Polymega - WE DON'T GET IT | Red Cow Arcade 

The UI they have actually looks really nice I wonder what front end they're using. But nobody is going to spend 1000 dollars for a UI hahhaa

Wow, Gamesack is still alive. I always liked him because it seemed like he put a lot of effort into his videos, even though they were kind of milquetoast. At this day and age, for retro gaming steam deck is probably the best option if you want to buy just a single gaming device. Emulates fine and you can play even modern games with it.

(my worst Craig Tucker voice) "Did it ever occur to them that the gamers who were reluctant to purchase the base unit for $400 were waiting for the price to go down, because the original hardware for the games it supports also had price drops back in their day? No, of course not. They thought raising it by $150 was a good idea. And that's why gamers like myself are tracking down CRTs and original hardware."

I went back and forth down the years playing my retro (ie, mostly 8 and 16 bit) games on everything from original hardware/software, Modded Wiis, to Retropies, to my PC and I've ultimately settled upon a MiSTer with a range of 8bitdo wireless controllers.

I’m still waiting on my Intellivision Amico 🥲😆

I ordered my Polymega back when it was first announced in or around 2018. At the time, it was appealing to me because I wanted emulation of multiple systems in one chasis. By the time I finally received mine in the mail earlier this year, I had already installed my entire games library on my Steam Deck and been enjoying that convenience for nearly two years. I haven't even bothered hooking it up yet.

I've had a Polymega for about two years now and it's probably been one of the best investments I've made in years, I mainly bought it for the CD offerings, my Sega Saturn no longer works like it used too and the ability to use my physical media is a real benefit

The best part of emulation is that it doesn’t take up any space. Having to store all of those clunky modules and still have all of your physical media just defeats the point imo. If you’re going to take up all that space for that price, you might as well get some original consoles and a CRT.

The development cycle for this was one of our favorite things to talk about on our show. From the pricy beginning, to changing its emulation strategy, the many delays and the constant fighting the team did on Twitter…this was a beautiful disaster from day one

I've a derelict laptop from about 2009 that I've configured exclusively to play emulated games that still holds up. I mostly use it to play old stand-by games with the same group of people, but there is a joy in learning about a ROM you've had for decades that can shake things up. Like, we used to debate playing the NES or SNES versions of Rampart until I discovered that Konami did their own port of the game in Japan, and it's a nice breath of fresh air in comparison.

$1000, jeepers... For that price I'd want it to work flawlessly and buff my floors. Some people will just buy anything though

Whenever I think I want this I always talk myself out of it. 1000 dollars Canadian for the base unit is just ridiculous.

That Retrobit Tribute 64 looking ass controller tho

Chrono Cross in the background very awesome

Yeah, that was my unit, and addons Joe reviewed. 😅 I waited 2+ years for it. The Polymega was originally to be an fpga machine, and then they swapped it to software emulation from hardware. My rational thought was to get this for my son so he can easily play my collection without needing to use original hardware and servicing og hardware. Frankly, a MiSTer can do a lot more, which led me to make and package the M3 multisystem.

Get a mini PC with bluetooth and wfi-fi from a reseller for about $100 and stick Retroarch on it.

It meant something when it was planned to be FPGA. They scraped those plans early on.

The initial concept was to use an FPGA chip for hardware accurate emulation, they dropped this feature (after taking pre-orders). Without the feature it doesn't do anything I couldn't do on a 10 year old laptop.

The retron 5 is actually great if you're into pokemon, and are using the actual carts for self-trades and compatibility with the Stadium games. I play on the Retron for convenience, write my save to the cart, and then I can do everything you need real hardware for too.

I have a PlayStation classic i paid $29 clearanced and added a flashdrive and can emulate PlayStation on back and have every game i ever needed.

A great product. For the year 2000.

Really well edited clip, Jason!

When I have my druthers, I like to take it one further over the Everdrive, and use the cartridge itself. The advantage is that you don’t have to browse a boring text menu, but rather an attractive managerie of games with accompanying stickers. Also, if it’s a Gameboy, that means you’re probably on the go, so you don’t have time to go through a separate menu just to pick out the game. You want to turn it on, and immediately dive into Tetris, Space Invaders, etc.

