Retroblox

[derFunkenstein]

Given how rumors are swirling of iPhone shortages and whatnot I'm surprised they haven't already done so. 

[dj_convoy]

Irritating to see another YouTube personality I like well enough (MVG) giving this thing the time of day. Quit aiding and abetting this thing.

[godslabrat]

I have to wonder if being in the Beta test comes with an NDA.  

[DurradonXylles]

1 hour ago, godslabrat said:

I have to wonder if being in the Beta test comes with an NDA.  

It's not supposed to be, the beta signup page says that it's not bound by such an agreement and they permit people sharing their experiences publicly.

 

https://www.polymega.com/2020/01/21/beta-test/

[dj_convoy]

Well, if MVG doesn't like it, he'll say so... and he said he paid for it, so it's not like they're sending him a free unit... but it still rubs me the wrong way (as did Jeremy Parrish putting it over or Coury from MLiG and John from Digital Foundry). Even if the unit is somehow PERFECT, they took people's money and set on it for a year and a half with little to no communication.

Edited March 11, 2020 by dj_convoy

[DurradonXylles]

Here's the big update: https://www.polymega.com/2020/03/13/polymega-beta-update-retail-more/

 

Each part of the page with a TL;DR if you just want to skim:

 

 

So two waves of beta units: an initial, smaller wave that ships out the last week in March (expected to arrive in April), and a second, larger wave that ships out toward the end of April (expected to arrive in May). Once again states that there's no NDA so info will be freely shared if and when units arrive and start being tested.

 

Here's what the retail boxes will look like.

 

 

Online retail sales for the Polymega will start April 15th. Wal-Mart is the exclusive online retailer in NA for now. Brick-n-mortars interested in carrying the console should contact the distributors mentioned above. More regions for international distribution TBA.

 

 

Retail launch MSRP will be $400 for the base console with $80 per module; preorders for a cheaper price will remain open for a short time longer.

 

 

@derFunkenstein mentioned that Playmaji should've mentioned the coronavirus by now. Well here it is: several facilities producing units were halted for 30-60 days to contain the virus, but are back up and working now.

 

 

Regular live streams will be happening soon, and tutorials and other videos are currently in the works. CD compatibility is still in the works, with testing still being done for the various disc-based consoles they support (they have a lot of games still to test). The FAQ will be regularly updated as further updates are made with modules and hardware compatibility.

 

I'm glad to see that they are actually buckling down and getting stuff done, at this point there shouldn't be any more delays if they are truly ready to ship out units. So assuming that they don't make an eleventh hour delay (doing one now would be disastrous for them), we'll be seeing beta units being tested by the general public quite soon. I expect MVG will make a video if and when he gets his (I suspect he'll be in the first beta run).

 

I'm incredibly skeptical of the fact that they're going to be making retail units available right in the middle of preorder beta testing, but it seems that the video game industry right now is quite comfortable with the idea that preorders, day one purchases and early adopters are the beta testers of their games, so whatever. However, considering people are paying at least $300 for an emulation box, and consoles live and die by the first 2-4 weeks of sales and critical reception, Playmaji either has Duke Nukem styled Balls of Steel(tm), is incredibly confident in their market, or have some timed obligations to the investors who gave them money to develop the console.

 

I'm still curious over a handful of details with the console, especially since all of the talk about HLE BIOS was only ever directed toward PS1 and Saturn emulation (all of the other footage of CD emulation captured up to now still uses official BIOS, eg the NGCD using CDZ BIOS). But we'll see.

[godslabrat]

I don't doubt that it's coming, just that it's incredibly unimpressive from a technical standpoint as well as from a value-for-the-dollar standpoint.  I don't expect to be wowed on performance, though I'm willing to be proven wrong there.  What they offer is a pretty box and UI.  Okay, let's see where that goes.

 

Now that the product is "live", it seems polymega's target market will be people ready spend $400 on an HDMI-capable Saturn/PS1 unit.  Everything else this thing supports is either done better elsewhere or niche as hell.  So let's see how big that pie is.

[kevtris]

Why they are they opening it up for orders?  They have to still ship it to all the suckers that paid them.   The thing's almost a whole year late at this point.  Maybe they want to rob peter to pay paul, kind of like a videogame pyramid scheme.  They need money to fulfill current orders, so they will use the money from new orders to build the stuff for old orders.   They've wasted an entire year's worth of money without shipping anything, so that cash has to come from somewhere.  I guess shipping out a few "beta units" will show that yes, it does theoretically exist, so place those orders now!

[cybercylon]

That is a lot of coin for an emulation box, even at the pre-order price. That is pretty shady to open it up for orders considering first adopters have been given squat.

[elmer]

3 hours ago, godslabrat said:

I don't doubt that it's coming, just that it's incredibly unimpressive from a technical standpoint as well as from a value-for-the-dollar standpoint.  I don't expect to be wowed on performance, though I'm willing to be proven wrong there.  What they offer is a pretty box and UI.  Okay, let's see where that goes.

