Gaming What would be better?

[chackadaux]

Buy 2 new fire pads for my kids and add emulators and games or buy 2 nintendo ds and hack it?

 

[FAST6191]

Do I assume that one of each would lead to endless arguments? Also one does not really hack a DS as much as buy a flash cart, though if it is for the DS/DS lite then that is OK as you can get a cheap one that will play pretty much every game (if you do not want to buy a couple of DSTwo flash carts then make sure it is compatible with AKAIO or Wood) and a couple of microSD cards to hold them.

How old are your kids? There are many games that skew younger but the DS I would probably suggest to do better with slightly older ones, though depending upon how much of a fad phase your kids see at school then an old DS/DS lite might not do as well as a shiny 3ds which is more annoying to hack (not to mention in my opinion has a terrible game library).
By fire pads I assume you mean the amazon kindle/fire range which are slightly locked down android tablets, you can twist many of them back to normal android tablets but how easy and how well it works can vary a tiny bit. Even without it they have many games, including a tablet version of minecraft which does well for many (technically there are homebrew versions for the DS as well, and for my money play about as well, though the android stuff has nice easy multiplayer.
As a more general use device (are you anticipating having one in 10 months when people get bored or playing after they have gone to bed?) then the tablets will win without question and for general use I quite like even the stock amazon stuff. The only real hesitation I have is controlling them is not the best (no buttons unless you have a bluetooth controller, and though there is a lot of support for such things it is not on every one of them and thus devs tend to make assumptions).

Anyway without knowing your kids I am not going to quite say that you could not fail either way but it is close, and I say that having played most of the DS library already. If you reckon you could pull off one of each (maybe each having their own flash cart for the DS stuff just to save fights over who overwrote another's save) then that would be the better route from where I sit.

 

[chackadaux]

Ok, we have 3 girls. 6,11,13. We have one Dsi and one tab old Samsung galaxy. I guess what im thinking is buying 2 more cheap tabs add nes/snes/gba/ds emulators to them add add games and they would be fine. They dont play xbox or ps systems. But I do have one that loves Mindcraft. Then they could also watch movies/music/netflix. To me it would be endless. Also add blutooth controllers.
Will cheap tabs handle these games? Might add n64 so they can play smash bros

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If I had 3 dsi still it would be a no brainer. Im just tired of them fighting over games and sustems when on the road. Its a shame to even have this problem. I use to just listen to my walkman. Lol

 

[FAST6191]

Afraid I have not kept up with android N64 emulation, last I checked it was probably better than the wii but by no means would it be a shock if a given game did not work.

I have not seen the latest amazon tabs running minecraft but ones I saw about a year ago did the pocket edition as well as anything else I saw it running on.

If multimedia, especially streaming services, is a thing you want then something android based is easily the way to go. If you can be sure you have a controller to go with it then even better.

 

[chackadaux]

So what would be a decent Tab that could handle these games? my biggest concern is how will the ds emulator work on a tab.

 

[HaloEliteLegend]

So what would be a decent Tab that could handle these games? my biggest concern is how will the ds emulator work on a tab.

There's a DS Emulator called DraStic. By far the best Android emulator out there. It costs $7 or $8 usually, but you can likely find an .apk for it somewhere online (though I would recommend buying it to support devs/avoid hassle). It works like a charm on my Galaxy S5. And there's countless videos of it running flawlessly on older hardware. I think if you got one of the latest Amazon Fire devices or a cheap Tab, it should be able to run it pretty well. You may have to resort to frame skipping in some situations, but I think it'd be easily playable.

 

[chackadaux]

Sounds awesome. Do u use a blutooth remote with it?

 

[Jack_Sparrow]

Buy 2 new fire pads for my kids and add emulators and games or buy 2 nintendo ds and hack it?

I have a Fire and ill tell you what i did
(First off let me say that the new fire is DEFINETLEY worth it for the price it is)
I bought a new Fire
Put Retroarch Core on it
Then i went to gamestop and for 20 bucks (They're probably cheaper on amazon) I bought A MOGA gaming controller
Then i installed the MOGA universal driver APK
Then Setup the MOGA for use with the emulators
Now i play with an ACTUAL controller and it feels great, the MOGA works well for N64 games

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But I do have one that loves Mindcraft.

The MOGA also works for setup for minecraft

 

[chackadaux]

You bought the new fire for 34$?

 

[HaloEliteLegend]

Sounds awesome. Do u use a blutooth remote with it?

No, not with the DS emulator. I saw no need, since the bottom touch screen is used so often. A controller never really made sense with a DS emulator, unless you were sure the game didn't utilize bottom touch controls too much.