Project Unity – a retro gamer’s dream-machine

It may not look too pretty, but Project Unity could possibly be the greatest machine for retro gamers, ever.

Weighing in at approximately 20kg, this big box contains over 300 metres of cabling, it took 3,500 hours to build, cost approximately £700 (in parts, boards, wiring etc…) and can play a total of 18 different retro systems… all through ONE custom-built controller.

Made by Bacteria, Project Unity contains no emulation, just original boards – and it’s a beast of a machine. The system contains the components for 15 original gaming consoles (and with backwards compatability on certain systems, it can play games from 18 different platforms), including the main SEGA systems (of course!).

Compatible systems: Master System, Mega Drive (Genesis), Sega Saturn, Dreamcast, Amstrad GX1000, Atari 7800, Atari 2600 (b/c through 7800) Super Nintendo, NES, Nintendo 64, NeoGeo MVS,  Gamecube, NEC TurboGrafx X, Colecovision, Intellivision, Playstation 2, Playstation 1 (b/c through PS2) and even GBA (b/c through GameCube).

I think one of the most impressive things about this device is the single Master Controller gamers use to play the games. Bacteria has built a game pad, which is compatible with all the systems and automatically maps the correct buttons to the system, through the use of modified NES cartridges, which provide the system specific interfaces.

Well, enough from me. Watch the video above for the full, in depth, details on the system. Bacteria goes into some very technical detail on how Project Unity was create and how it works. For footage of the system in action, skip forward to 9:25. Though I would recommend watching the whole video, to really appreciate all the effort that’s gone into this machine.

Unfortunately, Project Unity is not for sale. However, Bacteria has posted guides on his forums to help out anyone else with enough ambition to build such a beast.