It’s official. The Ouya supports the Retrode (and the N64 plug-in adapter) out of the box, with no special settings required. Honestly, this is huge. If you wanted a reason to love the Ouya but were just waiting for a killer app, you just got one.

Honestly, this is huge.

Here you have a game console which supports retro gaming adapters out of the box. You can take this thing into a place of business and retro game without breaking any laws. Play some MarioKart 64 with your coworkers without having to dig around thrift stores for a N64 system, then switch it up and play SNES/Genesis/GB/GBC/GBA/SMS cartridges too, all without downloading any ROMS! Review old games with the full TV experience without having to install a modchip, root anything, boot up a PC, or even purchase the original consoles. Perhaps best of all you can dust off your old cartridges and share your favorite classic gaming experiences with your kids, confident in the knowledge that you’re not teaching them to pirate games. You might even help to instill a love of old games in a whole new generation of gamers.

Here’s how I set the whole thing up in just a couple minutes:

1. Went to the ‘retro’ section on the Ouya store
2. Downloaded the Mupen64 app
3. Mapped the buttons (using the controller settings menu in Mupen64) to the real N64 controller buttons
4. Told Mupen64 to load the cartridge from /mnt/usbdrive/ (the Retrode shows up as a USB drive on the Ouya)

That’s that! I’ll be posting up more Retrode + Ouya videos soon but in the meantime, feel confident that you can get your retro game on with your Ouya without breaking any laws or downloading any ROMS.

And here’s a quick photo of the hardware: