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Street Fighter II 30th Anniversary SNES Repro [iam8bit]


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The obvious subtext here: your old equipment is not our problem!

Sure, it's definitely a CYA kind of thing. It's just hilarious to what ends iam8bit and Capcom will go to scare people into not playing the old game system.

 

It sure is a damn shame nobody is making really high-quality clone consoles that just read carts and play games, though. Everybody wants to dump the ROM to the system, and then you get systems like the RetroN5 that are just horrendous. There's just too much latency in an RPi3 system to be a good all-in-one emulation system and it doesn't have a cart slot anyway.

Edited by derFunkenstein
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Sure, it's definitely a CYA kind of thing. It's just hilarious to what ends iam8bit and Capcom will go to scare people into not playing the old game system.

 

It sure is a damn shame nobody is making really high-quality clone consoles that just read carts and play games, though. Everybody wants to dump the ROM to the system, and then you get systems like the RetroN5 that are just horrendous. There's just too much latency in an RPi3 system to be a good all-in-one emulation system and it doesn't have a cart slot anyway.

 

On the first point, I don't blame them, because even with 16-bit era games, there's a lot of variability with how well these cartridges can still be read and/or how the systems hold up. These things will not improve.

 

On the second point, I disagree. I find the Retro Freak (which I use instead of my RetroN 5) to be an excellent solution to the convenience problem.

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On the second point, I disagree. I find the Retro Freak (which I use instead of my RetroN 5) to be an excellent solution to the convenience problem.

The RetroFreak is definitely an exception. I'd love to have one, but they seem kinda rare these days. They're on eBay but from what I know they're no longer being produced.

 

Edit: Their relatively higher price is a result of scalping, but that popularity should be a sign to some manufacturer that they should make something like it.

Edited by derFunkenstein
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The RetroFreak is definitely an exception. I'd love to have one, but they seem kinda rare these days. They're on eBay but from what I know they're no longer being produced.

 

Edit: Their relatively higher price is a result of scalping, but that popularity should be a sign to some manufacturer that they should make something like it.

 

Amazon has the best price I've seen shipped at $185: http://amzn.to/2wM3Dls That's the good bundle with the controller adapter.

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It's interesting that this is just going to be the first in a series of such re-releases from iam8bit and other companies, although some of those other releases will be a fraction of the price (and not packaged as a collectible). Interesting times to say the least.

See that's what I'm hoping for. If some of them wise up and do a good run at the prices we find people like Piko Interactive do on also finished (or nearly and he finishes up) projects using the same general pool of suppliers for parts and the rest it's not unreasonable to think you could easily buy a loose SNES or Genesis cart for like $40-50 given you have a corporation behind it wanting a cut too and not just some small supplier like him.

 

There are others into this, there's that one game on Amazon now part of a mostly Japanese franchise of a kind of megaman wannabe super hero platformer that was on the Bandai satellite system but the company reissued it using new parts and on a solid cart and it just arrived in this quarter. You also have that release of that compressed and beta level game due to a failed kickstarter from some former SNK crew with Unholy Night (1v1 fighter) on SFC/SNES too. It's a thing now and this will just grow.

 

 

 

WOw that retrofreak set dropped again... $165 and up shipped within the US promised today (now) by Sept 2nd. That's impressive. A month or so ago the lowest I saw was $25-30 higher. It's approaching a value I'd buy one of them finally. Though I'd have to get some kind of Famicom to NES adapter for my carts which sucks.

Edited by Tanooki
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WOw that retrofreak set dropped again... $165 and up shipped within the US promised today (now) by Sept 2nd. That's impressive. A month or so ago the lowest I saw was $25-30 higher. It's approaching a value I'd buy one of them finally. Though I'd have to get some kind of Famicom to NES adapter for my carts which sucks.

I just had a couple eBay auctions end, and I'm waiting on payment from one and then I'm going to grab one.

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It looks like (yet another) random clone system, the sort that you could easily snag for $20-$50; am I missing something? Why is it nearly $200?

 

Does it make breakfast/sing soothing songs to me, or ?

Reads ROMs off of micro SD and supports original controllers is the biggest one. Nothing else does both of those.

