[derefr]

Sure; the thing I want from Nintendo is mostly 1. build quality and 2. the assurance of the games and emulators being tweaked to run at 100% speed + 100% fidelity, 100% of the time, on the system.

A random collection of parts can be made to run a random collection of games at "decent" fidelity+speed, but you get much better results by cloning the output of a megacorp's QA pipeline.

I'd much rather give Nintendo my money for the work they did designing the system, if they'll let me. But if they won't, their design will still likely be better, such that the best third-party device to get will be the one that most closely rips it off.

[DanBC]

There are a bunch of emulation machines from China. Many of them are handhelds. The build quality tends to be low; the specs are weird; the emulation is poor.

So I wouldn't be too hopeful for a decent clone.

If you want Nintendo build quality you can buy a Wii (dirt cheap) and a classic controller and set it up to run homebrew.