RetroN5: Hands on first look

[stardust4ever]

Before I respond, please, in the future, please break up your posts into paragraphs. a wall of text is a mental block that causes people not to even bother reading your post. That's the real tl:dr thing.

Just separate your thoughts into paragraphs so it's easier to read.

Adult ADHD: that shit is real, man. I'll try to break it up for you.

To me, what's important is the games themselves, not the hardware, not the format. If something like the OUya existed that could replace all my consoles - everything - I'd gladly switch over to use only that and then sell/trade off everything else I have. I'm at a point in my life when I see 15 consoles lined up and think "why" rather than "man, I'm so awesome to have such a collection".

I totally need to get my own place for this exact reason.

I know most roms are illegal. I know that those same roms are available in some cases through the various official online stores. But I just honestly don't care. It's almost always a victimless 'crime' if you can call it that.

These games made their money back when they were new. Many of the developers don't exist anymore, rights holders are different, and unlike pirating a modern game, you aren't taking money away from people who are actively making their living through retro game roms. If I buy a copy of Super Mario Bros. through the Virtual Console, the only place that money goes to is to Nintendo directly, not to anyone who worked on the game. And even if that were the case, they don't need that money, and I feel well justified in downloading the rom because over the years I've bought at least five official copies of the game through various means, the last time on the GameBoy Advance.

I take a very different stance against piracy of anything that is current, but once something is ~10 years old? Piracy doesn't hurt anyone because you aren't taking money away from anyone but third party sellers such as guys on ebay who aren't affiliated with the original developers/publishers in the first place. I've built up a massive retro game collection not because I set out to do so, but because I bought games when they were new, and over time kept them until they could be considered retro. Nearly my entire N64, PS1, GBC, GBA, GameCube, PS2 and Xbox libraries are made up of games that I bought brand new. Hundreds of games. I feel fully justified to pirate whatever I want on any of those platforms. Maybe it is wrong, but it ultimately doesn't impact anyone.

Rationalize it any way you want. What you're doing is still illegal, and you totally miss out on that warm fuzzy feeling of playing the authentic cart, whether the hardware is authentic or not.

All that said, I'm not against buying games if they come out digitally, and I would even argue that piracy has the benefit of game purchases I wouldn't have made blindly if I hadn't first pirated the game. For example, this occurred with Akumajou Dracula Chi no Rondo when it came out on the Wii VC. I wasn't sure I would want to play it, so I pirated it first, and then bought it.

Try before you buy. I'll be the first to admit I have bought many homebrews only because a ROM was released. For example, Drag00n of NintendoAge recently released his Fix-It-Felix Genesis homebrew. I downloaded it, played the first level, and immediately requested a physical copy from him. I may not have nibbled if I hadn't tested the gameplay first. Also oftentimes I'll see an interesting looking game cart at a used game store, I'll drive home, download ROM and/or watch youtube review, and if it's good, drive back to game shop and pray the game is still there.

My problem with emulation isnt that it usually means you can't play your physicals, its emulation inaccuracies and with newer consoles, DRM. It might sound strange coming from a guy who owns around 2500 unique physical game carts/discs, but I'd be totally willing to go all digital if it meant 100% accuracy and lack of DRM. The RetroN5 for me is sort of a babystep. Find out how well it runs games, and if perfect or even good enough, get rid of the original hardware because its redundant. [also continue to acquire new Famiclones because irony].

If you're picky enough, even original hardware can be inaccurate. HD Graphics, late release model 1 Genesis/MD, and a variety of Model 2s/3s don't even sound alike, and certain late models (Mejesco Model 2s for instance) have incompatabilities with 32x, CD, GG, Power Base converter, etc... So if official hardware at times can't get it correct, do you really expect clones/emu to do so? I'll admit modern emulators oftentimes get it better than clones, but nothing is absolutely perfect, not even original hardware. For instance, you get crashes or blinky screens or corrupted graphics on NES. You get distorted audio on certain Genesis revisions. Atari looks like vomit on modern HDTV. Do you really expect emulators to duplicate this and other inconsistensies?

Video:
1. Open up RetroN5 box
2. find panties.
3. ?????
4. profit

Do it!