Yes, Polymega in theory is a niche product for those who easily want to use classic controllers, carts and have more money than time. You both nailed the reality of situation, it's too expensive, the features don't come setup out of the box and we now have quality 3rd party controllers. A used Dell for $50, an 8 bit do controller for $30 and a Retrode 2 for $70 and the experience is very good at almost 1/10 the price. My retro PC is in a beautiful ITX Lian Li Q-20 case with a used GTX 1060, core i5 6500 which were bought for peanuts ages ago and it's still impressive what's possible on these older chipsets. The evolution of the easy, plug and play, all-in-one retro device might be coming with the MARS project since originally Polymega was suppose to be a FPGA device.

Those Beelink and Minisforum mini PCs are actually really freakin' good!

Hi can you please post the link for the saturn emulation pc you built? bc i didn't find it in your channel

If you're going to spend money on some kind of emulation device get a Mister. FPGA, no lag, modern or old tvs, and even runs N64 and Saturn now.

In my mind for that money you should either get a MiSTer or an HDMI/RGB mod for original hardware.

I was superhyped as a diehard 32-bit collector, it's my favorite generation next to 8-16 bit. But yea, paying $1000 for a bunch of emulation modules, and they don't even play the games perfectly, nah, I'm good. As important as the input lag situation is for older games and emulation/using other displays, the 32-bit era really requires precise inputs due to all the added genres those consoles can play. Playing a PS2 on an old HDTV with component cables looks pretty good, especially for PS1 games. 3D PS2 games still have color bleed and tons of jaggies, but PS1 seems to almost look and play better on a PS2 with component hooked to the HDTV. Luckily all the PS2 HDMI kits are getting sold for the first time right now, so we'll see if that's a good solution with all the youtuber reviews coming up.

I use a raspberry pi. It was really fun to set up everything and runs great. I'm sure it's not the best, there's always something better out there, but it was great for my retro fix

Literally you can just buy a USB cartridge reader and rip the roms yourself if you *really* care about using physical media. and you can have all the cart readers plugged in at the same time!

AJ: Dude you are getting a DELL! Me: 😢

I'm a Red Cow noob (2 months old) but I have never seen EJ be this passionately against something (for good reason).

For that price you'd be way better off getting a mister. I built myself one of those Mister Multisystems a while back and it's super solid. I couldn't really think of a worse bang for your buck than the Polymega. That thing blows.

one of the reasons that i like having records is for the pointed experience. you are not just throwing tunes on in the background. i still find myself playing my 3ds most out of all. it's cozy af.

I gave up on the POLYMEGA and got a Mister back in 2020, never looked back.

The system was originally going to be FPGA but it obviously switched to software emulation. The main appeal for me was the fact that I could rip all of MY CD-based games onto a device that's dedicated to playing these games as I don't have an emotional attachment to a ROM file unless I know I'm playing my specific copy of a game. It's not hard for me to purchase a better spec and cheaper mini PC and repurpose it to accomplish the same thing. However, the thought of having to do all the busywork to get it set up just immediately turns me off. Having said all that, I recently received my unit and the modules many years after I ordered them and they're still sealed in their boxes. The initial zeal I had years ago to rip all these games and finally hook the system up to a capture card and record my gameplay has long since passed and I now just slowly wait for the inevitable release of death...or disc rot.

Many great points about the problem with this product are brought up in this video. The other issue for me is the need to even swap out modules for the cartridge based systems. Hypothetically speaking, even if all of this was lower in price, the emulation was top-notch, and it was more "plug and play" without the need for mess with all of the various settings.... there is still the need to swap out an entire module (not just a cartridge and possibly a controller) if I want to go from N64 to SNES, or any of the other cartridge based systems. That just sounds like a pain in the arse. It is also another potential long term failure point. Even if it is no worse on the hardware than swapping out cartridges is for the pin connectors or swapping out controllers are for the controller ports, it it still a level of gradual wear and tear that just seems unnecessary. But more importantly, it is very inconvenient. Having to essentially swap out a major piece of the console itself just to play different games defeats the purpose of an all-in-one console. At that point, whether I'm using original hardware or some kind of modern emulation or FPGA based clone consoles, I feel like I'd be better off having separate units for the consoles that I want to play, even if I would need to get some kind of HDMI switcher to connect them all up at one time, would be a better option. I can just swap between inputs on the TV and HDMI switcher (if necessary), turn on whichever device I want to use, and I'm good to go. Or if I'm limited on space or just don't want to hook that many units up at one time, I can hook up the one/couple that I want to play now and swap them out when I want to play a different one, which is no less convenient than swapping modules on this thing. It just seems to be overly complicated for what should be relatively simple to accomplish.

I wanted this thing SO bad but then I just got a cheap used PC and installed Lakka on it. It's just a consolized version of RetroArch.

