rockman_x_2002

Actually, the software installation isn't all that bad if you follow a good guide. I followed the guide posted on the RetroPie wiki, and had a full setup up and running in just a little over an hour or so. Of course, if you want to apply filtering and all that stuff to make the games look at a little better, there are a few extra steps, but that information is all out there. Plus, once you have it set up initially, just selecting and playing the games is totally menu-driven.

Depends on what you do with it. I wouldn't mind having a second for hacking purposes and all that. As it is, I have the one that I have now, but don't want to hack it because I want to keep it in its original state. But now that all the rest of this crap has come to light about discontinuation of the system and prices soaring back to obscene levels, I'm good with my Raspberry Pi and Everdrive, I think.

Got mine a few days ago, but just now getting a chance to post on here. Excellent cart, and loving it!

Count me in, too! Always interested in a good RPG!

Not bad, and not a bad game. Which version did you play, by chance? SNES, PC Engine, or the PSP remake?

Yep. Honest to God, you'd have a better chance winning the Powerball multiple times in a row. That's why I say, if I'm a developer, and I want to make retro-styled games for something? I'd do it on something that already exists, that's already established, and forget this business of building my own console for it. The risks are simply too great to make any sort of business sense in today's world.

Nah, just give me a documentary on RCA Videodisc. Or an audio book sold on 8-track tape, and I'm good. All jokes aside, I've been keeping up with this whole dumpster fire of a thing, here and with Retrogaming Roundup and elsewhere. And I do see some sense in a cart-based console. But this was built from the ground up as a train with square wooden wheels to start. When I first heard the idea proposed on Retrogaming Roundup, and the initial idea of having the games on ROM-based cartridge, a console with no Internet access (because by golly these games were going to be done bug-free from the start), and an inability to update game/system software, my initial gut reaction was, "Well yeah, but why?" There's no reason to forego using modern tech just because you want to tap into the retro vibe, and Nintendo has shown you can have some semblance of cartridges using fairly modern media that can be updated (to a degree), So I never saw the wisdom in having a system made in 2015 in 2016 today that's cut off from modern capabilities simply to spite itself. I understand the whole not wanting to have to have updates and all that, but this day and age it's very difficult to write a game that doesn't need a bug fix once in a while. What you do is ensure that, if you buy the console, you don't require Internet access to fully enjoy it, but if you do have Internet access (and who among us doesn't since we're right here on this board talking about this very thing), then your experience would be that much more enhanced. I think there would be a "right" way to do this sort of console. My vision would look more like a Raspberry Pi-esque hardware, custom OS that's built for games leaning toward retro but capable of more modern games if you could push it, media on flash memory cartridges, Internet access, and the ability to update the games and system via the Internet (but not necessarily online play). It would have to be cheap to manufacture, cheap on selling price, high on appeal, and above all, it would have to be a labor of love. It would also be a console with the understanding that you would be selling these type things at an absolute total loss, with the only possible profit being made back from selling games for it. That being said, it's still a totally unfeasible thing to do because the potential market for such a thing is pretty small when you factor in trying to sell this to the public at large, and not just a bunch of retro gamers like us. Moral of the story, as a developer? Just make games for the stuff that's out there, and if you really want to make a retro game, make it for one of our already existing and excellent systems.

Castlevania for the Colecovision anything? Sign me up!! I can't wait!

While browsing on reddit earlier, and discussing the whole scarcity of the Mini NES, someone posed the question whether other consoles (outside of those Nintendo have made) have seen the same issue before with low supply and high demand, scalpers buying them up, not being able to find them, etc. And while I do recall the PS3 and PS4 were initially difficult to find, it actually made me wonder about how things were in the past. So I thought I'd pose the question here and try to get a little insight from people who may recall: Were some of our beloved retro systems, when they were new to market, subject to the same problems we see with consoles like the Wii and the NES Mini? Does anyone remember if the Atari 2600, Colecovision, Intellivision, etc., were hard to find when they were first introduced to the market, and especially around the holidays, or were they just kinda always there and easily available to anyone that wanted one?

I figure not. The 4k TV I saw specifically states on the box that it does not include a tuner of any sort, and if you need to receive an over-the-air broadcast, you have to buy a receiver as well as an antenna. The receivers that I have seen as of late only accept digital ATSC/QAM, and typically don't support the old analog NTSC anymore, which means those old systems won't work with those. You would need some sort of method to convert the old RF signal to QAM, and possibly connect that through a digital receiver. Unfortunately, that doesn't exist, at least that I'm aware of.

It's hard for me to really truly define what's a "failed" system. For instance, I've heard people say the Dreamcast was a failed system, and while it's true that Sega exited the hardware market after the Dreamcast was beaten at market by the PS2, Gamecube and Xbox, I don't feel very comfortable calling it a failure exactly. It enjoyed a fair amount of support prior to those other machines, and saw some success in its earlier days, to the point where many of its best games saw ports to other consoles later. For me, a "failed" system is a system that never received any commercial success to speak of, and was utterly doomed from the beginning. Things like the 32x, Jaguar, and Virtual Boy. Even with the Neo Geo Pocket Color, I could see a case being made for it either way. Commercially it was a flop, but there were several titles released for it. All of these systems I collect for, incidentally.

