tecmocerealbowl

I think the appeal is the all in one nature that is much closer to plug n' play friendly. Emulation requires a lot more user input and tinkering. I know I've had tons of headache with software like RetroArch, and stand-alone emulators can have their own issues with some games launching fine and others needing to have emulator adjustments done to run optimally. It's not a boot-it-up and go option, at least not initially. I think the intangibles is what the system is aiming for. If all the modules came with the base unit for $400, especially with some sort of stand so they could be stacked next to the base, I think the asking price would be a lot more competitive.

I don't want to come off as an apologist for the company, but the head of the project did have an interview with retrorgb where he admitted the company made poor communication decisions and has been making progress, albeit always slower than anticipated. To answer your question from my personal perspective, I believe the system has a lot of potential. I also think it's going to be hampered by the cost. The company built a lot of the uphill battle itself. I have some experience with emulation boxes myself, and I don't find them easy. It's not there all built and ready to go, each system has tons of configuration options, and trying to set universal controls still often leaves a systems controls having to be adjusted as you switch. You need a front end, you need to load roms, and if your using one with fancy scroll wheels and massive game lists, the menus, sub-menus, duplicates, and visuals are not cleanly presented or quick to access. If you decide to use standalone emulators, every UI is different, and emulators very in quality and features. Stuff like mednafen standalone is more like MS-DOS than a program designed for Windows in mind. Some things run better on Snes9X, some run better on bsnes. Want graphical enhancements or need to tweak settings? Your emulator of choice might have dozens of settings available, some with jargon you may not understand off the bat. Want an all-in-one? Retroarch claims to be the answer, but the interface is buried in menus and options, and in my experience, often has settings inexplicably reset or just decide it will crash on boot whether the installation is fresh or not across multiple pcs running different versions of Windows. PC and emulation boxes are great, but they are DIY from the software side. They aren't appealing to a lot of gamers, because they require lots of time and effort. The idea of this machine is that everything is ready to go with no configuration needed outside of choosing a controller to use. Discs and roms can be dumped, so they only need to be read once. It's pretty clear they are putting tons of work into a clean UI that is good at choosing the right images for games instead of all images for them. The fact that the emulators are also being tweaked for the hardware configuration is encouraging too. They even have Steve Snake of Kega Fusion fame on the project, and in my opinion that is one of the best ease-of-use emulators that has ever been made. There's lots of good here with the bad, but the bad took me from excited, to very disappointed, to waiting for impressions from other people of the full product line. Right now I have an OSSC, and I'm happy with that, but it's also hard to have all of my systems setup. I have to keep half of them in a closet.

I'm actually finally looking forward to this machine, even if it's just the base for awhile. It's still overpriced, and the company overpromised, underdelivered, and took it out on the people patiently trying to wait for years for them to finish. I've followed this project for a long time and remember when it was supposed to be all FPGA based. The company talked about N64 and Dreamcast support being very real near future goals. They gave release dates dating back to to 2-3 years ago multiple times and even had in print interviews you can find online where they said they'd be having kickstarter like campaigns. As delay after delay mounted, I found that posts on their forums asking questions about the product or pointing out inconsistencies were consistently not posting or getting removed. Eventually they closed their forums, changed their name, and then treated their customer base with what seemed to be annoyance many times. The work is real. I'm happy about that, but the company announced the project to the public years too early if they weren't looking for community involvement or support. I hope Polymega emerges as a real all-in-one HDMI option for classic consoles, because if it meets its goals where they are now, this is about the slickest package anyone could ask for. I can't say I have had respect inspired in me for the company, but they appear to be pulling their weight until the work is done even if some people inside the company appear to have acted in an elitist fashion previously.

I don't get it. E3 was the time to make a big push, but this is half-hearted. There was a video on a Twitter account, perhaps it was linked to from this thread, of the demonstrator at the booth stating the system was overheating. The release date gets pushed back again, for maybe the 4th time. I'm currently working on a compact pc build. I think with a gaming monitor I could turn it into a retro gaming machine with a front-end, and it probably has more promise. I had money set aside for this thing for ages, but I haven't been able to hold on to it forever. I also have concerns about the cost of additional modules considering that controllers are being bundled. I think most retro-gamers already have decent options for most consoles. I posted a question on the forums about not seeing the universal controller on display when the new controllers were announced, and the reply they gave was that it was a wireless controller that wasn't as well suited for input lag. But, the demo unit at their E3 both had a wired universal controller.

I saw a post recently wondering if all the positive reception to the video showing the circuit board was real. I can speak for myself and say my response was tepid. I have an account on Polymega and check the forums a couple times a week. I'd say I've had half or more of my posts on forums not show up, including one on that exact thread. The reason why I don't know. My response to the console has gone from a lot of enthusiasm about the concept to wondering why Polymega kept missing deadlines where they promised more information. The forums are really relatively inactive as there's been so little information for an extended period of time. The only way I can see the Polymega picking up steam is if there's a major push of information all at once. It's really quite a Nintendo level of tease, except in Nintendo's case they just say we'll show when we're ready and people are brimming over with anticipation. This is an unproven brand/product that, at least as building a customer and fan base goes, has been mishandled. No one expects a small company to be the end all be all of game companies, but their level of engagement has been very sub-par. I'm keeping my fingers crossed though, because I still like the concept, and if compatibility and lag issues are as minimal as humanly possible, this could be a great product to bring retro gaming from a number of generations into the modern age.