Before You Buy Anything, Read This
I remember the exact moment I realised retro gaming had become genuinely complicated for newcomers. It was at a car boot sale in Coventry, about four years ago. A bloke in his late thirties was standing at a table covered in loose cartridges and yellowing hardware, and he looked completely lost. He’d picked up a Mega Drive and was turning it over in his hands, asking the seller whether it would work on his telly. The seller didn’t know. The buyer didn’t know. I stepped in — as I always do, much to my wife’s ongoing irritation — and within five minutes I was explaining SCART cables, 50Hz versus 60Hz output, and why some cartridges won’t save without a replacement battery. His eyes had glazed over before I’d finished my second sentence.
That moment has stayed with me. Because here’s the thing: retro gaming is one of the most rewarding hobbies you can pick up, but the barrier to entry has risen sharply in the last decade. Prices have climbed. Hardware knowledge matters more than it used to. And the internet is full of advice that assumes you already know what you’re doing. This guide doesn’t assume that. It’s written for the person who loves the idea of playing old games — properly, on original hardware or the best modern alternatives — but doesn’t know where to start. I’ll tell you which consoles are genuinely beginner-friendly, which ones are overrated entry points despite what you’ll read elsewhere, and which ones to avoid until you know what you’re getting into.
I’ve owned every major console released between 1985 and 2010. My loft contains somewhere north of 400 cartridges across fifteen different formats. I’ve been writing about this hobby for twenty years. I’m not telling you all that to show off — I’m telling you so you understand the experience behind this list. Some of what follows will be controversial. Good. Let’s get into it.
What Makes a Retro Console “Beginner-Friendly”?
Before I start recommending specific hardware, it’s worth defining what I actually mean by beginner-friendly. It’s not just about the games being easy to play — that’s almost irrelevant. Plenty of classic games are brutally hard, and that’s part of their charm. What makes a platform accessible for a newcomer is a combination of four factors, and I’ll apply all four to every console in this guide.
- Hardware setup complexity: Can you plug it into a modern television without specialist knowledge or additional purchases?
- Software library cost and availability: Are the games reasonably priced and easy to find, or are you looking at £80 cartridges before you’ve even started?
- Hardware reliability: Is the console itself likely to work when you buy it second-hand, or does it require recap work and capacitor replacements before it’ll function properly?
- Community support: If something goes wrong, can you find help easily? Is there a thriving community producing guides, tutorials, and affordable repair parts?
I’ll also make a clear distinction throughout this guide between original hardware and what I call modern retro solutions — the official mini consoles, FPGA devices, and licensed plug-and-play machines that have emerged over the last ten years. Both have their place. Neither is cheating. What matters is that you actually play the games and enjoy them, not that you suffer for purity’s sake.
The Absolute Best Starting Point: Super Nintendo Entertainment System
If I could only recommend one console to a complete beginner, it would be the Super Nintendo. Not because it’s the most technically impressive console of its era — it isn’t — and not because it has the biggest library. It’s because the SNES offers the best combination of game quality, hardware accessibility, and value for money of any 16-bit or earlier system, even now, thirty-plus years after it launched in the UK in April 1992.
A Brief History and Why It Matters
Nintendo released the Super Famicom in Japan on 19th November 1990, selling 300,000 units on its first day and triggering scenes that make modern console launch queues look sedate. The machine arrived in North America in August 1991 and reached Europe — under the SNES branding — the following year. By the time production ended in 2003, Nintendo had shifted approximately 49.1 million units worldwide. It was, by any measure, one of the most successful home consoles ever made.
The hardware itself was a genuine leap forward. The SNES ran a 16-bit Ricoh 5A22 processor clocked at 3.58 MHz, paired with a Sony SPC700 audio chip that produced sound quality so good it still holds up today. Koji Kondo’s score for Super Mario World, Yasunori Mitsuda’s work on Chrono Trigger, David Wise’s compositions for Donkey Kong Country — these soundtracks are the reason people still listen to game music from 1990s Nintendo cartridges on Spotify in 2024. The SNES’s Mode 7 graphical capability, which allowed the system to scale and rotate flat textures to create a pseudo-3D effect, was used to spectacular effect in games like F-Zero and Super Mario Kart.
