Features:

  • Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ (Plus) (RPi 3+) Released in March 2018--Broadcom BCM2837B0,Cortex-A53, 64-bit SoC @ 1.4 GHz Features Upgraded On-board WiFi and Bluetooth Connectivity
  • Great Retro Gaming look and feel--Includes 2 Newly Upgraded Classic USB Gamepads (MODEL V3.0) & Retrogaming Case with ease of access to all Ports
  • Includes a Samsung EVO Class 10 Micro SD Card (32GB)--Preloaded with NOOBS & RETROPIE and ready to go--Also Includes 8GB Flash Drive Preoaded with Named folders For easy Game Transfers
  • Highest Quality Components--2.5A Power Supply With Switch--HDMI Cable--Heatsink
  • Perfect for Retro Gamers -- Includes The Vilros Quick Start Booklet with Retro Gaming Instructions
Read the Retropie Wiki to avoid huge setup headaches

I’m a complete newcomer to the Raspberry Pi. I have zero technical knowledge when it comes to weird computer files. I bought this kit purely to run Retropie. The price was right and reviews were solid. Unboxing was impressive. Nice packaging and presentation. The controllers are of excellent build quality and are weighted. There is no thin, garbage plastics and tiny controller wires. Everything feels very premium. Even the outer case is of decent quality. As a first time user, this kit was perfect because I didn’t have to put all of the OS software on the micro SD. It’s pre-loaded out of the box, which is a huge time saver and makes the price of the kit totally worth it. Where I had trouble (due to human error and both the secrecy surrounding how to properly get retro games onto the device) was transferring and loading ROM files. I found all the information I needed on the Retropie wiki. READ THIS FIRST. Had I done this, it would have saved me about 2 hours of troubleshooting (wait til theUSB light stops blinking, restart the emulator, make sure files are unzipped before copying to the console folder, etc). This kit gives zero instructions on how to do this out of the box, which I understand, but it was quite a roadblock that I had to figure out on my own as a newbie in order to overcome. This is not entirely plug and play. In order to play games, you need to do some work on your end as the end user. That being said, the included hardware and software gave me a huge head start. The microSD with the full OS already preloaded on it really is a godsend andlowers the barrier of entry significantly for a first-timer like me. I see no reason to not give 5 stars. Everything isofvery high quality and works great. The controllers really warrant all the praise they get in other reviews—they really are just super high quality in my opinion. No disappointments here. 5 stars.

Great price for what you get and easy setup

This kit came with 2 good classic controllers, a 32Gb Samsung MicroSD EVO card which gets great speed in read/write and a good quality power cord as well as a cute case that looks like a NES. The HDMI cable seems solid too. The SD card seems to have a custom Noobs that includes a RetroPie install which was nice. The heat sinks being included was nice too. Be careful placing them as once they are on they are not moving. Take your time placing them. Also the 4 screws for the case go in through the bottom of the case. I was a little confused at first about that. Really a nice unit and priced well for all that you get. I would recommend this kit if you want a Pi 3B+ which you do unless you are going to run RecalBox which isn’t yet compatible with the 3B+ but Raspian and RetroPie are compatible for sure. Check out Arcade Punks for info on ROMs. Lots of good information there.

Simply fantastic!

The machine comes with a microSD card that is loaded with something... I never tried that - I just got a couple of larger cards and installed a retroPie version from another site... 128GB version has a metric ton of games, and everything we tried worked great. I played Gauntlet with my kid so long that we just about fell out of the chair hours later :-) I have a 400GB card that we're going to load with even more games soon... Great investment. The only thing you might want to do is to pick up a couple of PS4-style controllers for some of the games that can benefit from them (like the Namco arcade games)... Not much money - at all, get the USB ones and they program right in.

Ideal for emulation

Perfect little setup! Quick and easy to put together. The instructions provided were extremely easy to follow. I was able to load more than 5,500 games on this little box as well as Kodi. I am not a super tech savvy guy but I found this setup very user friendly. The wifi works excellently for running Kodi.

Definitely the way to go if you want to Retro game!

