RetroN 5 Thoughts

[Timothy Lumsden]

been stung by overhyped modern retro consoles - but this one sounds fantastic. If it's reasonably priced, works as promised and you can actually get hold of one, then i'd give it a go

[RodimusPrime]

Well, just over 3 weeks to go. Looking forward to this but I have a horrible feeling that its all going to go wrong and its going to either miss the release date or just fall apart all together.

[DPrinny]

Ive gone to "Meh" status, apparently Everdrives wont work with them. (Kkrizz said him self that they might not)

Also the price is kinda putting me off

[Alarm]

I've got a feeling that it might just be a box with Android emulators and all of the ROMs of the commercial releases for all the consoles. You stick a cart in, it checksums it to find out which ROM to launch and you play the game.

I hope I'm incorrect, though. If it does the above it is pretty much worthless to me.

[Ninereeds]

from one of their recent posts on facebook (hyperkin) they stated there was not much memory in the system, so it does not have any preloaded roms and reads the game directly from the carts

from their fb reply

Thank you for your interest in the RetroN 5 system. At this time, we can only partially answer your questions.
We cannot provide full details before the commercial launch because Hyperkin does have competitors and we have no intention of leaving clues for how to develop a rival system. For now we will just emphasis that a ROM based system has no place in our retro-gaming hearts. The RetroN 5 definitely plays actual cartridges.
Also, the onboard memory size is far below a single gigabyte. That should give you some reassurance that we are not pre-loading ROM data onto the system.

Sincerely,
Hyperkin Media

[crotea]

I think that if the emulation is good this will be awesome! 5 consoles all in one, better for price and easier to set up, I'll be getting one!

[nakamura]

I've got a feeling that it might just be a box with Android emulators and all of the ROMs of the commercial releases for all the consoles. You stick a cart in, it checksums it to find out which ROM to launch and you play the game.

I hope I'm incorrect, though. If it does the above it is pretty much worthless to me.

It uses Android emulation but it is meant to only use real carts. Everdrive could be used perhaps, not sure though. Android emulation on my Galaxy S2 is excellent, runs very well. The benefit of this for me is the feel of using a real machine and using real pads. Plus for most people, you can have one box under your TV that plays almost everything from Sega/Nintendo and should look good on a HDTV. Really looking forward to seeing how it pans out.

[n1nty]

My original xbox does that and more, and cheaper

[davyK]

My original xbox does that and more, and cheaper

How do you plug a SNES controller into an oldbox? Using the original controllers in an integral part of the experience.

I'm quite keen on this product and am in the hopeful camp. When I use emulation I always feel the experience is cheapened somewhat. My first positive experience (after getting over the sheer awesomeness of the early MAME releases) was NESTER on the Dreamcast - playing on an actual console really helps - oldbox emu is great - but the next step on is being able to use the controllers.

[Dreamer]

I'm guessing that it will suffer from poor emulation, like the other gazzilion devices like it.

[TheNewMonkey]

My original xbox does that and more, and cheaper

How do you plug a SNES controller into an oldbox? Using the original controllers in an integral part of the experience.

I'm quite keen on this product and am in the hopeful camp. When I use emulation I always feel the experience is cheapened somewhat. My first positive experience (after getting over the sheer awesomeness of the early MAME releases) was NESTER on the Dreamcast - playing on an actual console really helps - oldbox emu is great - but the next step on is being able to use the controllers.

He's right.
I think it looks good on paper but as others have said I can see it being a bit crap, I was seriously thinking of getting one but since it uses emulation it just seems a bit pointless, a modified Wii will do a much better job than this thing, and you can use original SMS/MD/NES/SNES controllers with it using a cheap adaptor that costs £5-£10

[nakamura]

My original xbox does that and more, and cheaper

Xbox emulation is terrible.

[retrosofer]

My original xbox does that and more, and cheaper

Xbox emulation is terrible said no one in the history of the world ever!

[samhain81]

My original xbox does that and more, and cheaper

Xbox emulation is terrible said no one in the history of the world ever!

Haha I know. I'm sorry Naka, but what the hell are you smoking

[Analog]

Strange comparison pic as the SNES one is better - ie correct size, obviously the 60hz version, whereas the other image is nicer quality, it's a little squashed fat Ken...

yea I was a bit perplexed by that image. it doesn't necessarily mean better if it adds in distortion through squashed visuals. if it does what the old consoles do and better then it can win over more takers.

this guy puts forward a pretty good case for it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5O0mkHe-zHI

of course, it might not turn out to be as good as expected.