RetroN 5 Console Revives NES And SNES-Era Classics

Doom972

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I don't see what the big deal is. You can get the same result by plugging a PC running an emulator to a TV - Which is what this thing basically is.
 

xplosive59

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Jul 20, 2009
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I would love to have one of these! However there is a problem with the fact that if you don't already have the games for it then you are pretty much screwed as nowhere sells games apart from ebay and the like, as well as those who already have the games for this probably already have the consoles to play them on.
 

ScruffyMcBalls

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We really need to figure out if the console's save state feature will allow us to bypass dead batteries in carts. If that is the case I'll probably buy two of these (collector). If the console also has a USB port so I can store my savefiles elsewhere then that'd be fantastic. I'd assume there should be a USB port since it has to have some sort of storage for the save states. Who knows, guess it's time for some research.
 

night_chrono

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Christ has no one on this site every seen one of these before? There are DOZENS of the exact same think made by a ton of manufacturers. It's not an emulator so don't worry about processing power. It uses a clone hardware so it plays the games "natively". However that means they usually don't play all games. Dragon Warrior 2-4, Starfox, and Yoshi Island are famous for not working on these clone consoles.

Also the only reason a GBA played GB/C games was because it had a gameboy processor on the motherboard. That's why the DS didn't play GB/C because it only had a GBA processor. So if the info sheet says it only plays GBA I would go with it only plays GBA. The article needs to be updated to reflect this.
 

Steven Bogos

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Jan 17, 2013
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night_chrono said:
Christ has no one on this site every seen one of these before? There are DOZENS of the exact same think made by a ton of manufacturers. It's not an emulator so don't worry about processing power. It uses a clone hardware so it plays the games "natively". However that means they usually don't play all games. Dragon Warrior 2-4, Starfox, and Yoshi Island are famous for not working on these clone consoles.

Also the only reason a GBA played GB/C games was because it had a gameboy processor on the motherboard. That's why the DS didn't play GB/C because it only had a GBA processor. So if the info sheet says it only plays GBA I would go with it only plays GBA. The article needs to be updated to reflect this.
Hi there! The info sheet indeed says that it can play GB/C games, so the article will stand as-is. Thanks for your input! A quick quote about compatibility for your information:

"CIC lockout chips and FX chips are no longer going to be an issue, as we aim to achieve 100% compatibility with all cartridges."
 

Steven Bogos

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Jan 17, 2013
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Doom972 said:
I don't see what the big deal is. You can get the same result by plugging a PC running an emulator to a TV - Which is what this thing basically is.
I believe the big draw of this console is that it actually plays the original game cartridges, something that you can't do on a PC (On a PC you have to download ROMs, which are "illegal")
 

Doom972

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Steven Bogos said:
Doom972 said:
I don't see what the big deal is. You can get the same result by plugging a PC running an emulator to a TV - Which is what this thing basically is.
I believe the big draw of this console is that it actually plays the original game cartridges, something that you can't do on a PC (On a PC you have to download ROMs, which are "illegal")
Cartridge readers for the PC have existed for a long time now. That's how those ROM files came to be in the first place. I guess I can see your point regardless - most people won't hear about these unless they actively search for information about emulation.
 
Jan 22, 2011
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Mr.K. said:
Well that is nice and all but who is paying for all those licenses?
Emulators get away with it because it's under the table stuff but the moment you make commercial products these companies will be chewing your ass.
It's called abandoned hardware for a reason. Nintendo and Sega no longer care about consoles they have in production because it's of no lose in profit to them. All of these retrocon consoles are allowing you do is play physical copies of games you still own on a newer piece of hardware, that's it. If sega & nintendo really did care they would have done something about this a-long time go when console clones where hitting the market in the early to mid 2000's
 

cidbahamut

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StewShearer said:
cidbahamut said:
Now we just need some halfway decent third party controllers.

I've yet to find anything that feels as good as the first party SNES controllers.
Actually, I'm pretty sure you can just plug in your old SNES controllers.
After twenty years they're finally starting to show their age and it's difficult to find replacements.
 

night_chrono

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Steven Bogos said:
Hi there! The info sheet indeed says that it can play GB/C games, so the article will stand as-is. Thanks for your input! A quick quote about compatibility for your information:

"CIC lockout chips and FX chips are no longer going to be an issue, as we aim to achieve 100% compatibility with all cartridges."
Yea I read their spec sheet. The article should be changed though because the GBA hardware was not what allowed the playing of GB/C games. It is factually incorrect how it is currently worded.

Mr.K. said:
Well that is nice and all but who is paying for all those licenses?
Emulators get away with it because it's under the table stuff but the moment you make commercial products these companies will be chewing your ass.
Not needed. It is cloning the hardware which can be legally copied using this technique:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design

Baneat said:
How does it work? To smoothly emulate with perfect accuracy on the snes you need like a decent ivy bridge i5 or better so what exactly is it doing instead? Got little shrunk down consoles in there so it doesn't need to emulate? Just using an inaccurate emulator on an ARM pc?
I'm sorry but are you high? Near perfect SNES emulation was achieved in the early 2000's. I remember playing Starfox, Yoshi Island, Final Fantasy V, Chrono Trigger and more with no problems on my Pentium 3 machine.
 

