Unsure if this is the place to ask or not but figured it was closest to it.
Basically I am looking to make an AIO retro gaming PC. Main goal is to have one simple box hooked up to the TV so my friends and I can game without having to swap discs and consoles all the time. Would probably use mostly DS3 (or 4?) controllers hooked up with USB or via BT.
I know lemmy doesn't much care about piracy but this is all just to play games/consoles we legally own. Would include PS1-3, Nintendo, SNES, N64, Gamecube (think that is all we have).
I think https://batocera.org/ has been mentioned, Lakka (maybe this is more for pis?), and EmuDeck has been mentioned. Basically looking for the easiest distro to throw on a PC with a nice UI (can be launched via kb/mouse, all the same to me) that has the emulators built in and just needs the ROMs.
I'm not sure why people are suggesting that RetroPie is tied to Raspberry Pi. RetroPie is a setup script that'll run on Debian-based distros, even on x86-64 PC. It'll do the install of EmulationStation, along with any selected consoles of your choice.
https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Debian/
Of their officially supported emulators, it doesn't look like PS3 is in the list though.