The Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max is better as a retro gaming device than as a streamer

Here’s an open secret: every cheap streaming stick sucks. Yes, it’s great that people have access to so many shows and movies on devices that cost less than $50. It’s great that the best of them no longer make you suffer through constant lags and performance hiccups. But as time goes on, the Faustian bargain we make with these things becomes more and more obvious. We save cash up front and then pay off our debt with a shoddy user experience.

I’ve been thinking about this since I bought the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max a few months ago. This is a good example of that handshake: It has been on sale for $40 and at that price for most of the last few months hardware this is a huge opportunity. It’s fast, supports major HDR and Dolby Atmos formats, and supports all required apps.

But Amazon’s Fire OS is shamelessly bloated. The user interface is dominated by large, honking ads, most of which put Amazon services like Freevee, MGM+ or Prime Video – still the blockbuster’s most-bought streaming service offering – front and center. Some ads directly promote products you can buy on Amazon. My friend, you haven’t seen a dystopian future until the top third of your 55-inch TV screen suggested you buy a KitchenAid coffee maker. When I do stream something, the Fire TV Stick 4K Max is great. But I have to resist all the ads it feeds me to mentally block out parts of the device I bought with my own money to get the most out of it.

So why did I still buy it? Mainly because I don’t use it the way Amazon intends. Instead, I use it to emulate old video games, which is always the easiest way to my heart. Of course, today you can run retro games on just about anything – your PC, your iPhone, a million different handheld devices, your refrigerator, and more. You can do this with other Android streamers like Google Chromecast or Amazon’s cheaper Fire TV Stick 4K. The Delta emulator was recently released for iOS and can also be accessed using Apple TV, albeit via AirPlay instead of a native connection. I opted for 4K Max simply because it seems to offer more performance security than most other cheap streamers. And it’s much cheaper than a higher-end device like Apple TV or NVIDIA Shield.

Regardless, having a dedicated box for TVs is convenient in the same way those non-streaming sticks aren’t. I won’t lug a giant gaming PC from my desk to the living room and I won’t pay extra for a mini PC when I can spend much less on a dongle that emulates well enough. Official consoles like the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 5 have plenty of retro games in their libraries, but they’re far from everything. And while I’m a collector who has spent far too much on decades-old consoles and games, the process of ensuring the original hardware works decently on a modern TV is incredibly labor-intensive. Sometimes I feel like playing for half an hour NHL ’94, Ken Griffey Jr. presents Major League Baseball Or Chrono trigger without having to drag out my SNES (or Genesis), upscaler, and pile of cables from my closet. (Related: I’d also like a bigger apartment, but c’est la vie in New York.) The emulation on the Fire TV Stick isn’t as faithful as the real thing in terms of picture quality, but it’s certainly playable and overall less of a hassle to just turn on and use.

That is, after you set it up. Turning your Fire TV Stick into a retro gaming hub isn’t particularly complicated, but it does require a bit of preparation. There are plenty of tutorials that will walk you through the entire process, but here’s how I managed to do it. First, I needed a few accessories: a Bluetooth controller, some kind of USB flash drive (any older USB 2.0 model will do), and an OTG adapter with a microUSB connector that can power the Fire TV while connecting external storage. I used this old SNES-style 8BitDo controller for a more period-appropriate feel, although a PS4 or PS5 gamepad would work too. The USB drive contains the ROM and BIOS files for the games and systems I want to emulate. At this point, I would like to remind you that Engadget does not tolerate piracy, and while emulators are completely legal, sharing ROMs on the Internet is not, so be careful. However, backing up files of old games I’ve already purchased for personal use only is more confusing at best.

After formatting the thumb drive and loading the games onto it, all I had to do was download the popular RetroArch overlay from the Amazon app store, download the “cores” for each console I wanted to emulate in RetroArch, and point the app to the appropriate folders on the USB drive and configure my gamepad’s controls . I’ve done this on dozens of devices over the last few years as I’ve gone down the retro gaming rabbit hole, so the entire process took me well under an hour. It would take me another 1,000 words to explain RetroArch, so I’ll direct you to this great video tutorial from Retro Game Corps. It’s a long time, but things like this always require a bit of effort at the beginning and I think it’s worth it. Turning a device like this into something completely different feels like something I could get away with. It’s exciting, even if it means I end up sounding like this guy.

In terms of what you can actually play on it, I found that 4K Max works best with console emulation all the way back to the original PlayStation. Games from PS1, NES, SNES, Game Boy, GBA, Genesis and old arcade machines ran consistently smoothly. His technically it’s possible to run things from an N64, Dreamcast, PSP, or Nintendo DS, but they’re more of a hit or miss case, so I wouldn’t bet on them unless you’re the type of sadist who likes to play around with resolution scaling and switching between emulators. Still, I have hundreds of games to enjoy. Some are essential (DonkeyKong), some have been lost over time (UN Squadron), some make me want to defend myself (Ecco the dolphin) and none of them are live service garbage intended to be disrespectful to my time.

I understand that it’s a strange, niche activity. Emulators are daunting at first, and there’s a reason why many old games feel like relics. But in a way, turning this ad-laden, data-sucking streamer into a mini retro console was like taking back ownership of a gadget I paid for. The ads are still there, and my home screen will still be telling me to watch Anne Hathaway’s latest romantic comedy on Prime Video. (My wife and I complied; it was fine.) But with a bit of trickery, I bent it to show more of what AND you want to see – and you’ve gained an easier way to have nostalgic fun.