 

Bill has a pretty big writeup at Armchair Arcade:

 

http://armchairarcade.com/perspectives/2015/12/30/review-cyber-gadget-retro-freak-plays-games-from-16-different-videogame-systems-includes-videos/

 

I'm interested in whether Bill has found the updates to allow more ROMs at a time without keeling on the SD card, or if it still stumbles, because that would be an issue for me.

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It looks like (yet another) random clone system, the sort that you could easily snag for $20-$50; am I missing something? Why is it nearly $200?

 

Does it make breakfast/sing soothing songs to me, or ?

 

No, it's not. It plays games from a wide variety of systems. Here's a very old review I did: http://armchairarcade.com/perspectives/2015/12/30/review-cyber-gadget-retro-freak-plays-games-from-16-different-videogame-systems-includes-videos/

 

It's been updated several times since my original review.

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Though I'd have to get some kind of Famicom to NES adapter for my carts which sucks.

 

You can get them relatively cheap of course (I had a couple myself), but the reality is, unless it's something unusual that doesn't have a ROM already available, there's no reason not to just put the ROM on an SD card and run it from there without the cartridge. There's no advantage to using the cartridge with a system like this.

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I'm interested in whether Bill has found the updates to allow more ROMs at a time without keeling on the SD card, or if it still stumbles, because that would be an issue for me.

 

No, it still takes a while to read huge ROM sets when you first power it on. Once it's powered on, it's fine. I manage that by only having essential ROMs for each system. No more than a 100 or so at best across each of the many platforms it supports. As you long as you don't have bloated collections of ROMs on the SD card, there's no real delay upon startup.

 

For me, the only extra costs with this system after getting the bundle have been getting wireless controllers and USB extensions. I also held out hope to get another controller adapter, but that seems unlikely now. Most likely I'll just buy a second system bundle. Obviously the controller adapter also works on the PC.

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Eh, looks decent enough, but I've already got a pile of the Retron, Atgames, and 'Yobo' things, among others......I'd give $50 for one, maybe $75. The sd chip thing is neat and all, but my hacked PSPs do the same thing, not to mention DS flashcarts.

 

Soooooo many emulation/clone systems available these days, we've certainly got plenty of options.

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No, it still takes a while to read huge ROM sets when you first power it on. Once it's powered on, it's fine. I manage that by only having essential ROMs for each system. No more than a 100 or so at best across each of the many platforms it supports. As you long as you don't have bloated collections of ROMs on the SD card, there's no real delay upon startup.

 

For me, the only extra costs with this system after getting the bundle have been getting wireless controllers and USB extensions. I also held out hope to get another controller adapter, but that seems unlikely now. Most likely I'll just buy a second system bundle. Obviously the controller adapter also works on the PC.

 

The controller adapter is a big sell for me because I like the idea of using real controllers.

 

100 or so for each system is way more than enough for me. I was afraid it'd get stuck on 100-150 total ROMs, which would be unreasonable.

 

Won't replace my Everdrives and real hardware, but the idea of having it on my big TV in the living room is really attractive.

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Eh, looks decent enough, but I've already got a pile of the Retron, Atgames, and 'Yobo' things, among others......I'd give $50 for one, maybe $75. The sd chip thing is neat and all, but my hacked PSPs do the same thing, not to mention DS flashcarts.

 

Soooooo many emulation/clone systems available these days, we've certainly got plenty of options.

 

The benefit of something like the Retro Freak is that it's 100% plug and play. No setup, no configuration, etc., (outside of course of updating the firmware occasionally, for instance to enable SG-1000 compatibility), and it's optimized for modern displays with true 720p over HDMI. It's basically a plug and play emulation box with no performance issues and the ability to read original cartridge and, with the adapter, use original controllers. While I agree that having a pile of clone systems gets tiresome after a while, I don't mind adding more when it gives me something better. I have no problems with deprecating "obsolete" hardware.

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I know it's basically a multi-everdrive system all in one with a cart reader but to me it's important to still be able to use what I bought/gifted back in the day as I've held it all these years. So I would pop for the adapter and I know they supposedly made one but I've yet to see it bundled into anything. Ultimately if you like using their controller you can break off most of that system and it comes down to a really really small sized white brick and that's all you need once you load it up with a heap of ROMs.

 

That's what those nice smokemonster rom sets are good for, every single thing all regions categorized in a few useful folders and then pop a controller and a power and video cable into the little RF module and you're good to go. Me I'd keep it in one piece and use the adapter for my real controllers though.

