As a christmas present I was planning on buying one of those old school (1st to 4th generation) consoles that have 60 built in games.
Like this
http://www.dollargeneral.com/product/index.jsp?productId=43753776
The person I’m buying this for would probably appreciate it since they played console games in the 80s.
So I’m wondering what all options are there. I’ve seen colecovision, atari, sega genesis & intellivision. I haven’t seen NES, SNES, NeoGeo, Odyssey, etc.
What all systems is something like this an option? For about $30-60 you get the console with 50-100 games built in?
You should buy the Colecovision, one of my games from the 80’s (Module Man) is on it 
Maybe just buy an old original console? I got a NES a couple of years ago off ebay, they work forever. Only thing you might need to do is to replace the connector, and you’re good to go. You will not get as many games for your money that way, but most of those 50-100 games will be crap anyway, and there is just something about owning that old hardware that appeals to me. YMMV, of course.
Screw that, my days of blowing on games to make them work are over.
There is a forum at AtariAge.com where people familiar with the flashback consoles and retro games hang out.
It’s probably a good spot to get more info about the different flashback consoles etc.
I may check that out. I looked up the company that makes these devices, the ones I listed are the only ones they make. They have a couple of handheld ones too but only those 4 consoles (atari 2600, colecovision, intellivision, genesis).
FWIW a Dingoo A320 is an awesome device for old games, but I think this person wants the the feel of an old atari like he played when he was younger.
These consoles do not appear to accept actual cartridges, which is a shame. I can understand that they probably couldn’t get the rights to include Donkey Kong, the Colecovision implementation of which I recall being highly regarded, but it would be nice if the console would accept a copy of you found it elsewhere. Otherwise, they’re probably nifty enough to be worth $20, but no replacement for emulation on a modern console.
Our local Half-Price Books is carrying a similar deal for the revenant Sega Genesis. I don’t recall what they were charging, but I see it here for $40. Far fewer games, but it includes Sonic and does have a cartridge slot, with a caveat that not all cartridges will be compatible.
I bought the ColecVision Flashback five weeks ago, I was disapointed. The sound effects were off and a few of the colors for the games weren’t quite right. One of the games, “The Heist”, plays way slower than it’s supposed to. But then again I actually own a working ColecoVision from 1983 and I was comparing the two. If your friend hasn’t played any of these games in years then he probably won’t notice the difference.
I haven’t tried the other Flashback consoles.
My two cents.
I would think you’d want to buy one that he used to have or play.
Yes, make sure you research for one that is quality (I understand that’s why you started the thread) because some of them are utter shit. Besides poor sound emulation, make sure that there is a good library of games. Remember those “200 in 1” games for Gameboy or whatever? It turns out that 120 of those are variations of 5 games, where Mario’s sprite is replaced or something, and most of them are utterly broken and freeze at some point. Many of these might not be that crappy but might be missing some seminal games.
I have seen NES and maybe SNES versions. I wasn’t too impressed.
If they have a Wii they can do Virtual Console type stuff. There are also handheld systems that are essentially software emulators. This implies all the moral gray area in acquiring the games, though.
I think you’re going to find that these flashback consoles all have a similar deal. AtGames is the company that is creating them and they are going to be limited in their licensing opportunities due to small market/low sales.
They won’t be able to pay big dollars for key titles like Donkey Kong so you’ll get whatever they found that was affordable.