Gadgetory

stand by for Kevin admitting he was wrong so I may have made a mistake last week's me guys might have caught a video that promptly disappeared which was about this little controller right here this is a kit from 8bit do--the allows you do hollow out an NES or SNES controller and turn it into one of their Bluetooth controllers which is really cool but what complaints I had is that I thought there was no way to charge the controller without actually reopening the case and plugging in because there's a microUSB port inside on the board and I saw the cable didn't really take a close look at it and assumed it was a micro USB like most of the controllers it's not the cable that comes with has the specialty little attachment which plugs into the LED light indicator up top that used in the mod kit which is actually a pretty genius solution to make this a really simple swap out so a lot better than I thought it was but that gave us some more time to be able to mess with the controller try on some other stuff so here we go round 2 if you've been watching this channel you know I'm a huge fan of anything that involves mixing retro gaming with modern day tech and a company that does a lot of stuff like that we've talked about a few times is 8-bit dough and one of the most recent things they've done is pretty interesting actually they've released these kids where you're able to mod and NES or SNES controller into a Bluetooth controller that you can use with one of their retro receivers they have released their own kind of retro style controllers before but this gives the ability to make a Bluetooth controller that actually looks like an official Nintendo on which is really cool it's all supposed to be really easy to do so we're gonna go ahead and try it right now now to be honest I did try to do this yesterday we actually found a bunch and while the process does look really simple we ran into one very specific problem we were really ready for and well yeah it didn't go great this screws definitely in trouble we're drilling so my supposed to go full speed is reckless thing another plan so anyways let's go ahead and try this again and I have more controllers so hopefully won't have that problem so let's go ahead you know what we had problem with SMEs yesterday let's start with NES to kind of just start on a different foot so the process is supposed to be pretty simple based on what I've read of the instructions everything all we really need to do is pop open these controllers which is where we had a problem last time but once you do that all you're doing is basically just switching out the board inside and breathe closing it back up there's no soldering there's no DRAM bowling nothing special like you have to do with some mods very very straightforward random thing I just noticed while I'm doing this taking my template screws for the longest time I never remember to realize that NES controllers have the cable offset for whatever reason in my memory if you just picture in your head I'm like yeah the cables in the middle that make sense no all right so there's the inside of an NES controller and here's what we're gonna replace it with okay so we have this is the new board that's gonna go inside I think goes this way no that doesn't make sense now it makes sense I had the controller ups that day okay right here and then where the cable was coming up before is we're gonna have what I think is like the little sinking button for the controller which also serves kind of like a little indicator light I'm not realizing that of the two NES controllers I could have switched out for this is actually the slightly uglier of the two oh wow I'm not backtracking alright seems pretty get there I probably messed up and putting the button in we'll deal with that later so we've got our modded controller all set up and you're probably wondering what are we actually connecting this to cuz the NES doesn't have bluetooth a little too old for that so like other a Pinto controllers this guy's designed to work with a few different other systems you can use it with like a switch or Android which is a little weird because you only have basically four buttons on the d-pad not a good idea it should just auto sync after a little bit of time yep there it is so obviously this is gonna make playing some games rather difficult so we're gonna stick with Mario Kart I can't use items and I can't hop or anything but I can go and break so that's all we really need you know so yeah if you want to you could use an original NES now you could also use the SNES controller which would actually make a little more sense and give you few more options actually probably even giving you full functionality in some games but you know sometimes you just wanna use an NES controller I can't throw the shell I want to throw this shell but I can't I'm going over buttons that I don't have so obviously the NES controller is not the strongest choice for anything that isn't an NES game but the Esmee has control the other hand offers just enough extra buttons you can use it for a lot more stuff for instance I'm hooked up to my MacBook right now I'm playing a recent indie game chasm which is a kind of retro style Metroidvania game so it fits perfectly it only needs six buttons the four front facing and the to start and selects and yeah you're able to play it just totally fine it actually even feels extra even more natural to me because this game is clearly to kind of capture an older style of game and this just feels right especially having grown up on the Super Nintendo I actually started being better at this game this morning one started playing it with this controller versus using the keyboard like I was before the main thing you're supposed to use this though with is with their retro receivers which hook into NES is the Nessun ts is to let you use their Bluetooth controllers or these guys so let's go ahead and set it up yeah we've got a retro receiver already plugged into the NES we just need to set it up to sync so I turn the controller on put it in retro receiver mode light blinking there it is and then we just set these guys up to sync and should just take a moment for them to connect em Phasis unship no but I mean I did the same fix on both hope there does hey okay took a little while but it did do it as you saw us mid worried but there we go so just take a second little brief yeah other than just the kind of general looseness of playing original Mario where he's just sliding everywhere this is working really well so far just feels like using an NES controller just without the cable one of these is cool about this too is that while a pedo does make a lot of different Bluetooth controllers that are styled after old Nintendo stuff the NES controller they have isn't really an NES controller it kind of looks like one but they have added shoulder buttons it actually has a four button setup it's all designed is where you could still use it with other systems and it makes sense in this case though we actually be true NES setup so this was really easy to do and is actually pretty awesome but the question is whether or not it's worth grabbing one of these kits and doing yourself versus just buying a Bluetooth control of this retro style and they have their ups and downs I mean it's half the price of a lot of other Bluetooth controllers which is great it was really simple to do so it's not any big investment there but at the same time especially with the NES controller you're not getting as many buttons as a lot of Bluetooth controllers will have so that kind of limits you a little bit in what kind of games you can play this is especially true of the NES controller where you really just have the d-pad and four buttons including start and select the SNES controller on the other hand with some shoulder buttons and digital buttons on the side can be useful for a lot of kind of retro style indie games which are meant to recapture that era of gaming anyways so it can work really they're simply buying a brand new Bluetooth controller is the easy answer here but if you already have an older school controller and you like the feel of it you just want to update it for modern games this is for you