Better luck than me. Out of curiosity, asked casually at my own local Walmart here in town this past Saturday. "We won't be getting any more until January." When I asked about Black Friday, his response was simply, "We aren't selling them on Black Friday here." So I came straight home, took to Amazon and ordered a Raspberry Pi 3 kit and a couple of controllers, and I'll set all that up with RetroPie over the weekend.

I'm a bit in both camps, honestly. On the one hand, if you're a collector, you want your system as close to original as possible. This is why, as a general rule, I haven't modded any of my older systems (and that's mostly because I have exactly one of each). However, if I had a spare one that was fairly common and serves as something of a "daily driver" system, I would mod that in a heartbeat to give it the best possible visuals, sound, etc. But I would always want to keep one system as it originally was. That being said, I know a lot of never televisions, especially the newest 4K ones, don't even have an RF connector on them. So if you want to play something like, say, the Atari 2600, Intellivision, Colecovision, etc., which only has RF output to begin with, you're most assuredly going to need to mod the console, or else get an old VCR or an RF demodulator or something similar to convert to composite output at minimum.

Yeah, that is an option, but the VCR/DVD combo that I have only has composite inputs on it. No RF connector at all. I did have a VCR before it that had them, though. It died honorably.

You picked up on that as well? The minute I heard that statement, I thought, "Yep. You designed the controllers strictly off the assumption that if they work with Wii Remotes, they'll work on this thing, too, without even the passing thought that Nintendo might thwart those efforts by introducing something to make third-party controllers not work on the NES Mini."

I was also sad to see that these newer TVs lack the older inputs. None of my consoles are modded for more modern output, so a Framemeister is of little use to me at the moment for some of my oldest consoles that only have RF out. If only there were some way it, too, could accept an RF signal and upconvert that. Yes, I know the quality would be lacking, but it would be convenient. And I hate the thought of modifying an original system, to be perfectly honest. This is exactly why I keep a couple of older CRTs sitting around. I know the old analog standard is going away, and that's the best way possible to play games for these systems that I know of. Direct connection of an RF cable to the back of the TV gives me a good, clean signal that's just perfect for these games.

All excellent games and in great shape. Fun to play, but all of them are fairly common to come across, so not exactly worth a fortune. Still excellent show-pieces, and again, all of them are fun to play. As for the weird little 4-channel balancer thing, that is for a quadraphonic amplifier.

I'd love an updated Star Raiders, please, or a mix between that game and Solaris. I've also thought a game like that would make for a great mobile title as well. Another game, though it's not specifically just an Atari 2600 game, but a VR version of Tron: Deadly Discs (or perhaps more appropriate, a version of the arcade game Discs of Tron).

I had the NES back in 1987, and got the Atari 7800 in 1989 as a replacement for our old Atari 2600 which bit the dust. The next system immediately following would've been the Super NES in 1991 at launch.

I never personally cared for redemption games all that much, at least those that didn't involve at least some degree of skill. Skee-Ball was always good, because that was a bit more like bowling, and the various basketball games were in the same vein. I also remember a video poker type game, Pop-A-Ball, which I actually liked because you did actually have some choice over the cards you kept, and you felt you had at least something of a random chance since you got to see the balls pop up and fly around all over the place. I could also tolerate the game where you roll a ball down a slight incline into slots, trying to spin a wheel above to make it land on certain spaces to increase your ticket payout (without hitting a bankrupt). Name of the game escapes me at the moment, and to be honest I can't be bothered to go look that up. The games I absolutely detest are the "coin pusher" type games where you drop a coin and watch, hoping that your one coin will send an avalanche of coins over the edge and get you a few tickets (and no, that never actually happened, ever). Perhaps slightly more tolerable, but only just, is the Cyclone game where you drop a token, a light goes around the machine under a dome, and you have to stop the light between two neon lights in a particular spot for a jackpot (or you could stop it elsewhere for a much smaller payout). Equally annoying, but I know some people liked it, is the Rock'n Bowl game (didn't care for it back then; don't care for it now). However, I do think these more modern redemption games based on cell phone games are a small step in the right direction. For one, they're actually games with actual skill involved, to a degree. Games like Fruit Ninja and Flappy Bird do require the player to bring some skill to the table in order to earn tickets. I've also seen a Yahtzee game that is basically the same general concept as the Pop-A-Ball game, except it's Yahtzee scoring instead of straight video poker. Even the Let's Make a Deal idea is a decent one, but that one is almost totally luck based from the get-go. But for every one of those kinds of games, I see much more of the "press this handle in to spin a wheel and maybe land on something" or "press this button to drop a block on top of this other block" type game, or some similar dross as that. Of course, the most floor space dedicated to these redemption games, the less floor space available for our beloved classic style arcade and pinball games, or even modern arcade games, and it's always sad to walk into an arcade today and not find a single game I care to spend so much as a single token on. But then again I do suppose the folks marketing these "family fun centers" are marketing more toward kids who eat this stuff up than us older guys and gals who prefer something a bit more vintage and refined.

