How to Hack an Old Nintendo

Customize your controllers. There are few limits to what you can modify your controller to do. You can add a Rumble Pak, giving your controller the vibrating effects of a more modern design. Extra buttons or switches can be soldered in to control custom user input. It is even possible to set up your controller with a USB cable, allowing you to plug it into other devices (this does of course require that those devices have software installed to make the controller compatible).

Add extra hardware to your console to make it usable again. While many old consoles will shudder to life with enough coaxing, adding a few pieces of modern hardware can make a console perform in a whole new way. For example, if you are familiar with overclocking techniques for PCs, many of those same methods can be used to overclock an N64. By performing some minor surgery on the circuit board and adding a heat sink, you can get your console running twice as fast as before.

Make your console portable. Electronic devices have been streamlined since the glory days of the bulky NES. Some particularly creative hackers have gutted their old consoles and repackaged the hardware inside much smaller devices. There have been consoles fitted into sleek handheld tablets, custom video game cabinets or even into old game cartridges themselves. Best of all, many of these retrofitted consoles run on batteries, meaning you can leave all your tangled console wires in the closet.

Scrap the hardware and repurpose the casing. Old Nintendo consoles are classic icons of the early days of video games. The hardware inside is fairly easy to remove, meaning that you can put whatever you like inside of the case. Existing hacks include fitting new consoles inside of an old console case, turning an NES into a DVD player or using the case to house a PC.