Unsure if this is the place to ask or not but figured it was closest to it.
Basically I am looking to make an AIO retro gaming PC. Main goal is to have one simple box hooked up to the TV so my friends and I can game without having to swap discs and consoles all the time. Would probably use mostly DS3 (or 4?) controllers hooked up with USB or via BT.
I know lemmy doesn’t much care about piracy but this is all just to play games/consoles we legally own. Would include PS1-3, Nintendo, SNES, N64, Gamecube (think that is all we have).
I think https://batocera.org/ has been mentioned, Lakka (maybe this is more for pis?), and EmuDeck has been mentioned. Basically looking for the easiest distro to throw on a PC with a nice UI (can be launched via kb/mouse, all the same to me) that has the emulators built in and just needs the ROMs.
I believe Batocera itself covers all the consoles you mentioned.
It’s also got a pretty nice little UI (very customizable) and it has a really nifty feature where you can pair Bluetooth remotes super easy (basically just put the controller into pairing mode and click “pair Bluetooth controller” and it’ll instantly pair).
It also runs like absolute lightning - I’m running my Batocera on a 2012 MacBook Pro and it still runs everything up to PS1 decent frames (which is an achievement for this laptop lol).
To top it off, adding the games is super easy. I just used a flash drive and put the ROMs into their respective folders in the file explorer and it just added the console’s icon to the home screen.