Pretty kick-ass. Also plays NES games with the included adapter though it's uh, a bit less portable:
It's an interesting piece of tech. It's effectively a Retro Duo, which is one of the better clone consoles that plays original NES and SNES games, packaged into a more portable form. It fixes some issues with game compatibility as well.
Only one game so far has failed to work, though it would have been pointless to use- Mario Paint. I only have Zelda for the NES currently but that works fine, though some of the sound channels seem a bit off. I Don't have any 'advanced' SNES games that use chips like SuperFX or DSP currently, but being as it's hardware, I see no reason for it not to work.
The one exception I can think of is games that use the SA-1 chip (Mario RPG, Kirby's Dream Land 3, and several others) might cause problems since they look for a hardware region lockout chip that is on the SNES mainboard. This portable (like all clones) lacks this chip.
The first thing I did was try to use the include Adapter to try to play NES games on my actual SNES, which didn't work. Turns out the portable unit has the NES On a Chip that runs the games, and the adapter is required simply so they can plug in; the portable system also has a GOAC (Genesis on a Chip) but the Adapter to use Genesis cartridges is sold separately. And of course if I was crazy I could use it to play gameboy games with a Super Gameboy but I don't think we could call it a portable game boy when it's 4 times the size.
Speaking of things normally sold separately, Battery life is ridiculous- it has it's own Lithium Ion battery (which doesn't look like it can be replaced easily, either, oh well) which lasts ages- I've been using it rather frequently throughout the day (and progressed through Link to the Past for a few hours as well as the First Zelda game) and it's still going. Apparently it is rated at around 8 hours of operation.
The Sound on SNES games is pretty much identical to the SNES itself. I found no perceptible difference between the portable and the actual console in any games I tried. It seems like the sound is preamped a bit much though which causes the Speakers to top out way to easily, but that's a minor issue, and the speakers themselves a a bit tinny, but for a portable system you sort of need to make those sorts of sacrifices.
An excellent little device. At any rate preferred by me over having to fire up a TV Tuner Program, make sure the SNES is connected, and then suffer with a distorted screen (with cords that work fine for the Gamecube, oh well).
This also spurred me into looking at some other portable offerings of older consoles, and other aftermarket guff. the SNES and Genesis seems to be about the end game as far as standard consoles that have commercially available Portable clones/versions, at least that work with the original hardware. There is actually quite a bit of aftermarket stuff of course; USB Adapters, SRAM/ROM dumpers, Flash carts, pretty impressive. There are "adapters" that let you play NES games and Genesis games on an SNES, but they are pointless since they are basically just a console placed inside a cartridge that simply leeches off the SNES power supply. They even have their own separate AV outputs, so they don't seem particularly useful, to be honest. There were some how tos and blog articles where people turned their N64's or Gamecubes into portable systems but nothing we can buy on our own yet as a separate product- though I imagine those will turn up in a few years.
Hey, guys. Quote me if you want me to respond. Otherwise I'll have no idea what the hell you want with me.
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I wish I still had some SNES games D:
Someone dropped our SNES (or NES, I don't remember which one we had) and it broke, so we got rid of the games as well. FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDGE!
Anyways, that thing looks awesome! And at a decent price, too! Also, your review was great! And I'm using way too many exclamation points!
My parents sold my SNES and N64 when I was in High school. I bought an SNES and a Gamecube to replace it a few years ago. I've never actually owned an NES myself. I had to sell some of those games I bought last year when I was unemployed (off hand I can remember selling F-Zero, Super Mario RPG, Mario All Stars, A Link to the Past, Yoshi's Island, and all three Donkey Kong Country Games for a ridiculously low price.
I still have (in terms of good games) Super Metroid, Super Mario World (as shown in the pic of course) and Chrono Trigger. (CT Was not for sale!). I repurchased A Link To the Past, and it arrived last week. It came with the Original Zelda for the NES (pictured in the second image, in use with the portable console).
the SNES I have is actually better than the one I had as a kid. This one is made of the more resilient, non-yellowing plastic, whereas I remember my SNES had already started to yellow with age. the Cartridge slot has the Tabs clipped out so I could play Super Famicom games if I wanted to, I believe.
Someone dropped our SNES (or NES, I don't remember which one we had) and it broke, so we got rid of the games as well. FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDGE!
If I had to guess, I'd say a Toaster NES. Because of the mechanical push down thing inside, those were very fragile. It's a shame the stock NES 2 Top Loader system is so much worse, because the Original NES consoles inevitably fail almost by design.
