Retron 5 Runs Castlevania III, Coming in december

... hence why we are​ having this conversation.

If it used cloned hardware, especially if it was a very accurate reproduction of the original hardware, that would be a pretty strong argument in favor of the Retron - at least from my perspective. The reason we're having this discussion is because it's a machine that does what many other machines can easily do, except that it has a cartridge port. That's really its only unique feature. It's pointless, I think, because you're still ultimately playing an emulator. Yes, you can play with the original carts, but the end result is the same as if you were just using an emulator on a PC. You might as well just buy the carts, put them on a shelf, and use roms on a PC. If you're looking for a more "authentic" experience, you aren't going to come even close with a device like this. It's about as far from authentic as you can get.

 

Well put.

 

Very good analysis on the audio, I wonder what sound chip they are using. Unfortunatly good sound boards are heavy and would take up to much space. Thier is software that decompresses sound in real time but they require a dual core and hyperkin would have to work closely with the company. Also a price jump would take place and heating issues (maybe)

 

haters gonna hate...

and those people are stupid

 

There's a difference between "hate" and criticism.

 

Bear in mind this is ASSEMblergames. We aren't the target market for this kind of thing.

Anyone saying "Why not run emulators on a PC/RaspberryPi" is missing the point. Normal people don't want to piss around building and tinkering. They want something that works out-of-the box, and can be taken back to the store if it breaks, to run games they found in their attic/basement.

To this end, Retron 5 looks awesome. I wouldn't buy it, and I imagine that only a few here would, and that's perfectly reasonable, but don't fall into the trap of "I don't know why anybody would want..."

 

Indeed. Another concern is that they are very likely going to use existing open-source emulators already ported to Android, without respecting the open-source license or without authorization from copyright owners, as I hardly see a small company like this developping five emulators with aimed 100% compatibilty from scratch knowing how much time is required for just one.


Not that I would expect much of potential buyers to be bothered by that or even think it's "bad" (just like people ended up accepting to pay for emulators ported on Android because it's "convenient", even if the money does not go to original developers), and most people probably don't care, but I thought it was worth mentionning... I guess only time and some hacking will tell if this a valid concern.

 

Exactly. The target market is more casual/less hardcore people that want to play those old games. Which makes me think, this is aimed at all those people that are part of why the costs of so many games have gone up. Anyway, my thoughts are that it's a interesting creation that's reasonable for certain people/situations but ofcourse will always be inferior to the original hardware. We'll see how it works out. Once it's in the hands of people that will honestly and fairly review it we'll know much more about it's quality.

 

Exactly

JimJoe Regular Guy doesn't KNOW it's using emulation - and they don't care.

 

I remember lots of people hyping this up last year, its going to be the same as all the others, probably shitty. I understand the features are cool and exciting but I still have low expectations.

 

...this was announced in March.

 

Well, for NES and Genesis it actually will probably be better than current clones in some ways. Sound and video quality for one. For example the famous NES clone bug of swapped duty cycles causes many NES games to sound terribly wrong. I've never used a Genesis clone but I've heard the usual, shitty video output and bad sound quality. So even though it's emulation, the end quality may be better than some current clones.

I think the Retron is a decent idea, it all depends on how well it's implemented. That depends on the hardware inside it, and the software that supports it. Ofcourse, it'll never be perfect. But you can get pretty damn good quality emulation for many older platforms.

 

I was at the the convention where they announced it, I wasn't impressed at all.

 

I'm usually pretty anti-clone hardware, but with the HDMI NES from retrozone still MIA and likely to be costly / in relatively low supply, I might cave. Fact is some of these old systems just don't look that good on modern displays, and I'm kind of excited for something of this caliber that, while using emulation, will let me use my carts easily. I have a modded wii and an htpc hooked up, but I still kinda want this.

 

My bad, I had thought I saw leakage or something of the retron5 in December.

 

To me this device will be a godsent, at the moment I have retro systems, cables and controllers litter the back room. This device will allow me to pack all these systems up, have just 1 device that plays all my games, on just 1 pad if I like, is an upscaling unit, will allow me to play my retro games with possible retro like display on my 42" led screen.....whats there not to like about this device really??.

The test for me would be, not being able to notice the different playing on a LCD screen with an original system combined with a xrbg mini and then playing on the retron5. If this is the case then the retron5 is a must have surely......and this is coming from a person who has all the original system and a xrbg mini, it would just be more convenient to have just 1 device that does it all

 

I personally can't wait for this device to be released though my main usage would mostly only be for Super Famicom games, Gameboy Advance & some GBC, while though my lil bro perfers getting a Sega Genesis console & doesn't want the RetroN 5 which can already play actually carts but him nope don't care lol

 

Too bad they delayed it till 2014.... I was looking to get mine early this month, but not anymore...