculating its own position relative to a fixed frame of reference.

This approach has several enormous advantages. It’s completely display-agnostic; it works on any size or type of screen, from a 15-inch LCD monitor to a 120-inch projector, because it only cares about the IR reference points, not the screen technology itself. It’s also incredibly accurate, often down to a single pixel. The main players in this space are the Sinden Light Gun, which uses a unique camera-only system, and Gun4IR, which uses the more traditional IR emitter setup. Both achieve the same goal but go about it in slightly different ways, catering to different users—one prioritising plug-and-play convenience, the other offering a more customisable, DIY-focused route. This technological leap has single-handedly revived the genre for modern setups.

Deep Dive: The Sinden Light Gun – The Gold Standard for Plug-and-Play

For most people in the UK looking to get back into light gun gaming in 2026, the Sinden Light Gun is the answer. It is, without question, the most elegant and user-friendly solution on the market. Developed by British inventor Andy Sinden, its key innovation is that it requires no external sensors to be placed on your television. This is its killer feature and what sets it apart from almost every other competitor.

So how does it work? The Sinden uses a high-speed camera, but instead of looking for external IR LEDs, it looks for the border of the television screen itself. When you run the Sinden software, it overlays a thin white border around the game screen. The camera in the gun is programmed to recognise this high-contrast rectangle. By calculating its position and orientation relative to the four corners of this border, it can determine where you’re aiming with incredible precision. This is a genius piece of software engineering because it removes the faff of sticking IR sensors to your expensive TV and running extra wires. You just plug the gun into a USB port on your PC or Raspberry Pi, run the software, and you’re ready to go. The software is mature, well-supported, and has pre-made configurations for dozens of emulators and games.

The hardware itself feels fantastic. The standard model is a sturdy, well-weighted piece of kit that feels substantial in the hand. You can get it in various colours, with or without a solenoid for mechanical recoil. I cannot recommend the recoil version enough. The powerful ‘thump’ it delivers every time you fire adds a massive layer of immersion that is absolutely worth the extra cost. It also includes a pump-action for off-screen reloading in games like Time Crisis, and has a host of customisable side buttons. Build quality is excellent and it feels like a serious piece of enthusiast hardware, not a cheap toy. In community testing, once calibrated (a simple process of pointing at a few on-screen targets), the accuracy is phenomenal. Tracking is 1:1 and immediate. Testers report reliably hitting the smallest targets in Point Blank from across my living room. The experience is, in every meaningful way, superior to the original Guncon on a CRT. It’s more accurate, works on a bigger screen, and the recoil is just sublime.

The price is the main consideration. A single recoil model will set you back around £92.99-£180. That’s a significant investment. But you’re not just buying a controller; you’re buying a key to an entire lost genre of gaming. For its sheer ease of use, incredible performance, and brilliant sensor-free design, the Sinden is the definitive choice for anyone who values a polished, out-of-the-box experience.

The DIY Alternative: Gun4IR – For the Tinkerer

Whilst the Sinden offers a superb plug-and-play experience, there’s another major force in the modern light gun scene: Gun4IR. This system is aimed squarely at the retro gaming enthusiast who doesn’t mind a bit of a project, enjoys tinkering, and wants to save a bit of money in the process. It’s a more traditional IR-based system, but its performance is widely regarded as being on par with, and in some specific scenarios, even slightly better than the Sinden.

The core of the Gun4IR system involves placing four small IR LED sensors on the corners of your TV bezel. These are wired together and powered via USB. The gun itself, which contains the IR camera and processing board, then sees these four points of light to calculate its position. The main advantage of this approach is that it’s extremely robust. It isn’t affected by ambient light conditions, reflections on the screen, or the colour of your TV’s bezel in the same way a camera-only system theoretically could be. It also doesn’t require a software-generated border around the screen, meaning 100% of your display is used for the game itself. For purists, this is a significant point in its favour.

