I agree on the potential. I am also trying to talk myself out of this. I think the FPGA is on the base unit itself. As long as there is a grey area to what I am doing on the thing which will allow me to run rom hacks and dump some of the more expensive games that I once owned, I am interested. I do like that they specifically spelled out you can do rom translations. I have a lot of jrpgs from japan that are unplayable for me anyway.
The fpga is strictly for talking with special chips on the carts. All of the emulation outside of that is software based.
I may have missed this but will the controller ports on each module accept original controllers? Or do you have to use their versions?
You can use the originals. The module comes with a controller for some reason. I hope they are decent.
I think Polymega needs to do some videos showing what the state of that machine is now.
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I’ll just wait till it’s out. Future is so bright because of the fpga stuff that I’m not worried about someone making something that is fully accurate in the coming years. If this is the device, super. If not, oh well, better luck with the next one.
I’m actually wondering why the console makers themselves aren’t thinking about producing machines with the cart slots/disc drives in them and selling them at a profit for people to play their old libraries? At the very least, allow the next PlayStation to accept PS1 and PS2 games or something.
Nintendo should really consider an NES Classic with a cart slot. Same with the SNES. Evergreen seller. Include the 20 popular games as they’ve already done, but have the ability to just play everything.
If the carts are the same, they can’t sell it to you again. Look at the famicom edition already had a release with a different line up.
When we’ve dabbled with backwards compatibility, I can say it is one of those features that is much requested, but not actually used much. That, and I was at a Gran Turismo event recently where they had PS1, PS2, PS3 and PS4 games, and the PS1 and the PS2 games, they looked ancient, like why would anybody play this?
-Jim Ryan, Head of Global Sales and Marketing at Sony Online Entertainment
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Maybe millions aren’t enough to persuade Sony. That attitude isn’t helping.
@DaveLong people who run those businesses are business people, not enthusiasts. Don Mattrick killed a generation of good will with a few off the cuff remarks. You’d almost want a team like polymega or analogue doing this anyway because they at least care about the product.
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Plenty of consoles already had a mini version release, where it would be difficult to shave away enough plastic to make it significantly smaller. Like, how could you make the PSOne smaller? Or the Famicom Mini? The few I’d love to get a smaller version of are from failed companies (Saturn) or companies betting on a single backwards-compatible console (Xbox).
[edit] But that the old, RGB gamer speaking. Making modern versions of these mini consoles, with modern output, a wireless controller and a pack-in 20-1 cartridge would sell a lot.
To be honest, I feel kinda the same way…about racing games. It seems to be one of the very few genres for me that I really don’t see the appeal in going back to far if that kind of racer still has a modern equivalent. Seems to be the exception to the rule for me though and in no way the standard.
Go back and play R4
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Backwards Compatibility isn’t the best business decision but as a consumer it feels like a missing feature.
I’m not expecting the Switch to have an N64 slot here, but full-featured emulation is possible with the current generation so I do think all companies could provide a much better environment for playing older games.
The Xbox One is showing the way to handling backward compatibility right. No additional purchases, wide selection, and even improvements for old games. This should be a standard feature, not a stand-out one.
@Bozo_Cyborg not to derail the topic too much but because of Xbox’s approach to bc I think they are making all the right moves. I just wish their exclusive content was better when compared to Sony’s.
I agree from all I’ve seen. I don’t even own an XB1 myself due to a lack of games I want to play that are not on PC (another move I love, releasing most big titles on PC as well), but I will get one later on just for the original Xbox support.
Back towards the topic (sort of), has anyone heard more about Retro-Bit Sega accesories? The most exciting thing about this Polymega stuff is the possibility of quality Genesis controller repros, which are sorely lacking when compared to the SNES.
Considering what Polymega is doing, you could. Have the dock have an extension port where you connect a cartridge slot, play original cartridges in emulated mode. With a hacked console, you could already connect a Retrode to a Wii to play your original games (in the Retron fashion, aka dump the ROM and play it in emulation).
While it’s not something I personally want, I think their approach of real-time cartridge reading is very novel and interesting, and a patent worth snatching by one of the big three.
Well since Analogue already brought 2 products to market that do just that, good luck getting that patent.
No, Analogue is programing an FPGA to have it behave like the old original chips. it’s a SoaC, except reprogrammable. What Polymega is doing is using the FPGA as a gateway to software emulation, to access the data in real time as well as whatever extra chip is in there, to pass it to the emulator software. You only need a relatively small FPGA chip to be that gateway, whereas for each newer generation, the FPGA in the Analogue-like products has to grow massively to hold all the new processors architecture. It’s a completely different approach.
Dang, now all I want Nintendo licensed flash carts for NES, SNES, and N64 with accompanying standalone cartridge slot that connects to the Switch via USB.
I don’t see the need for any of the big three to snatch up a patent on this though, it seems like a cartridge interface that translates instructions to a modern emulator would be easy to build without any patented hardware or software (basically just a patent-expired cart slot and some sort of interpreter program, right?), especially if you have the resources of a huge company like Microsoft.
Wouldn’t it be similar to a machine that ripped cassette tape audio to mp3? Would you need a patent for that?
EDIT: A thought just occurred to me. Could Microsoft (or Sony, or whoever) build an external cartridge slot that read NES and SNES games for playback in an official emulator on their console? If the patents on the hardware and chips are all expired, and they include no copyrighted code, would there be any legal reason to stop this?
I don’t think retro gaming is a big enough market. Megaman Legacy collections are far better suited to bring old content to new systems. I really think the value add of some of those collections even if the emulation isnt’ perfect is a good reason to support them. But then again, not everyone is doing it like Frank Cifaldi.
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