Retrode 2 Allows You to Play SNES & Genesis Games on Your PC

I’ve written about many cool gadgets, pieces of PC hardware and technology in general over the course of this site’s existence, but what I’m about to talk about might just be one of the coolest of them all – at least for old-school console gamers. The product is called Retrode, a small dock that plugs into an available USB dock and allows you to play Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis games on the PC… with the original controllers.

The Retrode is just hardware, so to actually play the games on your PC, you’ll need an emulator. What the Retrode does is take the cartridges and turns them into ROM files seen to the PC. When you are in your emulator of choice, you can simply move to the Retrode (which is likely to be seen as a USB storage device) and load the appropriate ROM.

For those who are thinking, “But I have all the ROMs already”, don’t forget the fact that this allows you to use the authentic gamepads designed for the original consoles. I’ve played a fair amount of old console games on my PC with an Xbox 360 gamepad, and I can tell you it doesn’t feel quite the same.

What’s most impressive about this product is that there doesn’t seem to be any limitations. The device is able to read from and write to the SRAM on the cartridges for saved games, though since emulators are involved, you could just save them to your PC if you wanted to (which would allow you to share them). The product page also mentions that all four controller ports can be used at once, despite there being 2x SNES and 2x Genesis.

If you want this piece of classic console goodness, it’ll set you back about $85. A modest price for something this freaking awesome.