Polymega Review - The Ultimate Retro Console, But Is It Worth $400? 

Everything is great, and I agree, emulators can be pretty accurate and almost indistinguishable from real hardware...but the price is too high

Yadiel Perez Agreed. Price is way higher than I would like. Definitely isn’t a day one buy for me, but it certainly is a product I’ll keep good eye on. Especially if they release different add ons like GBA and N64 one day.

Totally agree

If the people at Polymega weren't complete dicks and said to Analogue "lol FPGA etc" I would consider one. Like, I don't care if they tout that it uses emulation, but don't be a prick about it.

@@nintendo1889x Actually Analogue fired first calling their project bullsh*t on Twitter.

That's when I'll pick one up 😀

it is good it plays sega saturn but hunting down some of those games are HTF and expensive

For now, just expect the ps1 and sega saturn for disc based systems. Maybe the sega cd as well

trycon40 just pay someone to install their library on to your polymega. Much cheaper than buying every Saturn game. I’m sure someone on eBay will offer this send your unit service

The fact that it doesn't support the dreamcast offends me.

@@trycon40 yeah, good luck with that one lol

At least they got saturn, i've been waiting years to play some of those games

They are looking into adding it in the future.

For about $200 + Dreamcast base unit($40) and a 1TB SSD($100) you can get the entire Dreamcast library emulated on MODE.

@@haloboy817 after taxes that's over $400. That's not including DC Digital either which is another $250 after installation in my area. Dreamcast on the polymega is a much better value proposition.

@@ZeniusFox Just so you aware, they actually are considering adding it in as support to the Polymega. At this point they dont have a dev team working it, but they might end up creating another module for it. Nothing Terraonion sells is cheap, but they are certainly high quality.

Believe it or not, that's actually closer to the proper Greek pronunciation of "beta". (Although the ACTUAL proper pronunciation sounds like something closer to "vita". No, really. It does.)

@@ShiitakeWarrior They actually pronounced Beta as "ʂ ɭ̊ m̥ p̪" to be phonetically correct.

Spot on

I would expect a lot of people who own the games, own the systems to play them. The trouble is connecting it all up, the old consoles are a hassle. This is one unit, one plug, nice and tidy.

You could always just buy the games on eBay and then there is the upcoming digital store

I love old hardware, I love old games, I love the Polymega. I have unhooked my old consoles and put them back in the closet, they are a hassle. This one console allows me to play so many consoles right now in just one box. The convenience of the console and ability to play it on modern TVs without modding or having an ugly picture.

I'd argue it's a non-overly techy way of utilizing my old Nes, snes, n64 (hopefully later down the line), saturn and PS1 games on a single piece of hardware (bar the modules) with the minimum of fuss. The potential of a third party online store separate from Nintendo, microsoft and sonys stranglehold is also attractive. I'm, quite frankly, not even remotely interested buying any of the homebrew OSSC-esque solutions to get my old, yellowed systems up to a decent visual fidelity on a modern tv. And like hell am I gonna hunt down an old CRT to play any of the old systems lol.

Yeah, emulation already does that. This is an expensive emulator that makes you work harder to play your games by re-dumping the ROMS that you probably already have copies of. Sorry if you've already dumped your own ROMs once before but go ahead and do it again. And if you have a huge game collection from multiple platforms, please buy our add-ons so that you can dump all of your ROMs... I don't get it. Who is this product supposed to appeal to. It's still emulation so the purists won't want it. Its way too much work just to play an emumated version of a ROM that you dumped so the emulator junkies won't want it. Why do you want it?

@@joes4194 well first of all, I haven't dumped roms ever. Secondly, Im not the most computer savvy person and don't have the time or know how and how to do this and nor do I care. I WANT THIS because of the CONVENIENCE and promise that I can download other games from their online service so I don't have to pay scalper prices on eBay for what I'm presuming will be a quality download and it's legal. Take a look at the RETROCADE by RETROBIT It's pretty popular and looks like someone can just build one, but people like me, like convenience and simple plug and play. That's who this is for. And lets not forgot about the light gun coming up for the polymega to play light guns games on a Flat-Screen. Can your emulators do that on your pc? 🤔 I didn't think so. So, Who cares about light guns games? Me and other 90's kids do. Only way I'll be pissed is if it runs like the RETRON 5. Then yeah, I'll be the first to ask for a refund and totally acknowledge it as crap.

And I won't have to have 7 consoles hooked up. ( and I've emulated on everything from a PC to a pi 3b+.. So I'm good. Launch box and retroarch, hackchi and everything in between)

​@@joes4194 I think it's for people who like the idea of Launchbox but don't want to spend the time setting it all up perfectly.

