I did the whole ROMs thing in 1999/2000. I got bored with it real quick, especially with crappy keyboards and stiff Logitech PC gamepads. It wasn't until after my dad passed away I found a CIB NES while cleaning out the garage in 2002, and spent hours fumbling with it and "blowing" in the carts to finally get it to work, then drove to Game-X-Change and practically bought out the store (prices in 2002/2003 were so much more reasonable back then), that I truly got addicted to retro console gaming.
ROMs on a PC didn't do it for me, and they still don't. The most time I ever spend in an emulator is to playtest a game to see if it's worth purchasing as a cart. It doesn't matter that I now have USB adapters to use real controllers, cart dumpers, flash carts, and the whole kit-and-kaboodle. It there isn't a 72-pin connector (or however many pins a given system uses) and a real controller port somewhere in the chain, it doesn't feel right. Playing real carts on the Retron5 is just as authentic as playing ROMs on a flash cart on a real NES system. Fact is both use an interface that requires plugging in a cartridge. Technically, the Retrode doesn't quite cut the mustard even though it has a cart interface, because once the ROM is dumped to my PC I'm back to using emulators. True the Retron5 also uses an emulator, however it doesn't feel like one.
Bottom line, sans official console emulators such as Wii/Wii-U VC, plugging in a cart is the only way for me to appreciate the games. It's gotta have that magical cart connector somewhere in the chain. Doesn't matter how the game data gets displayed on the TV screen or what kind of bizarre controller setup I have; it's gotta be on real carts. Sure I may be a nostalgic old kook that had to get his fix as an adult because he was deprived of video games as a child, but I'm sure others on this forum agree with me that it's all about the cartridges. Retron5 just seems like the perfect marriage of 20+ years old and brand new technology. So are modern flash carts, even if Retron5 and flash carts are mutually exclusive.
Retron5 exists for the exact same reasons why vinyl records are making a comeback. Sure they're big and fugly, but there's something about watching a 12" LP spin around and around on a turntable, just like there's something about the whole "insert cartridge into system and play" vibe.
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