You guys think it was as lazy as I did that AVGN just didn't finish Sim City (SNES)?

Nice episode i enjoy it thank u from morocco

Never understood people that play retro without emulation. You can literally make the game look 8x better, mods, cheats, save states, etc. And you can get a new import translation running in like 2 minutes. Playing ps1, wii, xbox360 in 4k is god's work

Dude was fake surprised at the price like he didn't know, then goes into breaking down the specs... bruh 😂

The original hype was that it was going to be FPGA. Then it became emulation, so the main selling point was lost.

I use Lemuroid on my tablet for free, it doesnt run anything past PS1 but for ds games its awesome. F Metal Jesus hes a hack.

the electrons don't even move through reality, what were they thinking?

I am going to get one now.... because you told me not to.

I believe the sound lag issue on Polymega stems from Linux because the Genesis Mini and Turbografx16 Mini have a similar problem.

Nice. Big game company's keep dicking around its going to be guys like this who going to be the next console makers.

I’ve never seen EJ so passionate about anything!

Do the enough electrons move through reality to make it an authentic experience?

I was interested in this system until they gave up on FPGA and switched to emulation. Same feeling I had at the time. Just get an emulation box that costs a fraction of the price.

For $200 or $300 you can get yourself a Retroid Pocket or any of the countless other handheld emulation systems and within a few hours you’ll be playing anything from Dreamcast backwards flawless. With pretty decent emulation now for PS2 and GameCube. And like I get it, it’s fun to want to use the cartridges you already own. Especially if you’ve got a large collection already. But when the system you are buying is just ripping the rom anyway… like what’s really the point?

The best thing about the Polymega is that it got me into FPGA instead.

I actually recently bought a Beelink mini PC and I’ve been running just Shmup MAME on it for Dodonpachi and it’s been amazing. I was actually able to 1CC it. I would imagine it would be able to do a ton of other emulation if it can do that. Okay maybe not Saturn, but ODEs have been around for Saturn for some time. I don’t think I paid $1,000 for mine.

7:16 What were they thinking?!

I have a batocera build on my ROG flex tablet.

I don't get the point of these systems that take the original disc/cart if they're not reading directly from them, or in the case of carts, writing the save to them.

EJ gives the most impassioned plea of his life.

I wonder if the Poly Mega becomes financially advantageous if you actually own a library of games for all of the CD consoles it can read and play. Maybe it’s cheaper than buying a working PlayStation, Saturn, NeoGeo etc. I enjoy listening to you guys discussing all of the options for emulation and video game consoles/games.

Chrono Cross, nice

I bought a Saturn and an Ode that can output scary or SVideo (which I use)…It’s fantastic. Fuck the polymega

Ripping roms from your own games for personal use is legal. Making personal backups of media has always been legal. It's only piracy if you try to sell or distribute them after.

don't think I've seen EJ this fired up lol

'How 'bout NO!'

I wonder if the Polymega will improve now that Atari has bought them.

For this money you can get a mini PC or an RPi that performs much better as an emulation machine. You are basically paying for the form factor, which isn't even that appealing.

Also doesn’t make sense to buy it since we live in an imperfect physical world

I get it

4:17 they should have made this console $8 cheaper.

Its so strange cuz its media based, emulation. Its only good seemingly for disks. If your someone with a huge library you constantly use, i guess its cool. By now id think there would be a way to say, hack an xbox series x, where you can put your disks in and have them read.but even thats tok much workaround and hassle. The emulation for polymega needs to be amazing to jump in,orher wise for the money, you just go original console. You can get a ps1, sega cd,saturn etc for not that much money relatively to the several hundred for the polymega with accesories. Than the cartridge side. Which if you wanna buy a smes,nes,, genesis, you can get all 3 for like 200$

My first impression is, I hate the shape of the controller.

I never understood the point of those consoles that rip the games and just emulate it.

I also remember hearing about the PolyMega like, 4-5 years ago, and like you guys, came across the Game Sack review and was like, "...Who is this even for??" This thing actually seems even worse than the retron. and over a grand for this pile of trash? Noooooo thank you. If you're interested in retro gaming, either stick with the original hardware, emulation, or grab something like the MiSTer. The Polymega isn't even worth half of what they ask for.

Totally worthless and yet overpriced.