I've been wanting a Retro console for a LONG time. I originally had a full sized arcade cabinet, but it only had 17 games on it and just wasn't worth taking up the space, so I sold it. So then I started looking at building a bar top kit using RetroPie. The thought of having a bar top with real arcade style joysticks and buttons was very promising but it was still a VERY pricy option, and the task of getting all the emulation software up and running seemed like a risky and daunting project for someone who knows just enough about programming to be dangerous. I finally discovered this kit and for the price point, the pre-loaded Retropie and emulators on the SD disk and the already formatted thumb drive for game transfers thi seemed like the perfect jumping in point for me, and boy was I right! This kit is a bargain for what you can do with it. It was pretty much plug and play. All I needed to do to assemble was install the heat sink, which simply meant I had to place a piece of plastic in the right space and fasten it to the Pi computer. I put in the SD card, put the Pi computer in the mini SNES case, connected the included gamepad, a mouse and keyboard, booted it up and the rest took care of itself. In minutes I was staring at the RetroPie Emulation Station UI and ready to go. All I had to do manually was map the buttons to the controller (which I was prompted for) and go into settings and set up my location in order to set up a WiFi connection which is needed to perform updates among other things. Out of the box, some emulators were already installed (MAME, FBALPHA, SNES, PC Engine, Atari, Sega Genesis) so once I found some games, I copied them to the correct folders on the thumb drive, plugged the thumb drive into the Pi computer (it does the transfer automatically) and PRESTO. A quick restart of the EmulationStation and the menus for the games appeared on the UI. You could end right there and just play your games. But, for the more advanced, there is a wonderful Wiki for RetroPie that basically covers everything you could possibly want to do to make your Retro Console awesome. The first thing I discovered were the scraper programs. These programs go out and find information about your games and even grab screen shots, the original arcade game marquee sign, or the console game box covers. Unfortunately, I ran into bad time as the Scraper program built into Emulationstation literally just stopped working a few days ago because they swtiched over to a new server, so I had to go install one that you run from the command line. It works great, but now the option to just update 1 title is currently not working. Hopefully a future patch will address this. Then I started looking at what other emulator packages were available but not installed. These take a bit of know how to get up and running. In addition to installing them, you may have to find BIOS files online that are compatible with the emulator. Again, the Wiki guides you through the process and I got an emulator for Intellivision and Colecovision games up and running. You will be in and out of the RetroPie command line to get this stuff going, but I have not used Linux in years and it was all easy once you know how to navigate the file structure and edit configuration files. Pairing an Xbox 360 or PS4 controller is next. Tweaking the UI and getting missing sound samples is up next. But for now, I'm taking a break and enjoying some games. I already have a few high scores on some arcade classics (yes, they save), and catching up on some console games I never played as I kid. (I never owned a Nintendo console until the Wii). So, all in all, I now already have a HUGE gaming collection and still over half of the drive available for more. I poured over literally a few thousand titles, and once you get it all up and running, it is so easy and add and remove titles. This kit is WAY better than any over those pre-loaded units you see at malls or online. Those knock-offs always contain bootleg games, shoddy clones and too much garbage filler. And a lot of them are more expensive than this kit. Obviously, finding games is the hard part, but with the right internet searching you will do just fine. Support is also great - I e-mail a couple of questions and they replied very quickly. Current library Atari 2600 - 258 games (I'll admit, these games don't age well and I haven't really trimmed the list!) Intellivision - 33 games Coin-Op games (MAME) - 258 games Neo-Geo coin-ops (FBALPHA) 30 games Sega Genesis/Mega Drive - 101 games PC Engine (Turbo Grafx) -25 games SNES - 189 games