The “DIY” aspect of Gun4IR is its biggest strength and its biggest barrier to entry. You can buy pre-built Gun4IR guns from licensed builders, but the most common route is to buy the core electronics kit and install it into a housing of your own. This could be a cheap third-party gun controller, an airsoft pistol shell for maximum realism, or even a 3D-printed custom design. This allows for an incredible level of personalisation. You can choose the exact feel, weight, and button layout you want. For the dedicated hobbyist, building the perfect custom light gun is a hugely rewarding project. The community surrounding Gun4IR is fantastic, with extensive documentation, video tutorials, and forums full of people willing to help with troubleshooting. The calibration software is powerful, offering deep customisation of smoothing, dead zones, and button mapping. The raw performance, once dialled in, is flawless. It’s incredibly fast and pixel-perfectly accurate.

The cost can be lower than a Sinden, especially if you source a cheap gun shell. The core kit is more affordable, but you must factor in the cost of the shell, soldering equipment if needed, and your own time. It’s not a solution for everyone. If you want to unbox a product and be playing games in ten minutes, the Sinden is your best bet. But if you’re the kind of person who enjoys projects like building a custom arcade stick or modding a Game Boy Advance SP, then Gun4IR offers an unbeatable combination of performance, customisation, and value. It’s the enthusiast’s choice.

Setting It All Up: Your PS1 Light Gun Signal Chain in 2026

Getting a modern light gun is only half the battle. You also need to figure out how to get your PlayStation 1 games running on your modern TV in a way that the gun can interact with. There are two primary paths you can take: using original hardware, or using emulation. Both are valid, but they have different costs, complexities, and benefits.

Path 1: Using Original PlayStation Hardware

For the purists, nothing beats the feeling of putting the original black disc into a real PS1. The good news is that it is possible to make this work with a modern light gun, but it requires some specific hardware to bridge the gap. You absolutely cannot just plug your gun into a PC and your PS1 into the TV and expect it to work.

The key is a device that can read the light gun’s USB output and convert it into a signal the original PlayStation console can understand. Several community-developed open-source projects exist for this, often called a “USB to PS1 Controller Adapter” or similar. These small boxes sit between your Sinden/Gun4IR and the PS1’s controller port. They essentially trick the console into thinking your modern gun is an original Guncon.

The other piece of the puzzle is getting the PS1’s video output onto your HDMI TV. The standard composite cables look atrocious on a 4K panel. You’ll need an upscaler. For a simple, zero-lag solution, the RAD2X for PlayStation is a fantastic choice. It plugs directly into the PS1’s AV port and outputs a clean 480p HDMI signal. For those wanting more control, one of the best retro upscalers under £100 like a Retrotink 2X-Mini will do the job beautifully, taking the console’s native signal and line-doubling it for a sharp picture. This path is more complex and expensive, but it offers the most authentic experience possible.

Path 2: The Emulation Route (Recommended)

For 99% of people, emulation is the way to go. It’s cheaper, more flexible, and offers significant visual enhancements over the original hardware. The most common setup is a small, dedicated computer running an emulation frontend like Batocera or RetroPie. A Raspberry Pi 5 is more than powerful enough for flawless PS1 emulation and is the device of choice for most light gun cabinets.

The setup process involves:

1. Install an Emulation OS: Flash an image of Batocera or a similar OS to a microSD card and boot up your Raspberry Pi.
2. Configure the Emulator: The best PS1 emulator for this purpose is DuckStation (often included as a ‘core’ in RetroArch, which Batocera uses). Within the emulator settings, you need to enable light gun support and assign the gun (which the system sees as a mouse) to the correct controller port.
3. Install the Gun Software: For the Sinden, you’ll need to install its driver package on the Pi. This is a straightforward process with clear instructions on the Sinden wiki. This software handles drawing the border and interpreting the camera feed. For Gun4IR, the configuration is handled more in its own GUI.
4. Calibrate: Once everything is running, you’ll calibrate the gun within its own software to ensure perfect alignment with your screen.

