Quote Originally Posted by Leo_A View Post
If you actually do some reading, you will see that the goal is 100% compatibility.
Ahh, the last gasp of petulance, accusing the other person of not reading because they didn't take your attempt to redefine a conversation they were having with another person in the way you wanted. Keep it classy! But since you went there, let me just point out that I don't know how in blazes you go from reading me saying "here are expensive ways the RetroN COULD be close to 100% accurate, and here are the cheap ways it will likely employ and not be anywhere close to 100% accurate" (if you ignore that part where I talk about differences between accurate emulation of just the CPU, and accurate emulation of the system's 'look and feel' which goes beyond simple "accuracy," of course), to believeing I wrote "the RetroN has a chance at being 100% compatible or accurate!" If your point is to say that it's not a great sin for RetroN 5's makers to promise to aim for something they can't reach - 100% accuracy - I also think it's not a great sin to point out that it is, in fact, an unrealistic target, and might (i.e. surely will) mislead buyers. I know that every time some lazy clone manufacturer drops by and promises the clone to rule them all, my ears perk up because I think, for a brief moment, that somebody who is not just looking to pawn off another cheaply made and underperforming semi-clone will actually give us a viable source of new parts.

I apologize for writing a too-long post earlier, but when you decided to butt in with your misinformed view of what I had written, I think you needed to read this:
Anyway, the point of this post is to point out that technical ability and cost are what will certainly cause this to run an emulator (rather than even an FPGA). However there is, again, nothing which theoretically forbids it.
Likewise, technical ability and cost are what forbid the use of other approaches that would allow greater compatibility.

Their goal is truly not "100% compatibility" because that is all but ruled out by their cheap approach. Their real goal is "as close to 100% accuracy as possible with the cheap generic hardware we'll be using, and also we'll try to throw in some other features not provided by the original hardware to hopefully sway those on the fence." I don't see why there's a bunch of fuss over simply stating that the claim of seeking 100% compatibility (which would entail close to 100% accuracy to run the SNES library, by the way; it takes byuu 3GHz at least to actually make some SNES games full-featured or even just playable from start to finish, but RetroN probably is using a cheap and relatively underpowered ARM CPU which will leave out many important features of the SNES).

There's also another point here which seems somewhat important: I don't know where you get the idea I'm defending clones in every shape and form, especially after I pointed out so many ways clones can hurt the gaming experience. I think the RetroN 5 is unlikely to be a great advance or a great value (which should be obvious, again, from what I've been saying wrote about problems with various clone approaches, i.e. on-CPU emulation, FPGA reimplementation of hardware, or inexact use of almost-similar components, which is what the classic clones used to better effect than, say, NOAC Famiclones used). I specifically mentioned reissues of hardware from the original manufacturers. However, I do think it's also reasonable to say that there are many things that could be improved short of a full hardware replacement. I don't think you're saying "there's no need for replacement parts or systems" is basically admitting that you don't know what the retro gaming community wants, so this is just an argument from ignorance.

Whether or not that push targets you, or whether or not you have had great success and a bit of luck with keeping your old hardware alive (which I hope holds for you!) is really besides the point. This isn't about just you. The fact remains that these systems are becoming too scarce to service the demand of the retrogaming community, expensive to maintain, and their numbers are dropping. On top of that, there are some problems with many of the original systems that could be addressed. And I find it pretty funny how you state that at the slightest difficulty with hardware beyond capacitors, you'll drop it entirely for emulation. Kind of proves my point, doesn't it? Well, I just hope that by the time that happens that we'll all be using emulators using a model like byuu's excellent SNES emulator.