My aunt and uncle dont play many video games and dont have a lot of knowledge on how these game systems work. They dont know the player count to some games and how some games can play up to 4 players. They also dont know a lot about the difference between single player and multiplayer games. My uncle made a retro game system with a newer RaspberryPi 5 and gave my cousin 2 controllers to play with. My cousin who is 9 doesn’t know much about video games this is his first time ever that they allowed him to play games. Originally I was just going to flash a new memory card with some games on it so that he can switch between memory cards to play different games. I have a Raspberry Pi 4 so the OS on the Pi 4 might have a problem running on the Pi 5 so I decided to just give him my pi 4 with 2 extra controllers so he can play with 4 players with his friends on the console my uncle gave him. I only loaded a few single player pokemon games (Pokemon Fire Red) on the retro system I gave him and 1 or 2 multiplayer games that I thought he would like.
My aunt and uncle took that gift as me trying to 1up them on their gift saying their gift sucked and that my cousin would like mine better. In reality I only thought I was adding to their gift by giving my cousin extra games and controllers so that he could play with his friends. My Pi4 is old and very laggy while their gift is much more powerful and stronger. and can handle the 4 player games way better. I would like some outside perspective from other to see if I was in the wrong. I would like to fix this matter with out a yelling match but my aunt is livid at the moment saying I crossed the line.
How can I explain to her my intention. Was I the asshole for doing something like this? Did I over look how this would affect them? Can someone please explain what that would feel like if I was in her shoes.
NTA
talk to your aunt and uncle.
They’re really pissed I have to wait for the storm to pass
I would think its just an extension of their game, as you said.
NTA to me
YTA but not for the reasons his parents are upset
If possible you should have loaded the games from your system to his and given him the controllers. You’ve just made it cumbersome for a 9 year old to navigate the systems. Now he’s supposed to switch between the two depending if he wants to play multiplayer games or not.
Even if his parents think you’re trying to one up them in actuality it seems like you just got him an older version of the same gift which doesn’t seem right to do to him.
That fairs it is really confusing to constantly pair the controllers to the different systems
NTA
This is all a bit silly. But if you want to make everyone happy there is an option here.
Most of those emulators know how to download games from a USB stick at system boot. All you have to do is put the games in the right folders on the stick.
You can put all the games you want on the usb and plug it into his Pi 5.
Then you can take back your Pi 4 and let him keep the controllers.
wait a minute i didnt know I can do that that wouldve made it so much better
Yeah just google “retropi transfer roms from usb stick” (assuming you used retropi)
NTA. Just tell them you think they got him an awesome gift and you wanted to add to it.
Another NTA vote from me, too. I wouldn’t know how to work the tech to make the games function on the net system either. I agree it’s just an addition to their gift, and they’re upset because they don’t understand how these things work, as you mentioned. Would they listen to an explanation from someone else? Could you send them a text that they can read when they’re ready?
NTA
Maybe it was a bit insensitive of you to not anticipate how the gift would make your aunt and uncle feel about their own gift, and it definitely would have been better to coordinate with them on their gift instead of “1upping” their gift with your own.
But I think it’s an honest mistake and you were just looking out for your cousin. Just talk it out with your family and I’m sure there will be no hard feelings.
There was no reason to gift the kid a slightly worse one of the same thing, you could have just helped them load different games on theirs. YTA