Retro Freak emulation console thoughts

[Az]

I've read a few clickbait articles about this thing and to be honest I'm really left scratching my head as to why people seems so blown away by the thing. If you haven't read about it, it's a console planned by a Japanese company that's basically a Retron5 replacing the NES cart slot with a PCE/TG16 HuCard slot and the original controller ports with standard USB ports. It will also supposedly be compatible with Dualshock 3 and 4 pads.

The major difference with it is that it allows you to save the ROM dump to internal memory so you don't have to bother physically inserting the cart again. In essence you could spend an afternoon shoving your cart collection in and out of it then have your collection archived, never having to dig the carts out again.

I was really surprised by the amount of enthusiasm and positive press given to this thing. My first response was "Why would I want this?", which is strange coming from a guy that owns tons of clones and knockoff hardware. The whole pro/con discussion of it just being ROMs played through an emulator and so why bother dropping the cash with the Retron5 has been covered already, but being that this machine doesn't even force you to insert the cart again really drives that point home. Add to that you at least had the nostalgia or comfort factor of using original controllers with the Retron5 and now you don't even have that luxury unless you purchase some additional hardware, I'm really hard pressed to think of any reason to buy/use this over something like an Ouya or a modded Xbox.

Even if I just limit my archive to the ROMs of the actual carts I own, I have a half-dozen options offhand right now to play these games on an HDTV with a Playstation or generic USB pad, and I'd hazard a guess all these options are cheaper than this new console would cost.

[Blitzwing256]

if I could use it to conveniently dump carts for multiple systems? i'd buy it in a heartbeat, I have a ton of un-released stuff i'd love to share but don't want to send to anyone for many many systems.

[retroguy]

if I could use it to conveniently dump carts for multiple systems? i'd buy it in a heartbeat, I have a ton of un-released stuff i'd love to share but don't want to send to anyone for many many systems.

Yes, please do. It's always cool to see stuff like that.

[retroman]

I will stick with the original systems and carts, not this junk, or that retron 5 garbage either.

[Tanooki]

Retron 5 isn't garbage, you're misinformed, as it appears if you stick to real carts so the lack of ability to run flash carts on R5 can't be a reason most tend to hate on it for as they like to get their games free.

I don't see much of a reason to support the retro freak at all.
- Dumps games, carts made useless
- Requires purchase of addon module to use classic controllers
- NO NES slot, Famicom only, so again requires another purchase of an adapter

Other than that, I think it's just an unknown still, but I would venture it too won't play flash carts since it may or may not know how to read/dump those properly either to its internal storage.

The only plus I can think of, if you want it, TG16/PCE HuCard support, and that'll be a very small minority of people who have them and would bother. And those who want to dump their games and shelve their carts, but at that point, might as well use the Ouya or any other Android based handheld/console/tablet wired into a TV.

[celerystalker]

It has to be the HuCard slot and ROM dumping. Personally, I don't care about ROM dumping, as I am barely computer literate enough to put up forum posts or type up an Excel document for work. The HuCard slot coupd be cool for a lot of people. I don't really care, as my Duo-R and US Turbografx have me covered. Maybe the upscaling would be nice.

[Gameguy]

And those who want to dump their games and shelve their carts, but at that point, might as well use the Ouya or any other Android based handheld/console/tablet wired into a TV.

That right there is basically why there's no need for owning the Retron 5, once you're dumping and emulating games there's no need to constantly back up the cartridges every single time. It's like going back in time with cart copiers from the 90's that force you to copy the floppies to the RAM every time because there's no built in memory to store the games.

Imagine if computer users had to deal with this stuff. Every time you want to use MS Office you have to insert the install disc before you're allowed to use it. Usually with any computer games, once you install them fully, you don't need to keep taking the discs out every time you want to run the software. You don't need to uninstall the software every time you turn the computer off. PC collectors don't seem to mind not needing the original media while playing the game.

The only main convenience with having cart slots built in instead of just downloading ROMs is saving some time. Downloading each game, transferring the game to portable media, and switching that media between a PC and the console takes more time. If you own the game, just plugging it into the console once would be faster.

Another convenience to having a console in general with saving games internally is the ability to take it with you while travelling with your entire library of games. No need to take all of your games too, just take the console and you'll have everything. Either to a friends house or taking it to the cottage, taking a small console to plug into a TV makes sense.

[bootsector]

I will stick with the original systems and carts, not this junk, or that retron 5 garbage either.

I despise people who doesn't respect copyrights. Retron has made a dick move by shoving RetroArch inside a closed (in the source code sense) box called Retron5. So I agree with you that their product is garbage and harmful to the open source eco-system.

[Az]

I despise people who doesn't respect copyrights. Retron has made a dick move by shoving RetroArch inside a closed (in the source code sense) box called Retron5.

Although I do not have the link handy one article explicitly called this "another Retroarch based console". That was likely pure speculation by the author but I'd place a bet that it ends up being correct. Like the Retron5 it's hard to imagine a small unknown company pumping out worthwhile emulators for a dozen plus consoles from scratch.

[FieryReign]

I will stick with the original systems and carts, not this junk, or that retron 5 garbage either.

I'll stick with my android emulators and roms, while still having room in my house, and money in my wallet.

[Emperor Megas]

I'll stick to just having fun gaming whatever form it takes.

[Az]

if I could use it to conveniently dump carts for multiple systems? i'd buy it in a heartbeat

Information so far is saying it will dump the carts in a way that the ROM can only be played back on the particular machine it is dumped from. I'm sure their method of protection will be easily circumvented but with this in mind you're also running the chance of getting garbage info thrown in and not a true 1:1 dump like you would with normal equipment that is available right now.

Even if it just dumped clean 1:1 images I don't see that being a benefit for 99.9% of end users and it certainly shouldn't be a selling point that those people. Why shit your pants over the fact you can now dump your very own carts when even in the best case scenario you're going through all that expense and effort to produce a file that will be the exact same as you can download for free? In a real world application very, very few people own something that isn't already dumped.

HuCard support is neat but that is a small selling point for users outside of Japan, and unlike the Mega Drive the predominant chunk of the best PCE games arent on cart format.