Retro-Bit Generations

[samsonlonghair]

Seriously though.

Every time something like this comes out I hear, "I HOPE THEY HACK IT AND TURN IT INTO AN EMULATION BOX!"

Why?

I mean if you're a hacker and you want to mess around with the hardware for fun, great I get that. Go nuts and disregard everything I've said and am going to say because you're doing it for hobby reasons.

Bingo!

It's fun to hack weird stuff like this.

[isiolia]

Agreed, and really if you don't want to deal with the PI mess, I mean I don't or I'd have one there are stupid easy alternatives. Ouya comes to mind, it's no slouch and any emulator for Android can be side loaded so that's fair game. Tiny cube profile, usb ports, easy to load network or manually, and can handle any bluetooth controller too.

Having set up RetroPie earlier this week...it's not exactly a mess, at least with the current versions. Image to micro SD, boot up, go to the SMB share on the network to drop ROMs in, and reboot to refresh the ROM list. There's a lot to potentially tinker with, but it works nicely as-is.

So, largely, I agree - there are a plethora of low cost computing platforms out there that don't need to be hacked, with ready to go software.

That said, at $60, it's not a bad price just for the hardware + controllers. Probably cheaper than a Pi3 if you're buying every little thing you might need for one. So there might be some small case for hacking it instead.

[Tanooki]

I think a full pi3 kit on Amazon goes around $70, but no gamepad, but I'd assume most people who gave a crap this much likely already has a USB or bluetooth controller as it is.

[retrosportsgamer]

I've seen some reports and short videos and whoa boy is this a complete piece of crap.

It's questionable if anyone did quality control here.

[ExedExes]

This video goes through EVERY game.

Here's the issues I saw. I only know about one homebrew/prototype.

1943 - Missing sound
Bionic Commando - Missing sound
Brawl Brothers - Running slower than SNES original
Corn Buster - Running faster than SNES original (I've played the prototype on emulation before)
Gun.Smoke - Missing sound
Legend - Running faster than SNES original (I *THINK*)
Mercs - Running slower than Genesis original
R-Type III - Running faster than SNES original
Rival Turf - Running faster than SNES original
Rushing Beat Shura (The Peace Keepers) - Running slower than SNES original
Super Earth Defense Force - Running slower than SNES original
Super Ghouls N Ghosts - Running faster than SNES original
Super R-Type - Running faster than SNES original
The Ignition Factor - Running faster than SNES original
Varth: Operation Thunderstorm - originally being a vertical shmup, they ROTATED THE SCREEN 90 DEGREES. INEXCUSABLE! (that might be an option you can set yourself, but I'm just going by the video, where he said the controls were properly mapped for a horziontal orientation!)

PLEASE FIX THIS SO I CAN BUY IT!!!!!

[Gunstar Green]

Wow, way to make AtGames look like they know what they're doing by comparison. That's really inexcusable. Even though I wasn't interested in this I thought it would at least work.

[Tanooki]

Wow now in relation to the Sega device I know you were referring to, that's a pretty big burn even if it is accurate. Can this thing even be updated??

[Fragems]

It has an sd card slot meant for updates.

[Tanooki]

So it's basically in a crude way another Retron5, but starting out with far shittier emulation and bugs than hyperkins introductory halfassed effort. Hopefully they bother to lay out continual updates to address things as they did.

[ExedExes]

Even now the latest Retron 5 update is absolutely rock solid. I've got no more problems with carts not being recognized and the fast boot is far better. All I'm seeing is problem after problem with this. I'm so glad I didn't rush out and get it. Still waiting to see if they give a damn about these speed/sound issues.