The beauty of emulation is the enhancements. You can increase the internal resolution of the PS1 games, making those blocky 3D models look far sharper than they ever did on a CRT. You can apply widescreen hacks, add save states, and have your entire game library accessible from a single menu. Whilst it lacks the tactile charm of using original discs, the performance, convenience, and visual improvements make emulation the recommended path for most UK users in 2026.

The Essential PS1 Light Gun Library: Beyond Time Crisis

Everyone’s first thought is Time Crisis, and for good reason. It, along with its sequel Time Crisis: Project Titan, defined the genre on the PlayStation. The cover system, the cinematic action, the iconic “ACTION!” reload command—it’s a masterpiece that holds up brilliantly. But the PS1’s light gun library is far richer than just one series. Dusting off these classics is a huge part of the joy of getting a modern setup working.

Point Blank Trilogy (1, 2, and 3): If Time Crisis is the serious action film, Point Blank is the chaotic, hilarious Saturday morning cartoon. It’s not a story-driven shooter but a collection of frantic, brilliantly inventive micro-games. You’ll be shooting targets, protecting the iconic Dr. Don and Dr. Dan, shooting cardboard ninjas, and even shooting the letters on the screen to answer quiz questions. The sheer variety is astonishing, and it’s the perfect party game. The difficulty ramps up perfectly, and the vibrant, colourful graphics have aged wonderfully. All three are essential, but Point Blank 2 is often cited as the pinnacle of the series.

Die Hard Trilogy: A true gem of the 32-bit era. This was three games in one, each based on one of the first three films and each in a different genre. Die Hard was a third-person shooter, Die Hard 2 was a light gun game, and Die Hard with a Vengeance was a driving game. The light gun section, set in Dulles Airport, is a fantastic on-rails shooter. It’s fast, brutal, and captures the kinetic energy of the film perfectly. The fact it was just one-third of a full-price game was incredible value back in 1996, and it’s still a blast to play today.

Ghoul Panic (known as Oh! Bakyuuun in Japan): This is a quirky and charming shooter from the same team behind the Point Blank series. You play as a pair of ghost-hunting kids exploring a haunted mansion. It’s a whimsical, funny, and deeply Japanese take on the genre, with you shooting cartoony ghosts, possessed furniture, and other oddities. It plays like a blend of Point Blank‘s wackiness and Time Crisis‘s linear progression. It’s a lesser-known title in the UK but is absolutely worth seeking out for its unique style and personality.

Elemental Gearbolt: A truly unique title. This is a light gun shooter wrapped in a stunning fantasy RPG aesthetic, with a sweeping orchestral score from the London Philharmonic Orchestra. The art style, a sort of fantasy-sci-fi hybrid, is gorgeous, and the gameplay is a compelling mix of shooting and score-chasing. It feels more refined and ‘serious’ than many of its contemporaries. It’s also one of the more expensive and sought-after PS1 titles, but if you can find it or are happy to emulate, it offers an experience unlike any other light gun game on the system.

Who Should Buy a Modern Light Gun Setup in 2026?

This is not a casual purchase. Building a proper, high-quality light gun setup for your PS1 library is a project that requires a budget and some patience. A Sinden Light Gun with recoil is roughly £160. A Raspberry Pi 5 starter kit is around £100. Add in a good quality microSD card and you’re looking at a total investment of approximately £270 before you’ve even sourced the games. So, is it worth it? That depends entirely on what kind of retro gamer you are.

You should absolutely invest in this setup if:

• You have deep nostalgia for the genre. If you spent hours in the arcade playing Time Crisis II or at home perfecting your Point Blank scores, this technology doesn’t just approximate that feeling—it perfects it. The accuracy and immersion of a Sinden on a large TV surpasses the original experience.
• You’re looking for a unique gaming experience. In an era of homogenous controllers, standing up and physically aiming at the screen is a wonderfully refreshing change of pace. It’s active, it’s tactile, and it offers a type of fun that simply cannot be replicated with a thumbstick. It’s also an incredible party piece when friends are over.
• You are a collector or preservationist. Light gun games represent a significant and beloved part of gaming history that was, for a long time, inaccessible on modern hardware. This is the technology that preserves that legacy and makes it playable for a new generation.

