Build Retro Gaming Console with Raspberry Pi PiPlay Gaming OS

In this post I take a journey into the past and relive the days of arcade games. My colleagues at the Hackerspace Phnom Penh decided to make a game arcade using Raspberry Pi running PiPlay (formerly called PiMAME) and couple of old Xbox controllers.

What you need?

• Raspberry Pi
• 8GB or 16GB SDCard
• USB Wifi adapter
• Two Xbox Controllers
• Keyboard
• Powered USB Hub
• Female-to-Female USB cable
• HDMI Cable
• TV

Download the PiPlay 0.8.0 Beta 6 image. The Raspberry Pi can't power all peripherals. You'll need a compatible powered USB hub to power both Raspberry Pi and Xbox controllers. The additional USB slots on the hub could used to connect keyboard during configuration.

# Download the latest PiPlay SD Card.

$ unzip ~/Downloads/piplay-0.8-beta6.img.zip
Archive:  ~/Downloads/piplay-0.8-beta6.img.zip
  inflating: piplay-0.8-beta6.img

# Write to card using unetbootin or dd command. Be Patient, This process takes some time.
$ sudo dd if=./piplay-0.8-beta6.img of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=1M

# Boot the Raspberry Pi. The default username and password is 'pi' and 'raspberry'.
# Use 'raspi-config' to expand the file system.
# (Optional) While you are at it, You might want to configure timezone change keyboard layout as well.

$ sudo raspi-config

# Configure Wifi using command-line or visual tools http://raspberrypihq.com/how-to-add-wifi-to-the-raspberry-pi/

# If you don't get any sound over HDMI: Try adding the following line to /boot/config.txt

$ sudo nano /boot/config.txt
hdmi_drive=2

#Download some game ROMs and upload them to Raspberry Pi. 

More instructions about the setup are on my HackADay.io Gaming Console with Raspberry Pi PiPlay page.

Game on, Fight!