What I saw of the Polymega Neo Geo CD emulation, isn’t faithful at all and had the same quirks that every single NGCD emulators had (not that anyone cares about NGCD accuracy anyway lol).
And the change of philosophy “will work only with the original CD games” to “well, we create a ISO and run from them” rubs me off. Probably a Mednafen requirement.
This is a concern I share, and something I always worry about when new hardware comes out. Support is king, and especially with hardware, support is tough.
Like @bobble , I’ve no horse in this race since all of the base emulation is available on PC and using discs when I don’t have to is not for me, but I’m a big fan of the idea of a plug-and-play, all-in-one emulation system.
Then again this would probably be a whole lot easier if it was just developed as a front end for existing emulators and skip the proprietary hardware altogether. That I cannot get behind.
Retroarch for example is advancing in it’s level of polish all the time with more features on more hardware for free.
Am I right in thinking that this system won’t launch the iso copy it created unless the disc is inserted every time you want to play a particular game?
Yeah, I simply cannot get excited about emulation hardware like this. I have very competent PCs in my house already if I wanted to go that route.
I care about NGCD! (Maybe not emulation accuracy of it though… ;))
That’s right @Collz69
I expect it will be hacked to run things withput the physical media, but we’ll see. It can run the ROMs it ships with, but any ganme you add yourself will always need the media inserted.
My take: this was going to be FPGA, at least in part, and would run ROMs… until they had the idea that they would court publishers to get them to release new games for it. Publishers said they wouldn’t be interested unless it had some sort of DRM so they changed to requiring media and moved away from FPGA to purely software emulation. Bonus that IMHO there’s very small chance any pulisher will ever make a new game for the retro “cores" on this.
The issue is that they’re charging enthusiast prices for what is essentially a more legit take on the Retron 5 concept.
The people who bought Retron 5 aren’t interested in spending around $500 for more functionality. It’s just a misread of the market. Well done FGPA would have been worthy of those prices. But not emulation.
And the big elephant in the room - no N64 support. It’s a bit insane to offer Saturn support and skimp on the more important machine in the west.
Thanks, that’s disappointing, I’ve gone from being interested in this to forming the opinion that it is vapourware to being interested in it again but now it seems pointless, unless as you say it gets hacked.
They’ve done the right thing licencing the emulators, but it’s mostly just a Mednafen box.
Plus Kega Fuson for Mega Drive, which is nice to see return from being discontinued.
For N64 the problem is finding an emulator that is licensable.
Plus, I’m also sceptical their controllers will be good enough.
They have done things the right way on that front, and the emulator they chose was a great choice overall.
They have made it clear they are looking to bring this machine (and retro console emulation in general I suppose) into better graces with devs and publishers to foster some licensing deals, showing them that machines like this can be something to support rather than swat away. This leaves me skeptical at best, and doubting anyone will invest much time into something like this which:
Also, while it would be cool to have games licensed to download or play on this thing, good luck convincing Nintendo or Sony to take less than 100% on retro gaming releases on their own platforms.
I just feel like this is an Ouya all over again, and they are wasting their time trying to court the industry when the community offers far more support for things like this if they are presented with a good, feature-rich product.
It’s a solution without a problem IMO. If the console makers/publishers wanted to push their old hardware in some way, they’d already be doing that.
Oh, wait, they are! We’ll soon have a classic console from everyone that matters in the only form they all care about. 
I think the Mega Sg/Super Nt idea was the only viable way to go. You’re giving people the compatibility they want with the ability to play their original carts that should far outlast even the original console hardware when it comes to durability. Someone should be producing a cheap NES clone that has that level of compatibility and obvious utility to sell to the masses instead of what this is IMO.
This whole system hinges on one thing for me. How cheap can I get it after launch and if I can dump my isos & Roms. I legit like the idea of this for my kids and modern tv compatibility. Like Dave said tho, I have a PC that could do this and emulation hasn’t interested me until recently.
I’m pretty much the same as you here. I know someone who got to play it recently so I really should ask more about it, but the fact I didn’t bother when they brought it up probably means I’m not that interested anymore, lol.
You know, I think part of why this system has gotten respect where others receive only ridicule is how they have done everything above board and went to the right folks to show what they have.
Allowing John Linneman and RetroRGB to check things out and give their opinion on your machine is a good move, as it shows you are serious to the people who would be already know about you and probably be the most skeptical.
It seems like they are working hard, and with their long-term plans and commercial income they will have the chance to really improve emulation for many systems. Hopefully any improvements or bugfixes found in the emulators with this machine will make their way into the PC versions (especially Saturn, which sounded like a priority for them).
Have they said they are doing this? I expected them to keep their additional work as a trade secret or competitive advantage.
@Dark1x really liked this and I trust his meticulous nature with this stuff. Obviously, it’s not a detailed review.
But I’m very interested in this product because I hate the clutter of having all those original machines hooked up.
That looks… wrong. Even the right shot. The filters aren’t lining up right with the pixels.
Yeah, it seems that way for some reason.
it’s as if the filter puts a mesh over the whole image rather than operating on individual pixels?
Easier, sure. Less authentic, though. Just… odd.