Polymega/Retroblox: New 1080p "Clone" 2600 to PCE-CD to PS1

[pepharytheworm]

Why no Saturn?

[Sarge]

Why no Saturn?

Probably because there's no good Saturn emulator for Android.

[Anayo]

For Saturn emulation on Android, UO Yabause is usable in some cases, but I think it only runs well on something really beefy like the Nvidia Shield TV.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Lack of Saturn is no surprise. I would like to see 3DO support though.

[Ziggy]

The only thing emulation lacks is the ability to dump your own carts.

This guy allows you to dump your actaul carts via USB, then drop into emu. Will even let you use original controllers within emus.
http://www.retrode.org/about/

The Retrode is awesome. I finally got one last year.

The Retrode and adapters are currently available from DragonBox: https://www.dragonbox.de/en/63-retrode

Used ones pop up on eBay from time to time though.

[Sarge]

I've thought about picking one up several times. It's certainly more user-friendly than the Kazzo dumper for NES.

[arcadifvid]

im interested for the CD based consoles. not sure how thats going to work, this thing cant have bios right? (otherwise it would receive a C&D right ?)
so what other consoles could this potentially play ?

nes
snes
genesis
tg16
ps1
segacd
pcecd

what about N64 or 3DO

[bmoc]

New info was just released. http://retroblox.com/2017/02/08/everyth ... d-to-know/

So if I am understanding it correctly, it is software emulation (with low overhead?) but it can also directly utilize the special chips/coprocessors of cartridge based games.

Other details:
-It can't load ROMs (without some sort of unsupported jailbreak) but it can make backups of physical media.

-Less than $300 for the base unit and one module.

-Additional modules less than $60.

-They hope to add lightgun support down the road.


I'll still need to see some reviews before I become a true believer but they have my attention.

[Fragems]

-Less than $300 for the base unit and one module.

-Additional modules less than $60.

I'm really hoping it comes in at around $150-200 for the base unit bundle with 1 add on. I'm fine by $50-60 for each additional add on as long as they are well made.

[chuckster]

Can't get behind this as a console replacement personally, but I like competition in the multi-console clone space.

Asking for FPGA in a product like this seems unreasonable. I don't know that many consoles have been documented or at least reverse-engineered half as much as NES and we have just recently seen good implementation of that work for $180+. To ask for the same treatment on 16-bit and even 32-bit systems in a relatively affordable package seems like wishful thinking at present. Atari and other 8-bit systems getting added to the Nt mini is a fantastic sign though and gives me a lot of hope for a 16-bit FPGA clone (at least for SNES, possibly Genesis/Megadrive) withing the next couple of years.

That said, it looks very cool design-wise and I have to give it props for being the first polished attempt I've seen for CD based clone hardware. I think the modular design will hurt it though, I'd have just made it CD-only for the base with an all-in-one add-on for cart based systems for those that didn't already have a Retron or Retrofreak.