Why It Works for Beginners
The SNES controller is the single most important reason to start here. Shigeru Miyamoto’s team designed a pad that became the template for virtually every controller that followed: two shoulder buttons, four face buttons arranged in a diamond, a D-pad, Start, Select. It’s immediately intuitive even if you’ve never touched one before. Compare that to the original Mega Drive three-button layout — perfectly functional but confusing in an era of six-button games — or the PlayStation 1 controller before analogue sticks were added, which required a separate purchase. The SNES pad just works, for everyone, immediately.
The software library is extraordinary and remains largely affordable. Yes, the big names have risen sharply in price. A loose copy of Earthbound (released in the UK as Mother 2 in Japan, though it never officially launched here) will cost you serious money. Mega Man X3, Castlevania: Dracula X, and Hagane are eye-wateringly expensive. But here’s what the YouTube videos and Reddit posts don’t always tell you: you don’t need to start with the rare stuff. Super Mario World came bundled with the console for years and can be found loose for under £15. Donkey Kong Country is regularly available for £10–15. Street Fighter II Turbo, Super Metroid, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Super Mario Kart — all regularly available in job lots for sensible money. I picked up a full working SNES with three controllers and eight games at a car boot for £35 two years ago. That sort of thing still happens.
Setup on a modern television is straightforward. The PAL SNES outputs a composite video signal via the multiout port, and a cheap composite cable will get you a picture on almost any television made in the last twenty years. It won’t be a beautiful picture — composite is the lowest-quality connection the SNES offers — but it’ll work, today, without any additional purchases. When you’re ready to upgrade, you can move to an RGB SCART cable for a significantly sharper image, and eventually to an upscaler like the Retrotink 2X or 5X. But that’s a later problem. Out of the box, with a cheap cable from Amazon, an SNES works on your telly. That matters enormously to a beginner.
The Modern Alternative: SNES Classic Mini
Nintendo released the Super NES Classic Mini in September 2017, and it sold out almost immediately — 5.28 million units shifted by the end of March 2018. At launch it cost £69.99 in the UK. You can still find them second-hand for between £60 and £90 depending on condition. The twenty-one games included represent a genuinely superb selection: Super Mario World, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Super Metroid, Super Mario Kart, Donkey Kong Country, Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting, Final Fantasy VI (as Final Fantasy III, the American release, but the full game), and — most extraordinarily — Star Fox 2, a game Nintendo had cancelled in 1995 and never officially released, which appeared here for the first time ever.
The SNES Classic Mini plugs in via HDMI. It requires no setup knowledge whatsoever. The controllers are accurate replicas of the originals. For an absolute beginner who just wants to play great SNES games without any of the faff, this is genuinely one of the cleanest entry points in all of retro gaming. My only complaint is the comically short controller cables — about 1.5 metres, which means you’re sitting uncomfortably close to your television — but USB extension cables are cheap and plentiful.
The People’s Champion: Sega Mega Drive
I grew up with a Mega Drive. Specifically, the original model, the wide-bodied one with the red text on the label, that my parents bought me for Christmas 1991. It came with Sonic the Hedgehog, and I don’t think I left the house for three days. So I want to be honest about where I’m coming from when I say the Mega Drive is an excellent beginner console — because I’m biased. But I’ve also spent twenty years looking at the evidence, and the evidence supports my bias.
Historical Context and Technical Specs
Sega launched the Mega Drive in Japan in October 1988, calling it the Mega Drive there and in Europe, but renaming it the Genesis for the North American market. UK launch came in November 1990. The hardware was powerful for its time: a 16-bit Motorola 68000 CPU running at 7.67 MHz, a Zilog Z80 co-processor for sound and backward compatibility with the Master System library, and the Yamaha YM2612 FM synthesis chip that gave the Mega Drive its distinctive, slightly crunchy audio signature. That sound is immediately recognisable. Streets of Rage 2‘s opening theme, the bass in Sonic the Hedgehog 2, the industrial clang of Gunstar Heroes — you know it when you hear it.