You should probably skip this if:

• You have a limited budget. Nearly £300 is a lot of money, and it could buy you a top-tier modern retro handheld like the AYN Odin 2. If you just want to play PS1 games in general, something like the Anbernic RG35XX H is a far cheaper entry point, even if it can’t handle light gun titles properly.
• You want a simple, console-like experience. While the Sinden is “plug-and-play” for a PC peripheral, it still requires software installation, configuration within emulators, and occasional troubleshooting. This is a hobbyist project, not an Xbox controller.
• You only have a passing interest in one or two games. If you only ever plan to play Time Crisis once and then put it away, the cost is hard to justify. The value comes from exploring the whole rich library of shooters available for the PS1, Saturn, Dreamcast, and arcade (via MAME).

Ultimately, this is for the enthusiast. It’s for the person who sees the price tag not as a cost, but as an investment in reclaiming a lost part of their gaming past. For that person, the payoff is immense.

Beyond the PlayStation: Expanding Your Light Gun Horizons

While our focus here is on resurrecting the PS1 classics, one of the greatest strengths of a modern light gun setup is its versatility. The Sinden and Gun4IR are not PlayStation-specific devices; they are system-wide mouse emulators. This means that once you have it running on your PC or Raspberry Pi, a vast universe of shooter games from other systems is immediately at your fingertips. This is where the true value of your investment becomes clear.

The most obvious next step is the arcade. Using the MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) emulator, you can access the original, pixel-perfect arcade versions of the games you love and many more that never received a console port. We’re talking about Sega’s Virtua Cop 1 & 2, the arcade version of The House of the Dead, Atari’s Area 51, and Midway’s iconic Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The arcade originals often featured superior graphics and sound compared to their console counterparts, and playing them at home with a perfectly accurate light gun is a dream come true for anyone who grew up feeding 50p coins into these machines.

Other consoles also had fantastic light gun libraries. The Sega Saturn, with its Virtua Gun, was home to masterpieces like Panzer Dragoon Zwei (which has a 3D shooting gallery mode) and the definitive home port of Virtua Cop 2. The Sega Dreamcast also had excellent shooters like The House of the Dead 2 and Confidential Mission. Emulators for these systems (like Yabause for Saturn and Flycast for Dreamcast) have excellent light gun support. Even older 8-bit and 16-bit systems can be explored. Playing Duck Hunt on the NES or Lethal Enforcers on the Mega Drive with a modern light gun is a surreal and brilliant experience. It’s a far cry from the first-person shooters of today, like the classic GoldenEye 007 covered in our dedicated review, offering a more direct and arcade-like thrill. Your light gun setup becomes a universal key that unlocks the entire history of the on-rails and gallery shooter genre, from the 1980s right through to the early 2000s.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I use my original PS1 Guncon on a modern LCD or OLED TV?

No, you absolutely cannot. Original light guns like the Namco Guncon or the Sega Light Phaser were designed specifically for CRT televisions. They work by detecting the timing of the electron beam as it scans across the screen. Modern TVs like LCD, LED, and OLED do not have an electron beam and update all their pixels at once, making the original light gun technology completely incompatible. There is no adapter or workaround that can make an original gun function on a modern display.

Is the Sinden Light Gun worth the money in 2026?

Yes, for the right person, it is absolutely worth it. While the upfront cost of around £92.99 for a recoil model is significant, it is a high-quality, exceptionally well-designed piece of hardware that solves a long-standing problem for retro gamers. Its unique sensor-free design makes it incredibly easy to set up compared to alternatives, and its performance is flawless. If you have a deep love for the light gun genre and want the best plug-and-play experience available, the Sinden Light Gun is the definitive choice and a worthwhile investment.

Do I need a powerful PC to use a modern light gun for PS1 games?