 

Now that the product is "live", it seems polymega's target market will be people ready spend $400 on an HDMI-capable Saturn/PS1 unit.  Everything else this thing supports is either done better elsewhere or niche as hell.  So let's see how big that pie is.

 

Yep, basically a dual-core PC of unknown build quality and longevity, with uncertain/unlikely availability of repairs or replacement parts.

 

I'm not sure why some people seem to think that this is a reasonable substitute for consoles that were manufactured in their millions, or for a more standard PC where you can find really cheap replacement parts.

 

I supect that the refurbished Dell 9020 that I recently purchased for $135, which unlike the PolyMega actually meets Mednafen's minimum specs for Saturn emulation, is a much better deal.

 

Edited March 14, 2020 by elmer

[godslabrat]

41 minutes ago, elmer said:

 

Yep, basically a dual-core PC of unknown build quality and longevity, with uncertain/unlikely availability of repairs or replacement parts.

 

I'm not sure why some people seem to think that this is a reasonable substitute for consoles that were manufactured in their millions, or for a more standard PC where you can find really cheap replacement parts.

 

I supect that the refurbished Dell 9020 that I recently purchased for $135, which unlike the PolyMega actually meets Mednafen's minimum specs for Saturn emulation, is a much better deal.

 

Now that Seedi is going open standard, I'm *very* interested in building a Seedi box.  Went to check out boxes, and found a very nice mini barebones system with a 5.25" bay for less than the price of the R-Blo.  And for my my purposes, the PC case actually has a more useful layout.  
 

 

[derFunkenstein]

6 hours ago, kevtris said:

Why they are they opening it up for orders?  They have to still ship it to all the suckers that paid them.   The thing's almost a whole year late at this point.  Maybe they want to rob peter to pay paul, kind of like a videogame pyramid scheme.  They need money to fulfill current orders, so they will use the money from new orders to build the stuff for old orders.   They've wasted an entire year's worth of money without shipping anything, so that cash has to come from somewhere.  I guess shipping out a few "beta units" will show that yes, it does theoretically exist, so place those orders now!

I think you answered your own question there. It's highly unlikely they're flush with cash. 

[BillLoguidice]

What I'm surprised about is how they're still limiting their market by not supporting ROMs. I have checked in again until recently and it seems like they did a bunch of stuff/updates, but not that. Seems strange.

[cacophony]

21 minutes ago, BillLoguidice said:

What I'm surprised about is how they're still limiting their market by not supporting ROMs. I have checked in again until recently and it seems like they did a bunch of stuff/updates, but not that. Seems strange.

I think this is the reason:

Quote

Additionally, the Polymega™ Shop, launching in 2019, will carry hundreds of games you can download digitally to your system. Top quality titles start at just $3.99, and CD games start at $5.99. Full title list coming soon.

I would imagine it's hard to attract publishers/content for your store if you publicly support side-loading said content via other means. Also, they probably see the store as a revenue source, which would be hurt if they supported roms.

 

Maybe they'll be a way to do it unofficially though.

Edited March 15, 2020 by cacophony

[godslabrat]

4 hours ago, cacophony said:

I think this is the reason:

I would imagine it's hard to attract publishers/content for your store if you publicly support side-loading said content via other means. Also, they probably see the store as a revenue source, which would be hurt if they supported roms.

 

Maybe they'll be a way to do it unofficially though.

Earlier, I had mentioned Seedi... I also wonder how hard it would be to simply jailbreak an R-Blo and load Seedi onto it.  If it's essentially a PC in a fancy case, there's very little that should prevent it...

[DurradonXylles]

13 hours ago, cacophony said:

I would imagine it's hard to attract publishers/content for your store if you publicly support side-loading said content via other means. Also, they probably see the store as a revenue source, which would be hurt if they supported roms.

 

Maybe they'll be a way to do it unofficially though.

That's another handful of my many questions over this device; in fact we've heard little to nothing outside of it being a thing, and Bernal himself being hopeful that this will be a hit. It's clear that they want to push this storefront to be a prevalent usage of the device, but what exactly is their strategy with it?

• Which publishers and rights holders have they actually contacted and signed game licensing contracts for?
• How exactly will this work with CD-based games, since they only have HLE solutions for the PlayStation and Saturn?
• Will they be able to license the BIOS from SNK, Sega, Konami and others so that you can get them for free with the purchase of one of the games from their respective platforms?
• What games are planned for the Polymega store, if any at all?
• What will the cost be for each game?
• Will the store be available during the beta, at launch, or sometime afterwards?

 

Remember, they confirmed on Twitter that users can load official BIOS for consoles if they want, but they cannot provide them for the obvious legal reasons. I get not being to license out the PS1's BIOS, since Sony would not be up for that period, but Sega, SNK, Konami and Atari? Seems kinda iffy that several companies that are notorious for living off of past glory and openly whore out their IPs to licencors for relatively cheap wouldn't be open to negotiating the prices for BIOS of long dead consoles that they haven't actually used in over two decades.