@@joes4194 Perfect example of somebody who totally missed the point. I bet you're one of those who looked at the NES/SNES minis and said "JuSt GeT a RaSpErRy Pi Lolololololol"

Bloody hell what ₤500 that's around series x price

@@markportch lol I know. Its just not worth it imo

For that price just get a PC and emulate everything. Also would let you play, ya know, PC games

£500?? They must be out of their minds.

ZKatt and even lets you play other consoles that this doesn’t emulate like wii and ps2

GameCube is really easy to relive but the rest are hard asl

I'm sure someone that works at a retro game store of flea market will load thousands of games into one of this and try to sell it on eBay 😂

Stylez-13 it’s not worth making a profit off of. The base price to get these is 500 dollars even if they load it up with every single game from the library of each consoles no ones going to pay that much more for it when they can just do that on a laptop for free

@@asianpablo1574 you be surprised there have been limited edition consoles sold for thousands with no games included and single old school rare games sold for thousands don't underestimate rich people ability to burn cash 😂

Stylez-13 but that’s limited edition stuff those are rare for a reason because they got history and have a high market value. The poly mega is going to have none of that there’s no market for this

Sure hope so, cause ripping hundreds of discs manually for weeks will drive you insane.

@@skootdiggity1301 exactly

Its a emulator and needs the actual cartridge it does have nes and snes cartridges support but yhe thing cost 500 dollars which probably more e expensive than the upcoming ps5

As long as you’re using a legally purchased cartridge, this is legal. Emulation isn’t illegal on its own, it’s pirating ROMs that’s illegal

@@brux357 I thought emulation IS illegal.

@@TheSmart-CasualGamer Its a grey area

@@TheSmart-CasualGamer Downloading roms you don't own is illegal, emulation is not.

'ello there lovely pee pole

Yes we are bee-ples

hi yo amazing peoples! 😀

If youre gonna do that, just emulate on a pc

Nine Zero yeah that’s the reasonable thing to do, but hackers will just do shit because they can.

Not yet 😉

Exactly and if you really want to play emulated versions they are free fit pc and even for Android on your phone

Lucky you lol

@@megamix5403 I'm not lucky, just old lol

@@arcadeperfectreviews2653 Yeah but to have them in working condition. My PS1 and GameCube died a long time ago.

@@megamix5403 I guess you're right even My Sega CD still works

And keep the price under 300!

I was thinking that. Hopefully it can be turned off.

I think it's auto dumping to RAM given that the process didn't stop anyone from immediately launching the software. Here's hoping

No not yet lol 😂

@@jomichael1060 why is that funny i know its not out yet

Just get a cheap pc that can emulate PS2 and wii and other semi new consoles

@@asianpablo1574 already have one. plus I actually have a large physical game collection that I want to digitize

BradPete1 there are better options that are way cheaper. This one comes off as a cash grab since the emulators provided a wii can pretty much do

Honestly BradPete that’s how I feel as well. I wasted money buying a PS4 and XBone, I’m not making that mistake again this generation.

Say beat, say bet, now say beta... Wait, not beeta?

I mean he's British so

Sadly it does not. The Dreamcast used GD-ROM and this has a DVD drive in it. The hardware is more than capable of handling the DC. As for PS2 l, I don’t have enough experience with PS2 emulation, but I would suspect that it could. I’d love to see that happen in the future.

I only interested in Sega Saturn games, cause I can burn ps1 or ps2 games to dvd for playing with my ps2 console

@@popixel ummm I'm pretty sure CD drives can read GD roms just fine. The first 2 models of dreamcast can even play burnt CD roms because it has no copyright protection. The only difference is the data is packed closer together on a GD ROM disc so CD roms can't hold as much data..... So explain why your explanation makes sense?

@@billy-waynejeffcoat4828 A regular drive cannot read a GD-ROM unless it is hacked. This is why when you ripped GD-Roms you had to connect your Dreamcast up to a PC through the serial port. The Dreamcast can yes play back up games off of CD if the games were hacked to work on them. Some games even needed to be stripped of data so they would fit on a standard CD-ROM. So in essence... I suppose it would be possible if the drive in the Polymega is one of the few that can be modified, or if they can modify the firmware of their DVD drive to read it, but it's highly unlikely. If you are interested in learning more you can check out this wiki en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GD-ROM

@@popixel I mean technically even if it's not it should be possible to add hardware that is through the modules.

