Playable LEGO NES Mini
Image credit: Raymond Wong / Input

The LEGO NES can be transformed into a real console

Remember the LEGO NES that released earlier this summer? It was certainly a cool toy, but it had one problem: it wasn’t a real, playable NES. Now, one gamer with sick technical skills managed to make it into a real, playable console.

Input’s Raymond Wong set out on a mission to make that happen. Using an original NES console would have been a bit nuts, but there was a solution that would work: make use of the NES Classic console (which is still available on Amazon here and here). You’ll also need a 4:3 LCD screen with an HDMI input — of course, you can get that on Amazon, too.

As Wong explains, it’s simply a matter of carefully disassembling the actual electronics and stuffing them into the LEGO set. After dropping the NES Classic into the LEGO shell, he had to take apart the LCD monitor and get it to fit inside the LEGO television.

It sounds easy enough in principle, but it’s time-consuming in practice, especially considering how expensive everything is. With the LEGO NES retailing for $230.00, that would bring the total cost of this build to somewhere between $450–$500. The LEGO model is sold out, though, so you’d probably have to pay a premium for that item, too.

Sure, this isn’t remotely practical — after all, you could just buy a Nintendo Switch and play most of these NES games without all of this fudging around. Heck, you could buy an original NES, all of the game cartridges, and a CRT television off of eBay for the same price, but it probably wouldn’t be this cool. Check out Raymond Wong’s crazy build in action below!

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