I’m not exactly sure what I think about this for me personally, I like the idea of swappable bits for each system but this is going to get really expensive real quick.
Im keeping an open mind because they are adding some neat features to the system and I hope that someone can finally make a product that the mass market can get into and also not be junk. They say is arm and fpga based so who knows if this thing is going to be like every other SOC type console we’ve seen or will it be more like analogue’s systems.
Nintendo’s design patent probably affects this. I know 8bitdo had to change the coloring for their controllers. Its probably a way to avoid legal issues. Anyway, I know using the SNES pad this angle makes sense so I bet its more comfortable than it looks.
This will be emulation on a cheap SOC, there is no FPGA involved. The supported systems and those that they say will not be supported (Saturn, Dreamcast, N64, Gamecube, Wii, PS2) makes me think that it isn’t much more than a Raspberry Pi 3 spec wise.
I can’t find it, but I swear i read this was a hybrid system. Unless this has changed. I know when it was Retroblox it was basically a pi but from what I read after it was supposed to be some sort of hyrbid. But then again, they didn’t think the SNES would be possible for a long time and yet it came out months after this article was written.
Edit: You know, if its just an emulator for HDTVs and it doesn’t to a shit job. I can see the benefit of it if, and only if, you can store roms on it. If it requires you to rip your own roms and there is no work around I don’t really see the point to it because I can do this with the analogue systems (and use everdrives).
Sometimes I think being able to do this takes some of the sting away from collectors. if more people have access to a thing, the prices of certain games might come down. I noticed a drop in price for Mega Man games once every modern console could play it.
In this case hybrid means the emulator is reading the cartridge or cd being played instead of having to dump the contents first.
Them not knowing that it was possible to accurately emulate the SNES via FPGA speaks more of their ignorance on the matter than anything else considering what Kevtris and Analogue had already achieved at the time.
Will Everdrives, Game Genies and multi-game carts work with POLYMEGA™?
Yes, since Hybrid Emulation works like the original console, you will be able to use any games and peripherals that work on a real classic console. However, you will not be able to individually install games loaded on to Everdrive or similar devices to the POLYMEGA™ user interface. Please note that games that require light-gun input are not currently supported by POLYMEGA™.
I take it as they can read and play the carts directly, instead of dumping the ROM like the Retron did. That’s probably what they mean by hybrid. The lack of light gun support means a frame delay brought by emulation. No FPGA, or at least not for the console part. Maybe some shenanigans for the full cartridge support.
HDMI only, guys. If we do our job well on the virtual display side and low latency input options, you should have no reason to want to hook this up to your CRTs (outside of the matter of light gun games, which we will attempt to address down the line). Additionally, the purpose of this system all along has been to move retro games forward far into the future, and supporting the old displays makes it more difficult for us to do that.
Disgusting. But par for the course for all the modern clones that popped up recently.
George, my guess is that you have never had a really good experience playing retro games on any kind of display that is not the beloved CRT. I don’t blame you, because not many really great options exist out there today for doing so. I hope you’ll give us a chance to change your mind on that. I remember at the beginning of this project I was fighting tooth and nail with our engineering team for the same feature, analogue output so I could route it to my Sony PVM monitor. I lost that battle but guess what, just last week I just sold off that PVM and boxed up my retro consoles. Now I use our development kit as my daily driver. Not to say everyone will do that once this system is released, but for me personally (and having a girlfriend who appreciates less visual blight in our house) it worked out that way and I don’t think my setup has gotten any worse at all, even to a shmup and scanline addict.
“You haven’t seen the light yet, when you see our shaders you will want nothing but throw away your old tube tv”
I mean i get why they are doing it but that takes so much of the value away from a machine like this. I dialed back my collecting significantly since getting everdrives because some games are just too damn expensive.
I don’t mind that as much as I mind modern tv tech. Your tv is screwing you over more than anything else.
Yeah but many complain about the Nintendo angle, since Mario World added run to Y and they got used to using them in the angle of that pad, leaning on B and hitting A with the lower part of the thumb.
Of course I think the Game Boy/Dogbone angle is better overall but look at the number of people who complain about BA usage in VC games/NSMB etc.