My plan is to buy NES games over time and play them with this, then when I get a reasonable number of good titles, get a good condition NES system. I don't like the idea of buying an entire system when I only own one game for it.
Also for some reason I think it's hilarious that Mario Paint doesn't work. I'm not sure why I find it hilarious. I think it doesn't work due to a region lockout, though.
That looks like a pretty neat device. Personally, I'm keeping an eye on the upcoming Retron 5 console which should be able to play Genesis, Mega Drive, NES, SNES, Gameboy, Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advance, Famicon, and Super Famicon cartridges. Hopefully it'll emulate everything well.
That looks like a pretty neat device. Personally, I'm keeping an eye on the upcoming Retron 5 console which should be able to play Genesis, Mega Drive, NES, SNES, Gameboy, Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advance, Famicon, and Super Famicon cartridges. Hopefully it'll emulate everything well.
It's actually called a Famicom and Super Famicom. It's weird that a lot of search results cite it as playing "Famicon" games. The NES in Japan was the famicom (Family Computer). The cartridges were smaller, but aside from a different pinout were software-compatible with the NES. Interesting tidbit: the North American release of Gyromite is actually a Famicom game board connected to a Famicom->NES Adapter. (You can actually connect and play ANY Famicom game on an nes by just using the adapter). the Super Famicom was identical to the SNES, but used different shapes for the cartridge slot. the North American SNES had plastic tabs that matches indents in the cartridges themselves. Retron5 likely just makes the slot fit for both, since otherwise they are the same game board.
The one weird thing I think about the retron5 is the software emulation. It's usually cited as being more accurate but it can easily not be, too. The one advantage in that case though id that it can be updated. It would have to be a custom emulator of sorts; it would need to emulate the internals but it would also need to be able to use cartridges of the games; for example, while ZSNES or SNES9x needs to support emulation of chips such as the SuperFX or DSP-1, the retron-5's 'emulator' won't, since it accepts the game cartridges which have those chips present.
One advantage I see with the system over standard emulation is using the actual game cartridges and peripherals/controllers. This is an advantage simply because it also means you can use a variety of add-ons such as the Super UFO 8 (which I'm getting myself, we'll see how it works on this Retro Duo Portable...). For me the important part for some games is simply the SRAM (which is the main reason I got the UFO 8, so I could back them up), particularly games like Chrono Trigger where getting to Level ** takes a helluva long time.
Pretty kick-ass. Also plays NES games with the included adapter though it's uh, a bit less portable:
It's an interesting piece of tech. It's effectively a Retro Duo, which is one of the better clone consoles that plays original NES and SNES games, packaged into a more portable form. It fixes some issues with game compatibility as well.
Only one game so far has failed to work, though it would have been pointless to use- Mario Paint. I only have Zelda for the NES currently but that works fine, though some of the sound channels seem a bit off. I Don't have any 'advanced' SNES games that use chips like SuperFX or DSP currently, but being as it's hardware, I see no reason for it not to work.
The one exception I can think of is games that use the SA-1 chip (Mario RPG, Kirby's Dream Land 3, and several others) might cause problems since they look for a hardware region lockout chip that is on the SNES mainboard. This portable (like all clones) lacks this chip.
The first thing I did was try to use the include Adapter to try to play NES games on my actual SNES, which didn't work. Turns out the portable unit has the NES On a Chip that runs the games, and the adapter is required simply so they can plug in; the portable system also has a GOAC (Genesis on a Chip) but the Adapter to use Genesis cartridges is sold separately. And of course if I was crazy I could use it to play gameboy games with a Super Gameboy but I don't think we could call it a portable game boy when it's 4 times the size.
Speaking of things normally sold separately, Battery life is ridiculous- it has it's own Lithium Ion battery (which doesn't look like it can be replaced easily, either, oh well) which lasts ages- I've been using it rather frequently throughout the day (and progressed through Link to the Past for a few hours as well as the First Zelda game) and it's still going. Apparently it is rated at around 8 hours of operation.
The Sound on SNES games is pretty much identical to the SNES itself. I found no perceptible difference between the portable and the actual console in any games I tried. It seems like the sound is preamped a bit much though which causes the Speakers to top out way to easily, but that's a minor issue, and the speakers themselves a a bit tinny, but for a portable system you sort of need to make those sorts of sacrifices.
An excellent little device. At any rate preferred by me over having to fire up a TV Tuner Program, make sure the SNES is connected, and then suffer with a distorted screen (with cords that work fine for the Gamecube, oh well).