The Mega Drive sold around 30.75 million units worldwide. Not as many as the SNES, and Sega’s own marketing data has been disputed over the years, but a significant figure regardless. The console went through three main hardware revisions: the original wide-body model, the slimmer Mega Drive 2 released in 1993, and the Mega Drive 3, which never officially reached the UK. There are meaningful differences between these revisions, and a beginner should know about them before buying.
Which Mega Drive Should You Buy?
This is where it gets slightly more complicated than the SNES situation, and I’ll be straight with you. The original Mega Drive 1 is the preferred model among enthusiasts because it outputs a cleaner RGB signal via its dedicated SCART socket. The Mega Drive 2, by contrast, removed that dedicated RGB SCART port and replaced it with a nine-pin AV output that requires a specific cable. The Mega Drive 2’s audio is also slightly inferior — it uses a different sound chip that lacks the bass depth of the original model’s YM2612. You can hear the difference on certain tracks. Whether that matters to you as a beginner is a different question.
For a complete beginner who just wants to play games, the Mega Drive 2 is actually the easier starting point. It’s cheaper — often £20–30 versus £35–60 for a clean Mega Drive 1 — and the RF modulator means you can get a signal on virtually any television, albeit a very poor one. The better option is to track down a Mega Drive 2 AV cable, which plugs into the nine-pin port and gives you composite output. Clean enough to play on. Upgrade later.
The Library Problem and Why It Isn’t One
Some retro gaming snobs will tell you the Mega Drive library is inferior to the SNES. I think that’s a boring take, and I’ve been having that argument online since about 2004. Yes, the SNES has Super Metroid and Chrono Trigger. The Mega Drive has Streets of Rage 2, Gunstar Heroes, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Castlevania: Bloodlines, Rocket Knight Adventures, ToeJam & Earl, Landstalker, and Phantasy Star IV. These are extraordinary games. The Mega Drive library is particularly strong in action, platform, and beat-’em-up genres, and the large number of sports titles and licensed games means that complete collections are very affordable — you’ll find bulk lots of twenty Mega Drive games for under £30 regularly, because the common titles genuinely aren’t expensive.
The other thing worth mentioning is the Mega Drive’s Japanese import compatibility. Unlike some systems, the original Mega Drive can be made to play Japanese Mega Drive games with a simple cartridge adapter or a quick hardware modification — cutting one pin on the cartridge slot, a five-minute job with a flat-head screwdriver that won’t damage anything permanently. Japan’s Mega Drive library includes a number of games that never came to Europe, and they’re often cheaper to import than their European equivalents.
The Modern Alternative: Sega Mega Drive Mini
Sega released the Mega Drive Mini in September 2019 at £69.99. Forty-two games included, HDMI output, two replica three-button controllers. The game selection is mostly excellent: Streets of Rage 2, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Gunstar Heroes, Castlevania: Bloodlines, Contra: Hard Corps, Earthworm Jim, Road Rash II. There are some odd omissions — no ToeJam & Earl in the original Western release, which was rectified in the Japanese version — but as a plug-and-play beginner option, it’s genuinely excellent. Sega even released a Mega Drive Mini 2 in Japan in October 2022, though it never got a wide Western release, which remains baffling and slightly annoying.
The Handheld That Started a Revolution: Game Boy and Game Boy Color
Here is an argument I will make without apology: the original Game Boy is one of the best starting points for retro gaming beginners, and it’s consistently overlooked in favour of its flashier successors. People see the green-tinged screen and assume it’s too primitive to bother with. Those people are wrong, and I’ll tell you why.
Technical Background and Release History
Nintendo released the original Game Boy in Japan on 21st April 1989, with a UK launch following in 1990 at £67.40. The hardware was, by the standards of 1989, deliberately underpowered. Game Boy designer Gunpei Yokoi made a deliberate choice to use an 8-bit Sharp LR35902 processor — essentially a hybrid of the Intel 8080 and Zilog Z80 — rather than more powerful components, in service of battery life and cost. The result was a machine that could run for fifteen hours on four AA batteries, which its competitors couldn’t match. The Game Gear, Sega’s response released in Japan in October 1990, had a colour backlit screen but chewed through six AA batteries in three to five hours. Atari’s Lynx, released in 1989, was technically impressive but even more power-hungry. Game Boy won anyway. Between the original Game Boy and the Game Boy Color, Nintendo sold over 118 million units.
