For people who want to get started with hobbyist emulator development, the Game Boy is the simplest "real console" that they can get started with, complete with

For people who want to get started with hobbyist emulator development, the Game Boy is the simplest "real console" that they can get started with, complete with tons of commercial games, community support, an active homebrew scene, existing emulators, etc. Even easier than that is the CHIP-8, but that's arguably too simplistic, and too limited in scope.