The NES Classic — you saw our first vid on it, right? — is a cool little piece of nostalgia. But it's sorely lacking in the games department. Or, rather, it REALLY needs a way to add games.
Fortunately the NES community has answered, and in a big way. And after a few rounds of tinkering we now have a super easy way to add games to the NES Classic.
I used the "hakchi2" method. You'll want to read through the instructions yourself, but here's the gist of how I did it, boiled down from a reddit post ... and another Reddit post. Full props to those folks!
You'll need at least Windows 7 to get this done.
OBLIGATORY WARNING: You're doing this at your own risk. If your teeth loosen and your eyes start to bleed, I didn't do it.
- Download hakchi2 and unzip: direct download link
- Browse to your saved ROMs, and decide what you want to install on the NES Classic. (I kept the original 30 games, too.)
- Find box art — either use your own, or just hit the handy Google button in the GUI to automagically search. (Nice touch!)
- Plug your NES Classic into your PC using the Micro-USB cable. Leave the console turned off. We're going to enter FEL mode.
- Hold down the reset button on the front. Then press (and release) the power button. After a few seconds, release the reset button. You won't actually see anything happen.
- You should now be able to hit the sync button in the hakchi2 program. (If you didn't get the FEL mode thing right, it'll tell you. I didn't do it right the first time and nothing blew up.)
- Reboot the NES Classic.
- Profit!
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