The nanoconsole SGX is a small, cheap DIY video game console with an integrated sound system and controller.
Its core is a tiny 15-cent RISC-V processor with 16k of Flash, with no dedicated video or USB hardware. However, it (barely) drives a VGA screen with colors, (somewhat) manages to have a USB bootloader, and even runs games.
The software library is based on the ch32fun and rv003usb projects
Specs
- CPU: ch32v003 RISC-V SOP16 (15-cent) - 48MHz 16k Flash, 2k RAM (RAM is expensive, okay?)
- Video: 320x240 VGA, 4 palettes of 2 colors swappable by line (GPU: none :) (black/green, purple/white, blue/cyan, red/yellow)
- Sound: integrated buzzer, 1 channel square wave (also named "beeps")
- Controller: 4 buttons on the board itself: Left/Right, A/B
- Connectivity: VGA, USB (power and game uploads), no network
Community
Contribute to the repository of the project.Please visit the discord to chat with the community.
Build one!
While the wimpy 15-cent microcontroller makes it challenging to build games, the complete console can be built for a few euros : besides a VGA, an USB connector 4 buttons, you need a buzzer and 9 extra components to build it !
The console is open hardware - designed with KiCad, (quite) easy to solder: design documents are freely available in the Codeberg repository.
follow this link for a building tutorialPlay games
All games are dematerialized, sorry ;) You can use the emulator to play the games online - but it's not the real thing of course.
Rapidball
A classic phone action game where a ball must neither fall to the bottom of the screen nor be punctured by the top of the screen.
Mario Bros
Yes, a Mario Bros. game! Well, it's the Game & Watch–style Mario Bros. action game where you are in charge of keeping a bottle factory running with your brother, under the watchful eye of the management!
News
10/10/2026 New Game : MooD ! a 3D FPS game on the console !!
25/09/2026 New Game : AlterEgo a game originally developed by RetroSouls, ported to the Nanoconsole by makapuf
17/09/2026 a new website with an emulator! This website is going live and sports a Wasm-based emulator, where you can play .bin games directly in your browser! No recompilation needed! See the repository of the emulator.
16/09/2026 First Multiplayer game: Pong! This classic game, still under development by Sebastien, will let you play with your opponent on the console!
Create a game
Creating a fun game is quite the challenge with only 16k of flash for everything, but with enough ingenuity it can still be done! Follow existing games / modify them and/or start from minimal examples.
Creating games only needs a RISC-V compiler thanks to the emulator