The Game Boy Color launched in Japan in October 1998, arriving in the UK in November 1998 at £49.99. It used a faster processor — a Sharp CPU at 8 MHz in Color mode — and a proper colour screen. Crucially, it was fully backward compatible with all original Game Boy cartridges. This means a Game Boy Color gives you access to two libraries simultaneously: the full original Game Boy catalogue and the GBC-specific titles. That’s outstanding value.
Why Beginners Should Consider This
Game Boy and Game Boy Color hardware is everywhere. Car boots, charity shops, eBay job lots — these machines are plentiful and cheap. A working original Game Boy can be found for £15–25. A Game Boy Color in good condition typically runs £30–50. The cartridges are similarly accessible: Pokémon Red and Blue, The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, Tetris, Super Mario Land 2, Kirby’s Dream Land — all regularly available under £20. And because these are self-contained units with their own screens, there’s no television compatibility issue whatsoever. You pick it up, put batteries in, and play. That simplicity is enormously appealing.
There is one important caveat, and I want to be honest about it. Many Game Boy units you’ll find second-hand have dead or leaking batteries on certain cartridges, which can corrupt saves or prevent games from saving at all. It’s not the end of the world — battery replacement is a straightforward soldering job that many repair shops will do for a few pounds — but you should be aware of it before you buy a second-hand copy of Pokémon Gold expecting your save to work.
The other consideration is screen quality. The original Game Boy’s screen has no backlight, which means playing indoors requires good lighting or a lamp nearby. The Game Boy Color improved things but still isn’t ideal in low light. If this bothers you, the Game Boy Advance SP — which I’ll come to shortly — is the better option. But for casual daytime play, the original is perfectly fine, and there’s something genuinely lovely about its simplicity.
The Overlooked Gem: Game Boy Advance
The Game Boy Advance is, in my opinion, the single most underrated entry point in all of retro gaming. It gets less attention than the SNES, less nostalgia coverage than the Mega Drive, and it’s frequently dismissed as a transitional device. All of that is nonsense. The GBA has one of the richest software libraries of any handheld ever made, and in its SP form, it’s arguably the most accessible piece of retro hardware you can own.
History and Technical Details
Nintendo released the Game Boy Advance in Japan on 21st March 2001, with UK launch on 22nd June 2001, priced at £79.99. The hardware was a genuine leap: a 32-bit ARM7TDMI processor running at 16.78 MHz, 256 kilobytes of SRAM, and a 240×160 pixel screen. The machine was effectively a portable SNES — it could run games of comparable complexity to 16-bit home console titles. Nintendo took full advantage of this, porting Super Mario World, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Final Fantasy VI, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Metroid Fusion, and dozens of other high-quality titles to the platform. Third parties produced some of the best portable games ever made: Advance Wars, Fire Emblem, Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, Golden Sun, WarioWare, Inc..
The original GBA was replaced in February 2003 by the Game Boy Advance SP, a clamshell redesign with a front-lit (later backlit) screen that transformed the hardware completely. The SP is what most people should be looking for. It’s compact, the screen is dramatically better than the original GBA, and the built-in rechargeable battery means no AA dependency. A later revision, the AGS-101, improved the screen further with a proper backlight rather than a front-light. If you’re buying an SP, check the model number on the back — AGS-101 units are worth slightly more but noticeably better to play on.
The GBA Library and Its Value
GBA cartridges are still, relatively speaking, affordable. Yes, the collector market has pushed up prices on certain titles — Mother 3 in Japanese, Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, Fire Emblem — but the bulk of the library remains accessible. Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen, Mario Kart: Super Circuit, Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land, Metroid Fusion, Advance Wars — all of these can be found for £10–25 without difficulty. The SP hardware itself typically runs £30–60 depending on condition and whether it has its original charger (it uses a proprietary cable, so factor in the cost of a replacement if one isn’t included).
The GBA is also backward compatible with all Game Boy and Game Boy Color cartridges, making it a triple-library machine. For a beginner wanting maximum game access from a single hardware purchase, this is genuinely compelling. You’re buying into three generations of Nintendo handheld games with one device.
