Four Interesting Open Source Kits to Bring You Back 20 Years

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Have you ever thought about using the board at hand to DIY a controller?

Today, we will review four very interesting open source game controller DIY reference designs and kits, allowing players with strong hands-on skills to assemble and customize their own game controllers through DIY.

Infineon XENSIV Game Controller

Recently, Infineon released a very interesting reference design – Infineon Technologies XENSIV Game Controller. This reference design can be purchased from the Infineon official store for $177.41, or from distributors like Mouser and Digikey.

Link to the reference design: https://www.infineon.com/cms/en/product/evaluation-boards/game-controller/

Specifically, the XENSIV Game Controller is equipped with a PSoC 6 MCU; integrates XENSIV magnetic position sensors for precise joystick control without sensor drift; integrates XENSIV Hall switch triggers; features capacitive CAPSENSE buttons, CAPSENSE presence detection, SPIDER+ SPIDER+ rumble drivers; this controller also features a very small OLED display, allowing users to monitor joystick movement, connection status, configuration, and battery information.

The controller connects to a PC or smartphone as a USB Human Interface Device (HID), requiring no manual configuration or driver installation. It also supports low power Bluetooth (Bluetooth Low Energy), and uses capacitive presence detection to optimize battery life. The design includes a PSoC 6 debugger, supporting customizable expansion boards, providing flexibility for software and hardware integration.

Infineon stated in an official announcement, “All design files are public,” but currently the files have not been fully released and may be released gradually in the future. However, the development board that powers the XENSIV game controller, CYSBSYSKIT-DEV-01, already has open design files available for customization, and its use is not limited to gaming.

The CYSBSYSKIT-DEV-01 board connects to a PC using Micro-USB to debug and flash with ModusToolbox and Infineon‘s GitHub repository using custom software. The basic setup includes a USB cable with a Micro-USB connector and UART terminal software, such as Tera Term or Minicom. The board supports an optional 3.7V, 350mAh lithium polymer battery.

Arduino Nano Matter Game Controller

Silicon Labs solution architect Nicola Wrachien designed an Arduino Nano Matter game controller, successfully porting the popular first-person shooter Quake to this game controller, which not only runs the game but also provides improved graphics (better than Doom), better physics effects, and 3D rendering.

This DIY code, circuit, and design can be found on the official blog: https://community.silabs.com/s/share/a5UVm000000Vi1ZMAS/quake-ported-to-arduino-nano-matter-and-sparkfun-thing-plus-matter-boards?language=en_US

Four Interesting Open Source Kits to Bring You Back 20 Years

This game controller is built around the Arduino Nano Matter board, which features the Silicon Labs MGM240SD22VNA MCU and 256KB RAM, which is very low compared to the original system requirements of Quake (minimum 8MB RAM and Pentium CPU). For simplicity, a custom PCB shaped like a game controller was designed, with buttons, a joystick, and a 320×240 pixel LCD.

On the software porting side, the SDLQuake1.09 codebase allows development on modern computers based on Windows. To optimize space, constants are stored in flash instead of RAM. However, accessing data from external SPI flash is very slow. To overcome this issue, the microcontroller was overclocked to 136 MHz and several optimization strategies were implemented, including texture caching, asynchronous DMA texture loading, optimized enemy rendering, assembly language functions, and partial screen refreshes. Additionally, other tools were developed to simplify operations, including constant table generation, QuakeC to C conversion, entity getter-setter generation, and a Quake Pak converter for optimizing game data for rendering.

Nicola Wrachien made full use of the 256KB RAM on the board and overclocked the MGM240 to 136 MHz for higher performance. The board features 16 remappable buttons and two analog joysticks for controlling movement. Two 16MB SPI flash chips are used to store game data, which is uploaded from an SD card. The onboard stereo speakers provide sound effects, and there is also a 3.5mm audio jack for connecting headphones or external speakers. The PCB also has a charging circuit for connecting the lithium polymer battery. The design of this PCB only uses through-hole components for easy assembly.

RP2040 Game Controller

Using Raspberry Pi to pay tribute to the classic GameBoy has become a common practice, but a game console without a controller is not acceptable. At the end of last year, someone created a game controller kit using Raspberry Pi Zero that can adapt to a Nintendo Game Boy lookalike, which can be easily snapped together without soldering.

The kit link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jameth/reboi-raspberry-pi-in-a-gameboy/description

The Reboi kit includes a custom board, 3D printed parts, high-resolution color display, rechargeable battery, and cartridge cover. It features the RP2040 MCU, mainly serving as a keyboard emulator, turning the face buttons of the Game Boy into a built-in USB keyboard, meaning almost any operating system can work with the Game Boy buttons.

Raspberry Pi 5 Game Controller

In addition to RP2040, someone also made a kit with Raspberry Pi 5. The Experimental Pi company’s PiBoy DMGxis is a kit that converts Raspberry Pi 5 into a handheld game console, resembling the Game Boy, equipped with a 3.5 inch color display and all the control buttons identical to the original Game Boy.

Kit link: https://www.experimentalpi.com/PiBoy-DMGx_p_82.html

Over the years, the company has launched several PiBoy portable game console kits for Raspberry Pi single-board computers, so the new PiBoy DMGx for Raspberry Pi 5 is not surprising. The company states that this device should be able to run emulators for platforms such as N64, PSP, Dreamcast, Wii, Gamecube, PS2, etc.

This portable game console inspired by Game Boy is not a complete system, but just a kit. Therefore, you need to purchase and install your own Raspberry Pi 5, prepare a microSD card with the RetroPie image for PiBoy DMG, and load the games you want to play.

References

[1]https://www.infineon.com/cms/en/product/evaluation-boards/game-controller/

[2]https://www.cnx-software.com/2024/10/14/infineon-xensiv-game-controller-features-psoc-6-mcu-magnetic-sensors-and-optiga-trust-m-security/

[3]https://www.cnx-software.com/2023/12/26/reboi-raspberry-pi-game-boy-project/

[4]https://www.cnx-software.com/2024/03/20/raspberry-pi-5-game-boy-lookalike-piboy-dmgx-kit/

[5]https://www.cnx-software.com/2024/10/07/arduino-nano-matter-powered-gamepad-runs-quake-at-27-fps/

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