The intersection between sneaker culture and retrogaming has reached a new level of technical complexity thanks to the work of designer Gustavo Bonzanini. To pay homage to the thirty-five year history of the Super Nintendo, known at home as the Super Famicom, the creative has transformed a pair of Nike Air Max 90s into a gaming platform. Called AIR SNES, these shoes do not simply recall the colors of the historic console, as already seen in similar projects such as the Bull Airs ShoeBoys, but hide within them hardware capable of actually starting video games of the time.
The main engineering challenge was the inability to fit the original motherboard and bulky Nintendo cartridges inside a shoe without compromising aesthetics or fit. The solution came from the world of emulation: the system is managed by a Raspberry Pi Zero W, a microcomputer of small dimensions but equipped with the power necessary to run the RetroPie software environment. The interface has been further customized by Bonzanini to create total visual coherence between the on-screen software and the design of the shoe.
From a construction point of view, the hardware has not been positioned in the sole, but rather integrated into the tongue of the shoe. All the vital components are housed in this limited space, including a battery that ensures approximately half an hour of operational autonomy. A peculiar stylistic choice concerns the video output: despite having digital technology, the designer wanted to replicate the visual experience of the nineties by inserting an analogue converter. This allows you to connect the shoes to the television via classic RCA cables, restoring that low image fidelity typical of cathode ray tubes.
The user experience is completed by an original Super Nintendo controller, however updated to modern standards to eliminate the clutter of wires. Through an 8BitDo modification kit, the gamepad interfaces with the on-board computer via Bluetooth. Although such a product, capable of riding the wave of nostalgia and collecting, would undoubtedly have a large market, the AIR SNES project was born and died as an exercise in style: it is a unique example that will never see store shelves.