The Modern Retro Solution: Analogue Pocket
I wasn’t going to include any FPGA devices in a beginner guide because I’d normally consider them a step beyond where new players need to start. But I’ve changed my mind on the Analogue Pocket, and here’s why: it has become genuinely beginner-accessible in a way that, say, the MiSTer FPGA never will be.
Analogue released the Pocket in December 2021 after multiple delays, at $219.99 USD (roughly £175–185 at launch). It uses field-programmable gate array technology to replicate the original Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance hardware at the chip level — not emulation, but an actual recreation of the physical circuits. The result is cycle-accurate gameplay that, in practice, is indistinguishable from original hardware. The screen is a 3.5-inch 1600×1440 resolution IPS panel that makes Game Boy games look extraordinary. It accepts original cartridges from all three Game Boy formats. Additional adapters, available from Analogue and third parties, allow it to play Game Gear, Atari Lynx, Neo Geo Pocket Color, and other cartridge formats.
Where the Pocket becomes particularly interesting for beginners is its Analogue OS, which is updated regularly and now includes a library manager, save state support, and display options that include various scanline filters and pixel grid overlays for those who want a more authentic CRT look. It also supports the Analogue Dock accessory (sold separately, around £89) for TV output via HDMI. The machine is expensive for what it is, but if you’re someone who knows they want a quality experience from day one and doesn’t want to fuss with cables and compatibility questions, it’s worth considering as a long-term investment.
My one concern for beginners is price. £175 plus cartridges is a significant commitment when you don’t yet know whether retro gaming will become a lasting hobby. I’d recommend the original GBA SP as a starting point and the Pocket as an upgrade once you’re properly hooked.
The Nostalgia Option Everyone Recommends and I Have Complicated Feelings About: PlayStation 1
The PlayStation. The original, grey, biscuit-shaped one. Launched in the UK on 29th September 1995 at £299 — a significant price, but Sony backed it with an extraordinary launch lineup and a marketing campaign that positioned the machine as adult, sophisticated, and forward-looking. It worked. The PlayStation sold 102.49 million units worldwide across its production life, making it one of the best-selling consoles ever made.
So why do I have complicated feelings about recommending it to beginners? Two reasons.
The Disc Reading Problem
The PlayStation uses a laser assembly to read CDs, and that laser degrades over time. I cannot stress this enough to anyone buying original PS1 hardware in 2024: a significant proportion of PlayStation 1 units you’ll encounter second-hand have laser issues. The machine will struggle to read discs, skip, freeze, or refuse to boot games entirely. The famous solution — propping the console on its side, or even turning it upside down — works for a while because gravity shifts the laser assembly to a more effective position. It’s charming in a way. It’s also a warning sign that you’re dealing with a machine that’s on borrowed time.
This doesn’t mean you should avoid the PS1 — the library is too good to dismiss — but you need to be more careful when buying. A recapped and cleaned PS1 with a known-good laser is fine. A random untested PS1 from a car boot is a gamble. Test it before you hand over money, or buy from a reputable retro retailer who offers some kind of warranty.
The Library Is Worth It
All of that said, the PlayStation library is extraordinary, and UK prices are still relatively sane for the mainstream titles. Crash Bandicoot, Tomb Raider, Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy VII, Gran Turismo 2, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2, Silent Hill, Resident Evil 2, Tekken 3 — the PlayStation’s library defined an era. Mainstream titles are still affordable: Crash Bandicoot goes for under £15, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater under £10, Gran Turismo 2 under £10. Rarer titles have climbed, but the everyday classics are accessible.
The PlayStation also connects to modern televisions via composite with no fuss — it outputs composite and S-Video as standard, and SCART cables are available for better quality. Setup is simple. The DualShock controller, introduced in 1997, is instantly comfortable for anyone who has used a modern PlayStation pad. For someone whose nostalgia is specifically for the 32-bit 3D era — Tomb Raider, Gran Turismo, Metal Gear Solid — the PS1 absolutely belongs on this list.