Very happy with this kit

This is my first experience working with a Raspberry Pi, so having a startup kit with all of the parts (including a flash memory card with the OS and software already on it) was a big plus. Also after pricing out all of the components separately, it seemed like this was a really good value for the money. I bought USB extension cables on the side because eventually this is going in my living room, although it does support Bluetooth if you have a different controller in mind, and also I picked up a simple USB mouse because one was required for setup and I didn't want to go to the hassle of unplugging my computer mouse. This model, the Pi 3 B+, is the model you want if you want to use 5G WiFi for streaming or Internet access. If you have it in mind to use Kodi (I'm setting it up mainly for YouTube, and streaming from legal sources), go with this one. If you're not sure yet if you'll do any streaming, go with this one anyway. Although the kit only says you need a mouse to set it up, if you need to do anything at all meaningful with the setup you'll need a keyboard too. WiFi for instance needs a keyboard to setup. A keyboard is also a must if you plan to run DOSBox. Do yourself a favor and order a keyboard and a mouse (USB) if you don't have spares lying around. The case hasn't had any overheating problems for me, although it doesn't include a fan. Because of the way the Pi sits in the middle of the case, I believe air circulation is decent (not ideal, but decent), so between that and the heat sinks there haven't been any heat issues for me. The kit value was such that I'm fine buying a new case if it's ever a problem. During the first 12 hours of use I was getting undervolt warnings rather frequently, which I think has more to do with my power company than the included power supply, but the problem sorted itself out and I haven't seen it since--but again that could be my power company. (The voltage reading on my computer's UPS read as 113 at the time. Currently: 119.) If you have this problem more consistently you could always look into upgrading to a different power supply that delivers voltage more reliably: 5-5.1V and 2.5A. There's a Raspberry Pi intro guide included in the package which is very nice, but it won't tell you anything about setting up RetroPie or Emulationstation. Thankfully there are good forums supporting RetroPie, and plenty of YouTube videos on how to set things up, so you should find a lot of good material to help you. The main thing you need to know out of the box is that during controller setup, if you don't have a particular button just hold down any button for a few seconds and it will be ignored. I thought I needed a keyboard at this stage to move down to the next menu item, but it turned out I just had to wait; still glad I ran to the store for a cheap USB keyboard though. The second thing you should know is that you should plug the included thumb drive into the Pi first to make sure it creates the right directories, then into your computer afterward. In summary, this is a very good kit, especially if you're new to the Raspberry Pi. The only finicky setup stuff is all inherent to the software itself, so you'd have that with any kit or even a complete DIY from parts. Make sure you have a keyboard and mouse, and for everything else the RetroPie forums and YouTube are your friends. (Edited: In the original review I stated you could simply leave the controller alone to skip a button you don't have during configuration. I was mistaken, and had forgotten the way to do this is to press and hold any button for 3 seconds.)

Great retro kit for the Nerd in your life

I would say that you probably shouldn't buy this unless you have a strong background in basic computer use. You probably need to know about rom files to setup some games, how to configure wifi, and possibly about how to use a disk image software to rewrite your SD card. Don't buy this for a loved one unless you know for a fact that they know how to play retro Nintendo games on a laptop or phone. One thing I didn't like about setup is that out of the box, you will need a keyboard to get past the first setup screen that installs retropie. I know why they did it that way, but it would be so much better if you never had to lug and old keyboard out of the closet. You will also need a keyboard to setup wifi for ease of rom import, updates to retro pie, etc. Once that is all taken care of you can ditch the keyboard and just bring your Rpi (with sd inside), game pads, and power cord to any tv equipped with HDMI and play away! Complete with save states too. Everything you need (as far as gadgets) is right in the box. SUPER fun for those of us who like some assembly required. Once you get it setup, woah! Talk about cool and fun for old video game enthusiasts. Looks like it would be easy to set it up to dual boot with the KODI OS for rPi OSMC making it a capable media center as well. *Note* that if you copy the rom files over your the network you do not need to use the included flash drive at all

works great!

This was pretty easy to setup, just inserted the included card, booted it up and installed retropie. Had to do some research to learn how to use a different versions of emulators that are not enabled by default but overall this does exactly what it says it does. Side note.... the included controllers are fantastic....I have a second set from a different vendor and let me tell you, the feel of the included set here is by far the superior product. Will update review later as time will tell on how robust everything is.

Simple and easy, just add ROMs

I was very impressed with this kit. I have bought and setup a raspberry pi in the past, and this kit does all the technical work for you. After some simple assembly with included tools, you turn it on and need a mouse to tell it to unpack the preloaded copy of retropie which takes about 5 minutes. The flash drive comes preformatted with the needed file structure so that you just need to drop your ROMs into the right folder. Once it boots retropie, controller setup was fairly simple, although it took me a minute to figure out how to proceed past the buttons not on the included controllers (long hold start). If I were going to make an improvement, it would be nice if the included manual had the default controller shortcuts for retropie. After I started a game, I had to go find the retropie website to figure out what buttons to push to exit the game. Minor inconvenience. I would recommend this kit even to someone who is fairly tech illiterate.

Such a Great Kit!!!

I have a couple Raspberry Pis running various services (VPN, PiHole, MotionPi) and played around with RetroPi on one of them. My friend asked that I build a RetroPi for him so I bought this kit liking the look of the case. When it arrived, I found that everything fit together very well and the included controllers had a great feel and had quick response. Not holding this against the rating, but the only way I could see this improved would be to have option to bundle with various controllers. Also, I just bought 3 more.

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