yup that's the price mine is still locked in. there was a brief time around black friday where they had them discounted. hopefully they get the black systems in soon.
That's pretty cool. I was afraid they would try to charge me $140. It feels like a steal at under $100.
Last night I was in my garage and found that I actually still have the box and map for the original NES Legend of Zelda. Also found two boxes for the gold collector's edition Ocarina of Time (even though I only have one cartridge. No idea how I wound up with two boxes) as well as Majora's Mask and Link's Awakening DX for the GBC. Might sell the second OoT box (which actually still has all the instructions and inserts with it), as well as the NES LoZ. I have it on the GBA which is the version I was playing recently so I'm pretty happy with that if I want to play it.
If anybody seeing this thread lives within driving distance of Atlanta, next weekend is the first Southern-Fried Gaming Expo. One price to get in the door, and a bunch of free-to-play arcade and pinball machines available. I'll probably only be there one day since I don't have time to go all weekend, but I'm hoping to meet Jerry Buckner (of Buckner & Garcia, who did Pac-Man Fever) and the guy who holds the Q*Bert world record. I don't think I've ever had a deep conversation about Q*Bert with anyone before... Walter Day and Billy Mitchell are also scheduled to be there.
I finally got to hook up and mess around with Retron 5 last night. I played CV Bloodlines on the genesis, and the audio and picture quality really blew me away. Than I played about a dozen SNES games and it really does make them look great on an HDMI tv. I also played Turtles 3 on the NES, which again looked and sounded great. I played Metroid Zero mission from the GBA, and the only problem is the audio still sounds grainy, but that's just because of the bad GBA audio quality. One thing I would recommend for every system except maybe the NES- change over to the first filter it offers. With no filter on, you see every pixel, which is neat but makes the games look far more pixelated. The first filter cleans it up without losing any of the color and detail. So, there are a couple little issues, but none too big. The controller that's included isn't so hot, particularly the round D pad, which makes no sense when none of the systems it's emulating had analog stick shaped d pads. That's alright since you can use the old controllers but it's something to note. The menu interface can also be annoying, and will take a little while and some trial and error to get it to do everything you want, particularly setting up a profile for button mapping. Also, if you're using an old style controller, you have to do a special button combination to bring up the Retron menu to do stuff like save state, which isn't too bad but you need to pay attention to what that combo is before starting the game. The controller it comes with has a save state button right there, which is one of the pluses for using it. Overall though, for me, being able to play my games on my HDMI only TV with great audio and color quality is what's important, and the saving states always make the games more enjoyable when revisiting them. So, I highly recommend it. One last note, you have to hold the power button down for a few seconds to turn it on. I didn't know, which scared me at first when I tried to put it on and just pressing the power button did nothing.
Good to see a review from somebody on here who has the Retron 5. Still waiting on Amazon to ship mine (seems like the black ones haven't arrived yet). I just picked Jurassic Park on the genesis to play on mine whenever I get it.
I cancelled my preorder because, well, it was taking too fucking long. I got a WiiU instead. Retron 5 will now be bumped until Christmas or beyond
Yeah I would have canceled mine as well if I wasn't on the 76 shipped price. With that, it's just gonna stay on the backburner out of mind. Really sucks though that there was no issue or notice of any release difference between the gray and black consoles. Oh well. One day I will still own it.
Pat the Nes punk did a great job on the Compatibility Tests. Didnt realize the SNES had soo many different types of chips for some games: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arcF1vY_3ck I am still waiting for the Retron 5 to come in the uk but someone in the UK did get a copy of the Retron 5 and had a fault with the famicom slot: RetroN 5 review: the all-in-one retro console – Reader Its going to be interesting how it handles PAL 50hz games.
Pat seemed to overblow the compatibility issues though. Especially the light gun games, being that it's the TV's issue, not the systems. I guess its worth noting that you can't play Sonic games if you combine them with knuckles, but they release the sonic games over and over on everything anyways. He also talked a lot about transferring game saves onto a memory card and having problems bringing them back, which I'm not sure if it's something I would ever think to even use. It's worth noting, but he seems bothered by it a bit much.
Hyperkin can still put out patches to get those games like S&K working. The light gun games though, like you said, are a TV issue not the retron's. Also do you mean putting the saves BACK on the cart? I'm not sure who would be wanting to do that. I'm ripping all my batteries out of my carts that still function after I get my saves transferred to an sd card. Fuck leakage/corrosion.
Agree, Pat went a bit OTT with the lightguns and composite stuff. The Retron 5 was meant to be enjoyed on HD TV's. You cant blame new tv's for lightguns not working on them. yeah I hope they get the S&K lockon function working in the next firmware update too. Apprently the release date for the UK is Sept 2014..........
Great, that's all I care about. I can back up all my old carts saves to a SD card, then back that up to my PC, and remove all the batteries from these old timebombs finally.
I am curious is this something that's really been an issue though? Sure the potential is there and I suspect that at least a few carts have probably leaked or corroted over time, but aren't most of them still ok? I have at least two carts with batteries in them that I've had since the 80's for almost 30 years now and I've not had to change or remove batteries from either one (The games in question are NES Legend of Zelda and Zelda II). And the saves are still on there. Not sure if SNES games had them but if they do, I haven't had any problems.
I guess time will tell but every one of my cartridges with a battery still function in that I can play them, but not all of them can save. That's a great thing about the save states I can have with the Retron 5. I also have never really known of a battery leaking in a cartridge and causing it to malfunction. That's not to say it doesn't happen- I have known cartridges that don't work, but I haven't gone in and checked to see if it was from a battery.
That's interesting. All of mine still play and save. Come to think of it, I've never had anything video game malfunction or stop working except for an SNES controller but that was my fault for getting frustrated and slamming it against a concrete floor.
I always had a pillow around to bite when I got mad! Anyways, been playing Donkey Kong Country 2. It's much harder than I remember later on in the game, but that's ok with save states. The music is still stupidly good. Like, I have no idea what possessed them to produce such great music for a platformer, but I'm glad they did. I don't think DKC3 or DK64 really lived up to DKC2's soundtrack.
As with TF's, ANYTHING with a battery will leak/corrode over time. If your game no longer saves, the battery is dead and could begin to leak and corrode at any time. You are just playing a poker game with time as to when it will happen. I'm just really cautious about this shit cause I've seen it quite a few times with TFs. I love some of these old games too much and some of the carts are just not replaceable. I'd rather just do the surgery, yank the batts, be done and not have to worry. Also, this opens up some good ebay deals too as I used to look for snes carts with working battery backups. Now it doesn't matter, just buy any working cart (even if it doesn't save, if it works it means it hasn't been destroyed by corrosion yet), remove battery and you're good! Go for those dirt cheap auctions as long as they say the cart works!
From 1998 to 2002 I worked at Electronics Boutique, and we had just stop taking in trades for 16-bit systems. When people came in with games to trade, we would either tell them to ebay them, or if they were decent, we would buy them ourselves. That's how I ended up with several copies of most of the games I loved for the SNES... except DKC2. They were usually willing to get rid of their games for cheap, to. I got FF2, FF3, Mana, Chrono Trigger, Mystic Quest, Zelda 3, Breath of Fire and a couple others from one guy, with their boxes and manuals, for $40. I was happy that day.