The Modern Alternative: PlayStation Classic
Sony released the PlayStation Classic in December 2018 at £89.99. It was, to put it politely, disappointing. The twenty-game library was uneven — Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy VII, Resident Evil: Director’s Cut, and Tekken 3 were excellent inclusions, but the omission of Crash Bandicoot, Gran Turismo, Tomb Raider, and Tony Hawk felt inexplicable. Worse, the PAL versions of many games ran at 50Hz rather than the superior 60Hz versions, meaning some games ran slower and at lower resolutions than they should have. The emulation layer was also visibly inferior to what third parties had achieved years earlier. The machine was marked down to £25 within weeks of launch. It’s available second-hand for between £20 and £40 now. For that price it’s reasonable, but it’s not the plug-and-play triumph the SNES Classic Mini was.
The One I’d Tell Absolute Beginners to Try First (Seriously): A Mini Console
I know some of you reading this are purists who believe original hardware is the only valid form of retro gaming. I respect that position. I’ve held it myself. But I’ve also watched enough newcomers get discouraged by incompatible cables, failing hardware, and games that won’t save to know that original hardware isn’t always the right starting point. Sometimes the right starting point is something that simply works, every time, without any prior knowledge required.
If I’m recommending a single product to someone who is completely new to retro gaming and isn’t sure whether it’ll become a lasting interest, my recommendation is the SNES Classic Mini. It costs around £70–90 second-hand. It plugs into any television via HDMI. It contains twenty-one extraordinary games including two of the greatest games ever made — Super Mario World and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. No compatibility issues. No failing lasers. No battery problems. No SCART cables. It works.
The Mega Drive Mini is an equally valid choice, particularly for anyone who grew up with Sega rather than Nintendo or who has specific titles they want to revisit. Both mini consoles from this generation represent genuine quality and honest value for what they contain.
The mini console that I would specifically avoid recommending to beginners is the PlayStation Classic, for the reasons I’ve already outlined — the 50Hz issue in particular is something that actively degrades the experience for games that were designed to run at 60Hz. If you already know what 50Hz versus 60Hz means and can tolerate it, fine. If you’re new and just want to enjoy these games as they were meant to be played, the inconsistency is frustrating.
Consoles That Are Great But Not for Beginners
There are several platforms I love deeply that I’m not going to recommend as starting points, and I want to explain why — because you will absolutely encounter recommendations for these platforms elsewhere, and I want you to understand the context.
Neo Geo AES
The Neo Geo AES is one of the greatest home consoles ever produced. SNK released it in Japan in April 1990 at an eye-watering ¥58,000 (roughly £280 at the time, equivalent to around £700 in today’s money). The machine ran the same hardware as SNK’s MVS arcade cabinets, meaning home players got genuine arcade-perfect conversions of Metal Slug, Samurai Shodown, The King of Fighters, and dozens of other classics. The cartridges were enormous — some of the later titles ran to 700 megabits. The hardware is beautiful, built to an extraordinary standard, and still works reliably decades later.
The problem is cost. A working Neo Geo AES without any games will cost you £300–600 depending on the model and condition. The games themselves are where it gets truly frightening: Metal Slug 3 AES cartridges regularly sell for £400–800. Kizuna Encounter in PAL format is one of the most expensive cartridges in existence. This is not beginner territory. It’s not even intermediate territory. It’s a collecting destination you work towards over years.
Sega Saturn
I adore the Sega Saturn. The European launch in July 1995, at £399 — a price that caused genuine shock at the time — was a commercial disaster that Sega never fully recovered from. But the machine’s library, particularly its Japanese catalogue, contains some of the most inventive and undervalued games of the 32-bit era. Panzer Dragoon Saga, Radiant Silvergun, Guardian Heroes, NiGHTS into Dreams, Virtua Fighter 2. Extraordinary games.
The Saturn is not for beginners because of cost and hardware complexity. The machine’s capacitors are failing across the board now — a thirty-year-old Saturn that hasn’t been recapped is increasingly likely to exhibit audio issues, graphical corruption, or complete failure. Recapping a Saturn is a skilled soldering job. Beyond that, the desirable games are expensive: a legitimate copy of Panzer Dragoon Saga will cost you £200–400. The backup memory system — the Saturn saves to internal RAM that requires a charged backup battery to retain — is another point of failure that confuses newcomers. It’s a brilliant platform. It’s not where you start.
