Deciding to take a different approach and not make it look "retro" as such, I will be aiming to use a Nintendo 3dsXL shell to put all the components into. I can get the shell of eBay, perfect as it already has the holes for an analog stick, d-pad, 4 standard buttons, and space for 2 left and 2 right buttons. The screen space is great, I can fit a 5inch screen in with no modification and sound left and right of it. The touch pad which would normally be near all the buttons will be closed up as I don't think it is nessasary.
while I am good when to comes to building parts, and general electrics such as soldering components together, my knowledge is limited. I need some guidance on how to make this project possible. Below is a list of ideal features to fit in:
Raspberry Pi: I'm thinking of the Pi 3, an issue is the height of the board, to solve this I have found some methods in removing the USB port and Ethernet port, the USB ports will be replaced with some slow profile ones of which 2 will be mounted for external access and 2 for internal use. While this Pi is bigger then the zero which I would have liked, I feel the extra ram, cpu power and added features like the audio jack are of better purpose for this purpose.
Controls: analog stick, d-pad, 2 left and 2 right, a,b,x,y, start and select. In total 10 buttons plus the d-pad and analog stick. There is also need for a power switch. I have seen methods such as using the teensy, but I have no good idea of going about this.
Screen: I was thinking the 5inch touch screen that can be bought off adafruit.
Audio: would like a left and right stereo, mounted next to the screen, and then there's the audio jack in the Pi itself. No idea how to hook up the audio left and right.
Battery, 3 hours of life, Li-Po, mah to be calculated after all the other parts known, and it needs a power converter to 5v. no idea how to charge it.
Any extra parts I'm missing?