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

[JoeAwesome]

PC-FX

My bet. I hear the emulation on mednafen is great for it.

[samsonlonghair]

Now that I have said that, watch it be something really obscure like FM Towns Marty, PC-FX, or Amiga CD32.

Amiga anything is deeply unlikely in a commercial product. Amiga Intellectual Property is something of a legal hassle, which makes it hard for any legitimate business to turn a profit trying to sell Amiga anything.

The Amiga intellectual property is fragmented between Amiga Inc., Cloanto, and Hyperion Entertainment. The copyrights for works created up to 1993 are owned by Cloanto. In 2001, Amiga Inc. contracted AmigaOS 4 development to Hyperion Entertainment and, in 2009 they granted Hyperion an exclusive, perpetual, worldwide license to AmigaOS 3.1 in order to develop and market AmigaOS 4 and subsequent versions.

Cloanto sells a package for Windows that they call "Amiga Forever" which can be relatively affordable for home users. It's only for windows though; there's not a version that just has the AmigaOS 1.3 ROM and workbench files. You could extract those files from Amiga forever, but you can't turn around and re-sell the Operating System in a console form factor.

You'd need to hire a lawyer and enter negotiations with both Amiga Inc and Cloanto before you could even begin to market a product like that. It's just one big legal hassle.

[bmoc]

Pre-orders are going live September 4th at 11AM PST. They missed their target month by a few days but at least we have a firm date and time now.

[bmoc]

The newest console being supported at launch is SEGA SATURN!!!!!

Preorders are supposed to be available now but their website is buckling under the load. There should not be a limited number of preorders so don't stress about ordering right away. The preorders are to gauge the initial production run.

EDIT: Polymega's Facebook and Twitter account is reporting a DDoS attack in addition to the increased preorder traffic. Looks like we may be waiting a while yet.

[prfsnl_gmr]

WHOA! This just went from “meh” to “must buy” for me.

[ElkinFencer10]

WHOA! This just went from “meh” to “must buy” for me.

Oh shit, seriously. Saturn is a major selling point for me. Y'all reckon the emulation quality will be decent for it?

[bmoc]

Y'all reckon the emulation quality will be decent for it?

If it looks as good as the other systems they support, I don't think there will be anything to worry about. They seem to be focused on a quality product. Hence the price tag and the long development time.

[BoneSnapDeez]

What's the price again?

Their website is down.

I'll wait for the dust to settle and maybe get one months from now.

[bmoc]

$249 for the base unit which plays all the CD based content.
$60 for the modules which adds cartridge support and additional controller ports.

There are supposed to be some bundles available but we don't know the prices on those yet or what they include. Their site got hit with a DDoS attack a little before the new info was supposed to go live.

[bmoc]

I was able to look at the website briefly this morning some before it went down again.

There are two bundles available. The first bundle is $459.00 and includes all the modules. The second bundle is $599.00. I didn't get to look at it but I think it comes with all the modules and a second controller for each module. I'm not sure what shipping is going to run. I was able to add the base system to my cart and calculate shipping. It came to $25 shipping to NC which is a bit disappointing. The shipping on the bundles is probably going to be outrageous.

Polymega said on Twitter last night that the Saturn emulator is being worked on by Ryphecha who is the lead programmer of Mednafen. Also mentioned on Twitter was the fact that RAM carts won't be supported initially. I'm not sure whether that means the physical carts (which would require a separate module) or whether or not there will be some built-in function to provide the expanded RAM. EDIT: Found this Tweet later that says it will have built-in RAM cart functionality

Finally, they have a "Rewards" section up on the new site. It is kind of like Kickstarter stretch goals. The more money they make through preorders, the sooner they will work on new features and modules. Some of the modules listed were: Famicom, PC-FX, and Atari 2600/7800. The FAQ mentioned a N64 stretch goal but it is not currently on the Rewards page. It also looked like they needed to secure $500,000 worth of preorders to make the launch happen in the spring. If they sold an average of 2 modules with every base unit, they would need to get about 1350 preorders. I think they will probably crush that goal.