Atari 2600
I’ll be brief about this one. The Atari 2600, launched in 1977 and dominant through the early 1980s, is a fascinating piece of gaming history. It’s also a terrible starting point for someone who hasn’t grown up with its conventions. The games — by modern standards, and even by the standards of what came after — are extraordinarily primitive. That’s not a criticism; it’s the nature of the technology. But someone picking up a 2600 as their first retro console and playing Combat or Pitfall! is unlikely to understand why anyone found this exciting. You need context, ideally the experience of having played on a 2600 in 1982, to fully appreciate it. Start elsewhere and come back to the 2600 when you understand gaming history well enough to appreciate its significance.
Practical Buying Advice: Where to Shop and What to Pay
Knowing which console to buy is only half the battle. Knowing where to buy it, and what to pay, is the other half — and this is where beginners get burned most regularly.
Where to Buy
- Car boot sales: The best place to find genuine bargains, but you need to test hardware before buying. Bring batteries if you’re looking at handhelds. Ask to see the machine power on. Don’t buy untested.
- Charity shops: Increasingly savvy about pricing, but still produce occasional bargains. Check regularly — the good stuff goes fast.
- eBay: The widest selection but also the highest prices for common items. Best used for specific titles you can’t find locally. Check sold listings, not just current listings, to understand what things actually sell for.
- CEX: The UK’s largest second-hand electronics chain. Consistent pricing, some warranty protection, and a wide range of tested hardware. Prices are typically above charity shop finds but below eBay top-end for the same condition. A reasonable middle ground.
- Retro gaming specialist shops: Growing network of dedicated stores across the UK. Hardware is typically tested and cleaned. Prices reflect that. More expensive than car boots, but you know what you’re getting.
- Facebook Marketplace: Local deals, often from people clearing out lofts who have no idea what anything is worth. Some genuine bargains. Also some people who very much do know what things are worth and are pricing accordingly.
Rough Pricing Guide (2024)
- SNES (loose): £35–65 without games. Games from £5–15 for common titles.
- SNES Classic Mini: £65–90 second-hand.
- Mega Drive 1 (loose): £35–65. Mega Drive 2: £20–40.
- Mega Drive Mini: £40–60 second-hand.
- Game Boy Original: £15–30.
- Game Boy Color: £30–55.
- Game Boy Advance SP (AGS-001): £30–50. AGS-101: £40–70.
- Analogue Pocket: £175–200 (check for current availability on Analogue’s website).
- PlayStation 1 (tested): £25–50.
One Last Thing: The Community Matters
I want to finish on something that doesn’t get mentioned enough in beginner guides: the community around retro gaming is genuinely one of the best things about it. When that bloke at the car boot in Coventry looked lost, I didn’t hesitate to help — not because I’m particularly selfless, but because that’s what people who love this hobby do. The retro gaming community — on Reddit, on forums like Retro Collect and Shmups Forum, in the comment sections of YouTube channels and in lofts and at swap meets across the country — is full of people who love sharing knowledge.
Don’t be embarrassed to ask questions. Don’t be intimidated by the collector side of the hobby — the £400 Neo Geo cartridges and the pristine boxed SNES games are one expression of this passion, but they’re not the only valid one. A working Mega Drive with a scratched label running Streets of Rage 2 gives you exactly the same game as a mint-condition boxed copy. The experience is what matters.
Ask questions. Test hardware before you buy it. Start with an SNES or a Mega Drive, or a Game Boy Advance SP, or a Mini console if you just want something that works without any fuss. Build from there. The loft full of cartridges, the CRT television in the corner, the shelf of hardware in varying shades of yellowed plastic — all of that comes later, gradually, as the hobby gets under your skin. And it will get under your skin. That’s practically guaranteed.
Twenty years ago I wrote my first piece about retro gaming on a now-defunct forum that maybe a hundred people read. I had no idea it would become this — RetroInHand, twenty years of features, a community of readers who love this stuff as much as I do. It all started because I wanted to talk about games I loved. That’s still the point. That’s always been the point.
Now go and find yourself a Mega Drive. I’ll be here when you have questions.