Baneat

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night_chrono said:
[

I'm sorry but are you high? Near perfect SNES emulation was achieved in the early 2000's. I remember playing Starfox, Yoshi Island, Final Fantasy V, Chrono Trigger and more with no problems on my Pentium 3 machine.
And which magical emulator did you achieve perfect emulation with on a P3 machine? I sure as hell would like to know how you went ahead of time and grabbed BSNES before it was made and got it to run on something less than an i5 with steady 60. Perfect emulation is new-ish
 

Covarr

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May 29, 2009
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night_chrono said:
I'm sorry but are you high? Near perfect SNES emulation was achieved in the early 2000's. I remember playing Starfox, Yoshi Island, Final Fantasy V, Chrono Trigger and more with no problems on my Pentium 3 machine.
You played Star Fox at double speed, because no emulator got it right until recently.

P.S. Thanks
 

Lord_Jaroh

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Apr 24, 2007
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SkarKrow said:
Lord_Jaroh said:
This is a very cool idea. Now if only the cartridges themselves didn't have a lifespan. I think you can replace the batteries in some of them, but I don't know if that will save some of my old NES games. Maybe the cartridges could be re-released in some way...?
If you used the old front loading NES the problem is that that bent the pins on the carts, you can get those repaired and cleaned though, I think retroware.tv ran a series of articles and videos about cartridge repair and cleaning a while back if you're interested. Might be an idea.

The batteries are just used to store save data aren't they~? Pretty easy to replace iirc and a lot of my Mega Drive games batteries still live to this day.
Thanks for the info. I'm gonna have to look into this. :)
 

night_chrono

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Baneat said:
And which magical emulator did you achieve perfect emulation with on a P3 machine? I sure as hell would like to know how you went ahead of time and grabbed BSNES before it was made and got it to run on something less than an i5 with steady 60. Perfect emulation is new-ish
night_chrono said:
I'm sorry but are you high? Near perfect SNES emulation was achieved in the early 2000's. I remember playing Starfox, Yoshi Island, Final Fantasy V, Chrono Trigger and more with no problems on my Pentium 3 machine.
night_chrono said:
night_chrono said:
Covarr said:
You played Star Fox at double speed, because no emulator got it right until recently.

P.S. Thanks
Don't remember specifically if Starfox was double speed or not. As for the emulator it was whatever I downloaded off Kazaa and I played it on my Windows 2000 machine.
 

Baneat

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night_chrono said:
Baneat said:
And which magical emulator did you achieve perfect emulation with on a P3 machine? I sure as hell would like to know how you went ahead of time and grabbed BSNES before it was made and got it to run on something less than an i5 with steady 60. Perfect emulation is new-ish
night_chrono said:
I'm sorry but are you high? Near perfect SNES emulation was achieved in the early 2000's. I remember playing Starfox, Yoshi Island, Final Fantasy V, Chrono Trigger and more with no problems on my Pentium 3 machine.
night_chrono said:
night_chrono said:
Covarr said:
You played Star Fox at double speed, because no emulator got it right until recently.

P.S. Thanks
Don't remember specifically if Starfox was double speed or not. As for the emulator it was whatever I downloaded off Kazaa and I played it on my Windows 2000 machine.
If I'm buying a dedicated console that runs my cartridges I want perfect emulation. I ran a near perfect emulator and ran into problems in my first game, super metroid. I didn't read near but if you wanted near then you shouldn't have quoted my post to begin with.
 

Sonic Doctor

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Jan 9, 2010
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Clive Howlitzer said:
An emulator in a box, basically. I suppose it isn't surprising someone would finally get around to doing this.
The multiple platform game playing system isn't a new concept. Two years ago I bought a RetroN 3 for just under 60 dollars, and it plays NES, SNES, and Genesis, pretty much perfect too.

I didn't have it, but before that was the Retron Duo which did only NES and SNES.

For this new one, the new features are the Famicom and GBA slots and the ability for save states.


Steven Bogos said:
I'm late to the party on seeing this article, but I just wanted to point out that your title is much later to the party, considering that the NES and SNES, third party console-wise, have been revived for more than four years with the past incarnations of Hyperkin's Retron series of consoles.

The advice I would have given, would have been to focus your title around the new support of the Famicom, GBA, and the addition of save state support and HDMI. I didn't mention Genesis, because the the Retron 3 has that.

Because as someone that already owns a Retron 3, those 4 new additives are what really had me interested in reading the article.
 

Sonic Doctor

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Jan 9, 2010
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Zer0Saber said:
APRIL FOOLS PEOPLE. The Retron 4 isn't even out let alone the 5.
Check the date on the article, three days before April 1st. Too early for an April fools joke.

I wondered about the Retron 4 thing too, until I remembered that the number isn't for the incarnation of the system, it is for the number of game system slot ports it supports. The Retron 3 has 3 and the Retron Duo has two.

It probably was the Retron 4 initially, but now that it supports Famicom and GBA on top of the previous NES, SNES, and Genesis, that is where the number 5 comes from.

----------------------

Argh! As much as I love my Retron 3, I know I will have to get this when it comes out. I know it's not going to be as cheap as the Retron 3(under 60 dollars), but heres hoping that it is at most 100 dollars.