RetroN 5 prices scales up to $130, Hyperkin doesn't say anything about it Seems like that Hyperkin took up the price of the "upcoming" RetroN 5 from $99 to $130 (price check here), and the company doesn't say anything about it, not even a speech. I wonder if this price will be worth, because I've already heard a lot of negative feedback from testers (one got censored/kicked because he leaked info about the system, claiming that it was an Android-based system and it dumps ROMs from a game cart for playing/emulating games, that is very logical since you can do save-states and other stuff, that you can't normally do). There's too a lot of fake negatives on customers that are complaining about the price and the launch date (check out the reviews here). What do you think about this? Is it going to turn vaporware?
They mentioned it in an interview at a convention this pats weekend, supposedly the systems are already retail packaged and waiting to clear customs, atleast according to the rep. I thought it was pretty obvious this would be emulation, still waiting for news on the hdmi nes
You mean "the company doesn't say anything about it". If they didn't say nothing, then they said something. We've known for awhile this was going to be an emulation machine that accepts original cartridges. It's not surprising if it's Android based, nor will it be surprising when we hear it uses all open-source emulators. For some people they won't mind this, but at that point I don't see the point in involving the original cartridges at all.
Looks like one of the cheapo chinese android boxes you can get for $60 on aliexpress. I am going to bet it is quad core a9, and mali GPU. In short, you can get a $50 HDMI android stick that does the same thing for less than half the price I imagine.
And... Wii will mop the floor with it - Genesis Plus GX + Mednafen + Snes9X + 32GB SD card and you're done. Same price but also Wii and GC compatibility, other emulators and homebrew and WAY better sound and picture quality. Dunno if one number will change anything but previous RetroN was way worse than real hardware or proper software emulators.
I don't mind that the price went up, in fact I figured that $99 was a "too good to be true" price considering what it supposedly can do. All I can say is that when the real reviews come in, if they are positive, I won't have any problem paying $130 for it.
I think they are gauging the hype surrounding the console and trying to take advantage of it while it lasts :/ Then again they have put more time and money getting this thing out so the price hike may be because of that. This thing has been in development for at least 3 years, correct? The company is small and I think they want to launch big. It just offers one more hurdle for those interested in getting into the hobby, like kids who didn't grow up with Mario and Sonic.
According to this recent interview with them, the console is still in customs! [FONT=.HelveticaNeueUI]http://thepodcast.ctrlalttech.com/the-podcast-episode-3-han-hyperkin-more/[/FONT] [FONT=.HelveticaNeueUI] [/FONT] [FONT=.HelveticaNeueUI]How is that even possible? Im not familiar with the customs process outside of ebay purchases but that excuse doesnt seem likely.[/FONT] [FONT=.HelveticaNeueUI] [/FONT]
Well, I still prefer getting a Ouya and download free emulators that are better than the RetroN 5, at a lower cost. The RetroN 5 is a good system, but they should fix the problems and take down some of the price...
Sooo I take it I would only put the cartridge in once and then that's it? I could just save my library into the console and then never take them off the shelf again bit disappointed to be honest
If it ever gets hacked to open up more of the android features, like those chinese TV boxes, it might be a fun thing to own. (Depending on how powerful it is) It would be a good solution for a media player/emulator box that can use original carts/controllers and be able to dump games.
The downside is that NES games are mapper dependent and they actually do a CRC check on the carts to identify them? What about teh homebrews?
It doesn't sound like that, nor is there any way to load a ROM from SD card, though I sure there is a development related feature that probably does allow loading ROM files. NES games are problematic to dump without the user giving some input such as the name of the game from a list or a known mapper number. Given the vastly different behavior of mappers you may need quite an algorithm to detect what mapper is likely being used. It can certainly be done. But ofcourse unlike a real system you must have emulation support for each mapper. So a homebrew or unlicensed game with a pretty unique mapper may never be supported.
