The cool thing about Raspberry Pis is that they're really quite small—about the size of a credit card. This means you can squeeze them into all kinds of teeny-tiny cases that make them a solid choice for portable projects. And while the same can be said for any SBC, we've seen a lot more projects use the humble Pi as its base.

If you're in the mood to game on the go, but you want to build something yourself instead of buying something prebuilt, here are some of the past Raspberry Pi projects we covered that lets you make a small console you can bring with you anywhere.

5 Here's how you can turn a Raspberry Pi Pico into a tiny portable console

Like, really portable

Got a spare Pico 2 sitting around? Then why not make it into a console? The Picopocket is a miniature console that puts the Pico's tiny size to good use. Unfortunately, it's not an easy build; the bill of materials alone is quite extensive, and it takes a lot of fiddling and 3D printing to get everything working properly, but the end result is pretty awesome. Just check out the video above; it's like a DIY Game Boy, but even more pocket-sized.

4 This all-in-one Raspberry Pi arcade console is a retro gamer's dream

All you need is a screen

Fightsticks are great, but what if your fightstick was also your console? That way, you don't have to lug a console around; you just plug the fightstick into a screen, and you're good to go. Well, that's the premise of this all-in-one project that uss a Raspberry Pi and some 3D printing to create the shell.

This project also features a battery, so you don't need to keep it plugged into a power outlet all the time. And best of all, the joystick and buttons are purchased from a proper manufacturer, so they'll feel just as good as a store-bought stick.

3 You too can build this cool Raspberry Pi retro console with a Pokémon design

Pokemon Go, but different

Raspberry Pis aren't the most powerful chips on the planet, which means that really intensive tasks aren't their forte. However, if you want to perform something that's very easy on the system, a Raspberry Pi is perfect. That way, you can get the same amount of use out of the process as you would on a PC and benefit from the Pi's tiny size at the same time.

Old-school emulation is a good example of this. While you can emulate Game Boy games on a beefy PC, you really don't need to. In fact, Pis can achieve the same result with really simple retro games on a desktop. As such, if you want to revisit the early Pokémon games, what better way to do this than with a Pokémon-themed Pi console?

This is exactly what the PokePi achieved. It uses the Pi as an emulator and adds a cool Pokémon-themed shell around it to create a portable console you can use to play whichever older title you like.

2 Someone built a portable arcade cyberdeck using a Raspberry Pi 5, and honestly, I'm jealous

Even the stickers look cool

Okay, so maybe I'm stretching the "tiny" term in the title a little too much here, but it's just too cool to not cover. This project is a toe-dip into the world of cyberdecks, which are like laptops but are a lot cooler. Sometimes, people will take secure suitcases and kit out its insides with computer parts to create a hardy laptop that's tough to break.

Well, this person used one of those suitcases and converted its innards into a portable console so they could play games wherever they went. And yeah, it's a bit chunky and definitely not sized, but it still gets a mention here because it's a cool use for a Raspberry Pi 5 to game on the go.

1 You can make your own handheld XS2040 emulator with a Pi Pico

And it's super small

Okay, to make up for the fact that the last one wasn't exactly 'tiny,' let's finish off the list with a project that really is miniature. This little guy is a Raspberry Pi Pico running a ZX Spectrum emulator, dubbed the ZX2040 by its owner. And as you can see in the above video, it really is minute; the demonstrator's thumb looks like it'd take up a good quarter of the screen alone.