 

I've had that R5 and have dealt with its issues and while this is in theory very similar it lacks the bugged out problems hyperkin couldn't get themselves around so it's a better overall core experience, but when you figure it's a multi-everdrive system too you're into a special unique league of its own.

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My Retro Freak is pretty good on most systems but struggles to identify a fair amount of my Turbo/PCE library from hueys (all of which are minty clean and play great in real hardware). In many (but not all, mine won't run Ninja Gaiden at ALL) cases you can still run the game but this precludes you from getting the ROM on there with all the data easily.

 

Also, my seller never sent me a controller adapter even though that is the package I bought. This is a seller issue, not Retro Freaks fault, but I felt like this was a scam he had run as opposed to an honest mistake. I'd have had to return it, according to them, and order again. I didn't bother.I'll try to find this chump's name.

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I love new SNES (and whatever else) games. Totally cool.

 

I don't get the point of this at all. You can buy SNES Street Fighter for next to nothing, why would you want this in comparison to Championship Edition or SUPER, and who wants to pay $100 for a new box and a poster or whatever? Ick. Rerelease games that are super exepensive to buy, please, if we're gonna go down this route.

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I love new SNES (and whatever else) games. Totally cool.

 

I don't get the point of this at all. You can buy SNES Street Fighter for next to nothing, why would you want this in comparison to Championship Edition or SUPER, and who wants to pay $100 for a new box and a poster or whatever? Ick. Rerelease games that are super exepensive to buy, please, if we're gonna go down this route.

Games that are super-expensive to buy, like Super Mario RPG and Mega Man X2 all use add-on chips that would require either salvaging the chips from other carts, reproducing the chips, or adding an FPGA that emulates the chip. All of those are going to add to the price, and not really help with making those rare games accessible. Complete copies of those games are around $140-150 on eBay right now, and a reproduction of those games in "collectible" form is going to rival that. Along with the fact that iam8bit and Capcom are artificially limiting supply to a small run, it just doesn't look like it's going to help making games accessible.

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I love new SNES (and whatever else) games. Totally cool.

 

I don't get the point of this at all. You can buy SNES Street Fighter for next to nothing, why would you want this in comparison to Championship Edition or SUPER, and who wants to pay $100 for a new box and a poster or whatever? Ick. Rerelease games that are super exepensive to buy, please, if we're gonna go down this route.

 

post-61233-0-23244800-1504212321.gif

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I love new SNES (and whatever else) games. Totally cool.

 

I don't get the point of this at all. You can buy SNES Street Fighter for next to nothing, why would you want this in comparison to Championship Edition or SUPER, and who wants to pay $100 for a new box and a poster or whatever? Ick. Rerelease games that are super exepensive to buy, please, if we're gonna go down this route.

I feel like a bunch of execs at Capcom were sitting around at lunch, saying "How can we milk a system that doesn't allow for DLC?"

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Hah nice I can imagine that and it wouldn't surprise me. I'm sure they probably had an idea how, but then realized someone would share the unlock online if they hid like alternative costume colors on the cart or allowed for a CE setup so the other 4 were playable. They did it with SF4 hiding a lot on the disc as so called DLC like shady crooks. :D

 

I agree $100 is a total milking as the parts and manufacturing costs don't add up anywhere near that even with a few bucks into the added art fluff and the rest in the box/package. It's nice they're doing it, even if it is a limited run, but the price is pure sponging collectors into limited runs who should probably be fairly evenly split between keeping and scalping for a hell of a premium from those who couldn't get in on it as that's where we are now with limited run stuff.

 

 

 

Hey this came to my attention online that this maybe something a bit more underhanded with the release of this game.

Image from Capcom/iam8bit of the game in the see through shell:

https://www.destructoid.com//ul/458096-celebrate-street-fighter-s-30th-anniversary-with-this-limited-edition-snes-cartridge/06-street_fighter_II-snes-noscale.jpg

 

Image of the original PCB for SNES:

https://snescentral.com/0/0/4/0046/SPAL-AUZP-0-front.jpg

 

Notice they're identical boards, traces, etchings, cap and chips?

 

Looks to me they at Capcom either had some old boards lying around or someone sourced out buying a few thousand carts online and they're just re-packaging them and selling that stuff for $100. Pretty sleazy stunt.

Edited by Tanooki
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