I can't simply answer with just my "irrationals" retro computer wants without throwing in a mini-list of "irrational" video gaming wants as well. Strictly retro computer "irrational" wants: Commodore 65 Fully-equipped Apple I Commodore PET (not quite irrational, except I don't have the room for it) Strictly video gaming "irrational" wants: Neo-Geo (either MVS or AVS cab) Vectrex Intellivision Keyboard Component Intellivision III (the unreleased one with improved graphics, sound, etc.) Honorable mention is the Commodore SX-64, which was an "irrational" want in my playbook until I happened to stumble across one at a flea market a year ago. That one has since left the wants list, but it's by far one of my more favorite retro computing toys.

I have the same issue with my copy of Burgertime on my 7800, even though it works fine on the 2600. The issue described with Kool-Aid Man also shows up for me with my 7800. My guess is these two games simply have some issue with compatibility with 7800 consoles, especially given that both of them are M Network games. My 7800 console is the first model with the exposed expansion port, incidentally, but I don't think that plays a factor in these issues. I think it's just a problem with that particular game not being compatible with the 7800 for some reason.

I agree. Now, what would be nice, and it could be a good promotional for the new arcade game, is a release of remastered versions of Cruis'n USA, Cruis'n World, and Cruis'n Exotica, all with new graphics, better models, etc., but still retain the same gameplay that made the originals great. That would be nice to have on a home machine.

I get what everyone is saying, and no, I'm not exactly asking for something like the Sega 32x, where you take console A, attempt to turn it into console B, and hope and pray you'll make a profit (protip: you won't). What I'm saying is, the functional difference between a PlayStation 4 and a PlayStation 4 NEO is that the NEO will have a (very) slightly faster CPU, improved GPU, and slightly more memory bandwidth. That's all it brings to the table. They're tiny improvements, relatively, but just enough to get a PS4 to output games in 4K and bump up the graphics rendering just a tad. Issue is, they're releasing this as a totally new console that's going to cost about a little less than original model did when it first appeared on store shelves. Now, for handhelds that's annoying enough (DS to DSi, 3DS to New 3DS), but handhelds are much cheaper than the original entry price for a console. I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you plan to make these incremental improvements to existing hardware, provide early adopters with a cheaper way to get there (not an expensive add-on either. I'm talking around the $100 range or thereabouts). But if they're absolutely intent on selling me a new box for improved anything? I'd honestly rather they quit screwing around and work on making the PlayStation 5 happen sooner. It just irks me a little, that's all. Edit: I did notice a comment earlier about upgrade modules not accompanying retro consoles as well. If Sony is true to their word, they've said that all the games coming out going forward will continue to support the base console, just without 4K output. So you wouldn't be stuck like you are, say, with the Intellivision's Intellivoice games, where speech is an integral part of the gameplay (although, to be honest, every Intellivision I've ever seen had an Intellivoice with it).

With the announcement that both Sony and Microsoft are looking to bring newer versions of their consoles to market in the not-so-distant future, that means those of us who are early adopters (or for that matter, if you go out and buy an Xbox One or PS4 today), your console is soon to be obsolete. If you want to get the advantages of the newer consoles, that means either trading in your current console for the newer one, or buying the newer version outright. Either of these seems like a fairly expensive and wasteful proposition. So, the question is, is it now time for console manufacturers to re-visit the idea of allowing users to upgrade their current consoles by installing expansion modules? It's not a new idea, of course. The N64 has expansion RAM packs, and prior to that, consoles had CD-ROM drives and various other add-ons that allowed you to add more functionality to the console you already bought. A lot of these add-ons back then seemed like afterthoughts, and they didn't exactly integrate seamlessly with their consoles, leading to some rather ugly-looking abominations (here's looking at you Sega 32X). My thinking, though, is that console designers should incorporate future-proofing into the design by supplying a sensible expansion port which can be used for various improvements, such as upgrading the GPU (or adding a second, more powerful GPU to supplement the first), add more memory, or do any number of other things that might actually be a bit cheaper than just redesigning a brand new version of the same console with a handful of incremental upgrades. That way, anyone who owns the base console can purchase the upgrade, and you could still have the same policy in place of having every game support the base console, but have enhancements and extra features if you have the expansion. Seems to me this would be an easier sell to the consumer, and would result in the hardware manufacturer making more money in the long run, assuming the expansion product is done well (and if it failed, would be far less costly for the hardware manufacturer to simply drop support for the expansion). With USB-C being available, it might even be possible to put a USB-C port on the base console for the purpose of expansion devices, much like external graphics card adapters for gaming laptops (which I know at least Razer and Dell are selling for their gaming laptops).