This also spurred me into looking at some other portable offerings of older consoles, and other aftermarket guff. the SNES and Genesis seems to be about the end game as far as standard consoles that have commercially available Portable clones/versions, at least that work with the original hardware. There is actually quite a bit of aftermarket stuff of course; USB Adapters, SRAM/ROM dumpers, Flash carts, pretty impressive. There are "adapters" that let you play NES games and Genesis games on an SNES, but they are pointless since they are basically just a console placed inside a cartridge that simply leeches off the SNES power supply. They even have their own separate AV outputs, so they don't seem particularly useful, to be honest. There were some how tos and blog articles where people turned their N64's or Gamecubes into portable systems but nothing we can buy on our own yet as a separate product- though I imagine those will turn up in a few years.
I scored 100% on the Minecraft Trivia Quiz. How much do you know about Minecraft?
TOPICS I MAKE, Y U NO STAY ALIVE?
http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/ed6b/
Meep.
Hey, guys. Quote me if you want me to respond. Otherwise I'll have no idea what the hell you want with me.
Friend Code: 1263-6258-8121 (Poison)
Friend Safaris: Poison: Swalot, Whirlipede, Seviper.
Someone dropped our SNES (or NES, I don't remember which one we had) and it broke, so we got rid of the games as well. FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDGE!
Anyways, that thing looks awesome! And at a decent price, too! Also, your review was great! And I'm using way too many exclamation points!
My parents sold my SNES and N64 when I was in High school. I bought an SNES and a Gamecube to replace it a few years ago. I've never actually owned an NES myself. I had to sell some of those games I bought last year when I was unemployed (off hand I can remember selling F-Zero, Super Mario RPG, Mario All Stars, A Link to the Past, Yoshi's Island, and all three Donkey Kong Country Games for a ridiculously low price.
I still have (in terms of good games) Super Metroid, Super Mario World (as shown in the pic of course) and Chrono Trigger. (CT Was not for sale!). I repurchased A Link To the Past, and it arrived last week. It came with the Original Zelda for the NES (pictured in the second image, in use with the portable console).
the SNES I have is actually better than the one I had as a kid. This one is made of the more resilient, non-yellowing plastic, whereas I remember my SNES had already started to yellow with age. the Cartridge slot has the Tabs clipped out so I could play Super Famicom games if I wanted to, I believe.
If I had to guess, I'd say a Toaster NES. Because of the mechanical push down thing inside, those were very fragile. It's a shame the stock NES 2 Top Loader system is so much worse, because the Original NES consoles inevitably fail almost by design.
My plan is to buy NES games over time and play them with this, then when I get a reasonable number of good titles, get a good condition NES system. I don't like the idea of buying an entire system when I only own one game for it.
Also for some reason I think it's hilarious that Mario Paint doesn't work. I'm not sure why I find it hilarious. I think it doesn't work due to a region lockout, though.
It's actually called a Famicom and Super Famicom. It's weird that a lot of search results cite it as playing "Famicon" games. The NES in Japan was the famicom (Family Computer). The cartridges were smaller, but aside from a different pinout were software-compatible with the NES. Interesting tidbit: the North American release of Gyromite is actually a Famicom game board connected to a Famicom->NES Adapter. (You can actually connect and play ANY Famicom game on an nes by just using the adapter). the Super Famicom was identical to the SNES, but used different shapes for the cartridge slot. the North American SNES had plastic tabs that matches indents in the cartridges themselves. Retron5 likely just makes the slot fit for both, since otherwise they are the same game board.
The one weird thing I think about the retron5 is the software emulation. It's usually cited as being more accurate but it can easily not be, too. The one advantage in that case though id that it can be updated. It would have to be a custom emulator of sorts; it would need to emulate the internals but it would also need to be able to use cartridges of the games; for example, while ZSNES or SNES9x needs to support emulation of chips such as the SuperFX or DSP-1, the retron-5's 'emulator' won't, since it accepts the game cartridges which have those chips present.
One advantage I see with the system over standard emulation is using the actual game cartridges and peripherals/controllers. This is an advantage simply because it also means you can use a variety of add-ons such as the Super UFO 8 (which I'm getting myself, we'll see how it works on this Retro Duo Portable...). For me the important part for some games is simply the SRAM (which is the main reason I got the UFO 8, so I could back them up), particularly games like Chrono Trigger where getting to Level ** takes a helluva long time.