 

Not to mention, as I said over a year ago, requiring the users to grab BIOS for consoles like the Mega CD and Neo Geo CD seems incredibly redundant if you got you want to stay legal and already got your hands on any of these consoles, and thus heavily detracts from the value of buying a several hundred dollar emulation machine (even if those consoles have to be repaired).

 

 

20 hours ago, kevtris said:

Why they are they opening it up for orders?  They have to still ship it to all the suckers that paid them.   The thing's almost a whole year late at this point.  Maybe they want to rob peter to pay paul, kind of like a videogame pyramid scheme.  They need money to fulfill current orders, so they will use the money from new orders to build the stuff for old orders.   They've wasted an entire year's worth of money without shipping anything, so that cash has to come from somewhere.  I guess shipping out a few "beta units" will show that yes, it does theoretically exist, so place those orders now!

More like a video game Ponzi scheme, but yeah I agree. As I said I still have many other questions over this device, but at this point we've likely already seen fools parted with their money. I'm waiting to see what MVG and other YouTubers who likely got into the first beta run will say. I am all but certain once this thing reaches retailers it's going to flop, as previous experiences with other expensive, super niche products that are confused over what audience they are catering to have shown, but again we'll see.

Edited March 15, 2020 by DurradonXylles

[godslabrat]

As far as games... it stands to reason that the companies already on board with the online store are the same as the ones providing the pack-in games... which does not cause any excitement there.  Maybe others have signed on in the interim, but there's no sign of that.

 

PlayJujie also used the NES Rom Creator software as an effort to recruit "new" games, which implies that there will be homebrew efforts on the store.  If true, that's actually one aspect of the system that isn't totally stupid.

Edited March 15, 2020 by godslabrat

[enoofu]

Yeah since about 80-90% of the games on those systems are probably Lost IP's or in very complicated and confused right holders by now after 25+ years. Plus with the the Dot com bust and Arcade crash in the 90's and no go way of enforcing copyrights with the rise of the internet and emulators;

[Newsdee]

It's dicey to bet on a non-existing homebrew community. What incentive do people have to code for this and not a PC?

Edited March 17, 2020 by Newsdee

[DurradonXylles]

On 3/17/2020 at 12:18 AM, Newsdee said:

It's dicey to bet on a non-existing homebrew community. What incentive do people have to code for this and not a PC?

Good question when you consider the fact that the homebrew wouldn't be running natively on the Polymega, they would be homebrew made for any of the consoles that it can emulate.

[godslabrat]

Eh, look at it from the homebrewer's perspective.  If you get $1 for each ROM sold on the Polymega store, that's a little extra coin in your pocket, on top of the couple dozen carts you'll move.  Maybe a couple hundred if your game is worthy of Kickstarter.  
 

Any return, from any place, is welcome to a home brewer.  Polymega is as good a source as any other.

[Keatah]

On 3/16/2020 at 11:18 PM, Newsdee said:

It's dicey to bet on a non-existing homebrew community. What incentive do people have to code for this and not a PC?

 

It's downright wasteful and pointless - especially when there are perfectly viable platforms already established.

 

[+Black_Tiger]

On 3/18/2020 at 9:29 AM, godslabrat said:

Eh, look at it from the homebrewer's perspective.  If you get $1 for each ROM sold on the Polymega store, that's a little extra coin in your pocket, on top of the couple dozen carts you'll move.  Maybe a couple hundred if your game is worthy of Kickstarter.  
 

Any return, from any place, is welcome to a home brewer.  Polymega is as good a source as any other.

More and more homebrew Mega Drive games are offering roms direct and and through Steam.

 

This would just be one more platform.

[DurradonXylles]

On 3/18/2020 at 12:29 PM, godslabrat said:

Eh, look at it from the homebrewer's perspective.  If you get $1 for each ROM sold on the Polymega store, that's a little extra coin in your pocket, on top of the couple dozen carts you'll move.  Maybe a couple hundred if your game is worthy of Kickstarter.  
 

Any return, from any place, is welcome to a home brewer.  Polymega is as good a source as any other.

11 hours ago, Black_Tiger said:

More and more homebrew Mega Drive games are offering roms direct and and through Steam.

 

This would just be one more platform.

 

Yep. I own a few homebrew 16-bit games through Steam and GOG, including Dorke and Ymp and the Kickstarter game I backed, Tanglewood. If Playmaji sets up a decent licensing scheme for the Polymega, I could see it being enticing as another avenue of profit for homebrew developers. The concern I have is whether or not Playmaji is even financially capable in setting up such licensing contracts if they are having to deliver these things in waves via Ponzi scheming as Kevtris pointed out.

[dj_convoy]

The install base will be miniscule, tho'.