I'm thinking about getting a handheld as I'm spending more time away from my house and PC. I don't want to get buy hundreds of dollars of games to go with it.

3ds xl / switch / Steam deck / Legion?

There seems a lot of options and all have plenty of games to them. Is there an obvious choice that I'm not aware of?

Thanks.

EDIT: Thanks for the info, a lot to think about. Basically it seems to come down to money anerbic // new 3ds xl // Steam deck. There'll be games on any system that I'll be happy with.

psp?

Ahh I forgot about that one, thx.

None explicitly support piracy of course. However, I know the Switch is very difficult to conduct piracy on. You might be lucky depending on the firmware, whether you could hack it, but you can't pirate on a Switch without hacking the firmware.

I personally would go with the Steam deck or the Legion (Linux and Windows respectively), pirating there will be relatively the same as you are used to on PC.

There's tons of emulation handhelds produced in the PRC. The android-based ones tend to have nicer ARM chips and decent screens, and Valve is working on ARM support for SteamOS. This gets you a less powerful but more efficient SteamOS handheld, which allows you to play tons of pirated games or emulated games. You can also stick with android and use native emulation software, including windows emulation for PC games.

Steam Deck is too expensive now, IMO, to recommend over these devices.

why not get an ambernic or something?

I'll raise you the PS Vita

PS Vita is probably the best for retro gaming.

Not sure what games you want to play, but maybe consider buying a telescopic controller instead of a full handled (because we're in ram shortage right now).

If you already have a decent phone, you can install mobile versions of most emulators and play using telescopic controller.

Start checking if you can run ppsspp, it's the easiest to setup.

what kind of games do you want to play? I have a PS Vita that is loaded with old school roms. can play pretty much everytihng up to like the Dreamcast. NES, Master System, SNES, Genesis, N64, PSX, PSP, etc.

Except for Nintendo DS and 3DS games. While those games are technically possible to emulate on a Vita (and may or may not run well, I have no idea), actually having the two screens of a 3DS is great. Some games were designed with that dual screen form factor in mind, so trying to play those games on a single screen can be a pain sometimes. A 3DS is very easy to mod and load ROMs onto. A 2DS XL is even cheaper and is basically the same thing, just without the 3D gimmick that you will likely not use anyway.

To give good advice I'd have to know what your budget is, and what systems and games you're most interested in playing.

For now I will just introduce you to the wonderful world of retro handhelds by way of a well known youtuber:

https://m.youtube.com/@RetroGameCorps/videos

Really depends what you’re looking for.

I personally hate playing 3DS games on Deck, but I have had good experience playing several games using Lutris (Played God of War 2016, Elden Ring, and Marvel’s Spider-Man) on Deck.

Emulation on Deck has been solid, but I’ve mostly stuck to Switch, GameCube and GBA games. Pokémon Legends ZA ran acceptably as well. I have Tears of the Kingdom, but haven’t installed it yet.

Tried Kingdom Hearts 2, and it seemed okay, but didn’t do much outside of launching it.

Or get a modchip. Works great for me.

Don't try doing the install yourself unless you have microsoldering experience. I killed a Switch when I tried it myself.

Can confirm for the Steam Deck! Not that it supports it explicitly, but Valve doesn't really seem to care what you do with your hardware lol.

The only limitations are that it's Linux, so you might run into some trouble with Denuvo/Hypervisor and stuff like that. HV cracks allegedly work on Linux now, but I haven't tried it yet.

If you occasionally want to play 3ds games, get an Ayn Thor. Requires a bit of tinkering but once it's set up, it's an incredible retro gaming machine. Recently finished God of War 1 and 2 on it and had a great time!

Depends on what you want to play.

You likely already have a smartphone, so why not just get a controller that plugs directly into its USB-C port? Then load up whichever emulator you want. Chances are, your phone is considerably faster than most emulation handhelds anyway.

Steam Deck or Legion all the way. My Steam Deck can run anything starting from NES up to PS3 titles without issue and PC titles also aren't a problem (and there are even pretty good tools to automatically sync your saves between the deck and any other PC you have). The possibility of expanding the space with an SD card is very handy for Roms, which don't need tons of transfer speed to run fine. (although i also put smaller PC games on there which work fine, but loading times for larger games might become uncomfortable)

For the switch you need the v1 before they patched the hardware insecurities. https://ismyswitchpatched.com/

Switch has MiG Flash. It doesn’t allow updating but most Nintendo consoles didn’t allow updating. So, you can play well-developed games but janky buggy games corrected after launch maybe not.

What do you plan on playing and what consoles do you want to emulate?

Any sources you'd recommend for ps3 emulation on linux?

Any android handheld.

Either the Steam Deck or one of those Emulation PC handhelds. A Switch would probably be a poor choice since a modchip is required for most of them.

The only limitations are that it’s Linux, so you might run into some trouble with Denuvo/Hypervisor and stuff like that. HV cracks allegedly work on Linux now, but I haven’t tried it yet.

It's easier on Linux than it is on Windows, and also safer too.

I love my Nintendo 3DS and DSI. Both jailbroken and playing games on it versus emulating it has been a blast. And games are pretty unique because of the dual screen and stylus, so been the best console I've had by far.

This year I played through Hotel Dusk, Okamiden, and Trauma center on my DSI. And been playing through Super Mario 3D land with 3D effect. 3D effect from what I read works best on the last 3DS model since the eye tracking is better.

I use RPCS3.

Good to know it's easier! I assumed it'd be safer because Linux generally is lol. Presumably because Denuvo is kernel-level and Linux doesn't let it fuck about with the kernel or something like that?

Nah Denuvo isn't kernel level, at least not at the moment. The method used on Linux operates entirely in userland using a custom proton build and the cpuid fault instruction. On older systems that don't support cpuid faulting they do use a kernel module, but this kernel module is much simpler than the Windows HV, it only emulates cpuid faulting and doesn't do anything else.

The "New" 3DS XL is, IMO, the strongest contender for a dedicated gaming device, at least for a significant portion of 5th gen console emulation (PS1, some N64, Sega Saturn, etc) and earlier. Something to note - "New" is part of the actual name for this console. There is a significant difference between the OG 3DS XL and the "New" 3DS XL - the OG model cannot run 5th gen console emulators as it simply does not have the horsepower.

Now - Nintendo does not support the 3DS family anymore and they've shut down most of the services related to it (including NNID, Street Pass, Miiverse, eShop, etc). There is absolutely zero risk of getting your console banned as there is nothing to ban you from.

If you don't need the latest stuff, a new 3ds XL has a lot to offer. (If you dont care about the 3D, a new 2DS is also a great way to go)

Steam Deck. Hands down.

PSP ... Get a mint one from Japan for $50