I was wondering the same thing

Princess Crown for the Saturn. Japan only, but an English patch is being worked on.

UK. We all say it like this, it's the correct way over here.

@@TheSmart-CasualGamer Oh ok

@@Enum_Dev Good innit?

itz reely sumting

@@TheSmart-CasualGamer we do? I've never heard it like that haha

Nothing...

@referral madness It's true, you pay for a mid-range disk drive pc in a nice case with a polished interface for emulating games. If you want to use the cartridges, you will pay $ 100 for each module to have an experience like the retron5 that already brings everything else and costs less than $ 200...If the polymega were FPGA it would be another story and I would pay up to € 700 just for the initial module but it is not like that ... and the difference between hardware emulation and software emulation is noticeable from heaven to earth ... if the user is satisfied with the emulation that polymega brings excellent, but in my case ... polymega was far below not wanting to use FPGA

Yes, if it can run on original hardware (in most cases) it runs on this. Even if it’s a game not in their database the console can still run it. Basically, if you can emulate it on a PC, it can be read and run on this.

It just copies the game to internal storage and runs it so yes

It costs more than the ps5

@@asianpablo1574 But can the PS5 run ALL OF THESE SYSTEMS?

The Smart-Casual Gamer. The wii can do almost all of these it’s not that hard. You could always just get a cheap pc which can do all of these and more consoles

@@asianpablo1574 We actually do not know the official price of the PS5. If I was guessing it would be $500 for the disc based solution. That's more expensive. Although, if you want next gen games then you need to buy a PS5. The Wii has always been an interesting device (even before it was modded). While I'll agree that it's a good system and the homebrew scene has done a lot with it, I'll have to disagree on the statement that you've made. While it can technically "do almost all of these" it is technically illegal to play the games if you don't physically own them. The polymega is interesting because it is an all in one retro game system that can play original discs and cartridges. You can also legally rip the games you own onto the system AND legally purchase digital copies. It's interface is also very clean and the emulation looks solid. There are definitely cheaper ways to emulate game systems, but the cheaper ways are usually illegal. It's an interesting device because it's 100% legal and offers good emulation (even though it's not FPGA.) That being said, I'm not sure that I'd pay $400 for it because it is not FPGA like they original claimed it would be. That does not change my mind on the device being interesting though.

Kevin Rothacker it’s 500 for everything and at that point I’d rather just play on original hardware

If you can’t wait, this probably isn’t the console for you.

Yikes d pad is important asl

Looks like they use the same mold but its heavily tweaked. Could be that they made sure that all the g3s shortcomings are fixed, sincere there are some notable visual differences.

Yes the D-Pad is not good. I just got a USB Saturn controller and it’s amazing on this console.

That's second one is some sort of Elevator Action, no idea which one though.

Keio Flying Squadron and Elevator Action Returns.

β

itz a werd

Someone will mod them and sell them thru ebay with thousands of games already installed 😂

@@Stylez-13 I mean they'll just either be issued a cease and desist or a full on court summons for copyright infringement and theft.

It’s the Polymega menu system sound.

Basically what it is, but retron came out only supporting systems that have already had other solutions by the dozens. Well except the game gear and GBA .

It's like Retron but with better emulation and a LaunchBox style UI.

Yep, the emulators this thing uses are free if you download RetroArch, they are selling you ease of use/plug and play for $500+.

For most people, just set up Retroarch on a PC you have, it has all of this and more, including the metadata database that groups games by series, developer, year, etc... this is a new addition in 1.9. You can use any controller you want (I recommend 8bitdo's stuff), and it has THE best latency reducing features of any software emulator, run-ahead is basically black magic, on a monitor or good gaming TV you'll actually get CRT-like latency. Retroarch is amazing, and if you're going to go with software emulation anyway your PC is already likely much more powerful than this console. Don't even get me started on the amazing shader support on Retroarch, literally the best CRT shaders in the world can be found there.

Yes, it is pricey, but emulation is amazing on the Polymega, it’s very accurate. And you do have the ability to play ROMs, any ROM that you own can be played on it. Your SNES, NEC, NES, Gen, 32x, Saturn, PSX, or any other supported ROM cart or CD-ROM from all the system it supports. Even if they don’t have a game in their database you can still play the game on your Polymega. I own many games that are not on the “official list” that work just as well as they would on the original consoles. There is one cart that I know of that does not work, as it is a homebrew game, but it too has trouble on original consoles.

Leo DS correct. I never said they did. I said ROM Carts. All video game cartridges have physical ROM chips installed. You put a cart in the system and the system reads rips the ROMs from the cartridges.