You can buy very cheap emulation boxes/handhelds from AliExpress pre-configured that will happily run everything up to PS1/n64, people have different opinions on this as they come bundled with roms and bios.

The value proposition of spending 50 bucks and having a plug and play device vs hours of time setting something up is a no brainer for me.

The real problem is that kids already have expectations around technology so are less likely to enjoy/find novel some of the really retro games.

Also, when you get a device that has 10k ROMs bundled curation/signal to noise becomes an issue.

Definitely worth doing but maybe make a plan for what games to play through and adjust expectations that interest will probably only spark around nes/snes onwards.

Edit: Quick browse seems to indicate the Kinhank brand devices are the way to go.

Build one. I did that for Christmas for my daughter. She is into ninja turtles and a skateboard game. So I built her a ninja turtle surfboard skate game using nano banana to create the images. The game play is bad but we built it together in a day for fun. checkout pandahugs.fun I’ll share my process if you’re interested

pandahugs.ai