I was super interested in the poly till i learned of the price and the stupid module setup,if i were paying 500,id expect it to have every slot known to man on the thing already,much like the retron 5 or retrofreak only with a laptop cd drive at the bottom .. 500 odd ... crazy money hyperkin need to get the drawing paper back out .. 200 and id buy for sure I do not in the slightest,agree with you about the retron 5 I love that thing that much i bought a second one,it has litterally took over my og consoles I hacked the shit out it and i greesed the cart slots and its an amazing console,filters will give it input lag so not use them and i have it hooked up to a crt I wish hyperkin would rerelease it here in the uk,its a difficult console to come by You guys are missing the point of these types of consoles,yes its emulation but that has its benefits too and in a system that can easily run all of your carts and discs IS a selling point and IS useful for many of us with ALOT of games spanning multiple consoles Ohh .. and if you have a spare 450 floating,dont bother with laptops or small pcs .. get a steam deck and put emulation station on it,mines runs practically everything right up to some switch and ps3 games,to think that the poly mega costs more than a steam deck and does ÀLOT less is insane to me .. but yeh .. plays your physical media so right there is the kicker

I have the Polymega and the issue with the wifi and the weird sound annoying me. Im wanting for 1.1.32 update to fix this console. don't give me wrong I Love it but the N64 performance is horrible and that breaking issue with the weird sound and the wifi been turn off is annoying as hell! I did put an I7 CPU in this console.

based on the raw specs alone, it is a staggeringly atrocious price-to-performance ratio, it's up there w/ the atari vcs in that department, literally a worse price-to-performance ratio than switch, if you want a pc you can emulate on get a steam deck it doubles as a handheld & is waaay more worth it lol EDIT: also frankie, it is perfectly legal to dump your own backup copies, it's the distribution of said copies that's illegal

Hell guys you can still soft mod an original Wii to do the majority of stuff this thing does...and better

Inviten a cesarito he is the best

I have a retroid pocket 2+ that i have hooked up to my tv and my kids use it all the time. Took some config on my end but its also portable....what a waste of money this is.

More like PolymegaSHIT!!

The big difference with the Retron5 is that it was created at a time when retro stuff was cheap, accessible, useful and simple. Polymega is the antithesis and symbol of the current market, overpriced, complicated and useless

If you are paying money for unlicended products, then you might as well stick to emulators

Something like this has to be turnkey, but it's not and it's crazy expensive. No point in it.

I wanted to like this product. My collection of retro and emulation gear is never complete. I just can’t put my finger on anything the Polymega does better than its competitors or that justifies the price. A $1000 PC, assuming it was built using the best components available within budget, could emulate all of these consoles, play most modern games, and still function as a computer. If you have original hardware you could mod it to have HDMI or read from an SD card instead of an ancient optical drive. You could use an analog bridge and scaler. FPGA is another option that’s cheaper and doesn’t have the issues Joe from Game Sack pointed out. I have an Evercade and it’s almost the same scenario, i.e. it doesn’t really do much I couldn’t get with an emulator. But the price is reasonable, they created new physical media, and if they keep doing stuff like porting over Duke Nukem 1 & 2 they might build a decent catalog of exclusives. I’ve seen cartridges endure decades of abuse/neglect and still work like a charm. On the other hand, I’ve also had CDs disintegrate, rot, crack, and get scratched, not to mention issues with drives like bad lenses or motors.

I love how yanks pronounce the word "mega" 😂 "MAYGA." 😂😂 Always makes me smile.

When it was released it did sound promising because of the Saturn emulation which wasn't out yet and they promised N64 cart emulation. Then they were plagued with controls, pandemic happened and the MiSTer started to get competent cores. If they released when they were supposed to, it wouldn't have been a disaster.

Im sorry but Batocera is trash overall.

1000 dollars ????? Buy a computer Objectivley better use of your money

Polymega sounds like a dark and edgy Zack Synder Polly pocket reboot. Think mighty Max without Max.

Wrong information, I got my console with all the add ons for $750. It’s a great little box I really enjoy all my games being installed.

Lots of incorrect information here.

I don't get It either it's Just an overpriced piece of crap that , yes use emulation but with real media... That converts then into Roms and ISO anyway

Real tired of youtubers who keep parroting "this is not for everybody, this is for collectors" fuck that shit

The controller is cringe

Just get real hardware and an everdrive. Quit being lazy. I hate these clones, they are always ugly and their controllers are a joke and there is always issues. There are no shortcuts for real hardware.

If you want a good time with emulating all these systems get at least a quadcore with AVX2 instruction set and basic DX12 and Vulkan support at least 1.1. That might not be every old dell you find online.