Not at all. PlayStation 1 emulation is not very demanding by modern standards. A low-power, single-board computer like a Raspberry Pi 4 or, ideally, a Raspberry Pi 5 is more than capable of running PS1 emulators like DuckStation perfectly. Many users build a dedicated, self-contained “light gun console” using a Pi, which is a very cost-effective and energy-efficient solution. You do not need a high-end gaming PC unless you plan to emulate much more demanding systems like the PlayStation 3 or use modern PC light gun titles.

What is the single best light gun game on the PlayStation 1?

This is a highly subjective question, but the consensus is usually split between two titans of the genre. For pure, cinematic, on-rails action, Time Crisis is arguably the peak. Its cover mechanic was revolutionary and it perfectly captured the feel of a blockbuster action movie. For party play and sheer addictive variety, the Point Blank series is unmatched. Its collection of wacky, fast-paced mini-games makes it incredibly replayable and fun for all skill levels. If you can only get one, Time Crisis provides the quintessential arcade experience, while Point Blank 2 offers more longevity for group settings.

How much does a full PS1 light gun setup cost in the UK in 2026?

For a recommended emulation-based setup, you should budget for around £270-£300. This breaks down into roughly £160 for a Sinden Light Gun with recoil, around £100 for a Raspberry Pi 5 starter kit (which includes the Pi, power supply, case, and a microSD card), and a few pounds for any necessary cables. Game costs are negligible if you are using your own legally backed-up disc images. If you opt for the more complex original hardware route, you’ll need to factor in the cost of a PS1 console, a video upscaler like the RAD2X (~£60), and the specialist USB-to-PS1 adapter.

Does the Sinden Light Gun have noticeable input lag?

When configured correctly, the Sinden Light Gun itself adds a negligible amount of lag, typically just a few milliseconds. It is designed to be extremely fast. However, input lag can be introduced by other components in your setup. The most common culprits are your television not being in “Game Mode”, which turns off post-processing, or incorrect settings in your emulator. By ensuring your TV is in its lowest latency mode and using a well-configured emulator on capable hardware like a Raspberry Pi, you can achieve an experience that feels instantaneous and perfectly responsive.

Conclusion: A Genre Reborn

For over a decade, the light gun game was a ghost, a fond memory confined to the dusty CRT televisions in the back of garages. It was a genre defined by its physical interaction, one that felt fundamentally lost to the technological march of progress. To be able to stand here in 2026 and say that it is not only playable again, but better than it ever was, is a testament to the passion and ingenuity of the retro gaming community.

The journey to get there requires an investment of both time and money. This isn’t as simple as plugging in a new controller. It’s a project. But it’s a project with a spectacular payoff: the resurrection of a unique and thrilling way to play games. The Sinden Light Gun stands as the premier choice for most, offering an elegant, powerful, and user-friendly path back to the virtual shooting gallery. For tinkerers, Gun4IR provides a flexible and deeply rewarding alternative. Whichever route you choose, the result is the same: Time Crisis, Point Blank, and dozens of other classics, alive and kicking on your massive 4K TV.

Now that you know how to rebuild the armoury and get your light gun calibrated for action, the real question is which classic arcade challenge you’ll take on first. Will you be defending the president’s daughter in Time Crisis, or aiming for a perfect score in the quirky challenges of Point Blank? The arcade has come home again, and the choice is yours.

What to Read Next

If you found this guide useful, here are a few other articles on RetroInHand that will help you perfect your retro gaming setup:

• Best Retro Upscalers Under £100 UK (2026): Ranked! — If you’re considering the original hardware route, this guide breaks down the best and most affordable ways to get a sharp picture on your modern TV.
• Anbernic RG35XX H vs Modded PSP: Which Is Best for PS1 UK 2026? — Interested in other ways to enjoy the PS1 library? We compare two fantastic handheld options for portable PlayStation gaming.
• GoldenEye N64 Review: Is It Worth Playing in 2026 (UK)? — For fans of 90s console shooters, take a look back at the N64 classic that defined the genre for a generation and see how it holds up today.

📚 Related: Browse the full HDMI & Display Fix Hub — all UK retro gaming guides in one place.

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This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by the editor. See our Editorial Standards.