Retrocon: NES Clone for just $15 (USD)

[Great Hierophant]

If you want to compare PCB construction, Nintendo's PCBs are the gold standard of high quality manufacturing. Very few competitors can make motherboards as clean-looking, professional or reliable as Nintendo can. While there were some issues in the early days, (essentially until the top loader, which could be 100,000), since then they have been rock-solid. This third rate pirate junk looks like utter crap, and in the product's looks and functionality are the same.

 

The Atari Flashback 2 does suffer from "glop-tops", which is admittedly a mark against it (the increase in cost for proper plastic packaging would be small), but the board is far better designed.

[Ze_ro]

Well, I ordered one of these Retrocons from SuperUFO, as I'm tired of my awful toaster NES, and am too cheap to buy a top loader. I'm looking forward to giving it a try.

 

At the same time, I also ordered a Game King from them. I fully expect it to be laughably bad.

 

--Zero

[Jagasian]

Well, I ordered one of these Retrocons from SuperUFO, as I'm tired of my awful toaster NES, and am too cheap to buy a top loader. I'm looking forward to giving it a try.

 

At the same time, I also ordered a Game King from them. I fully expect it to be laughably bad.

 

--Zero

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It is still a NOAC based clone, so it will have worse game compatiblity and accuracy than a modern emulator for your PC. Hence it is no replacement for a real NES.

[Ze_ro]

Considering how unreliable and annoying my NES is, I believe it will be a great replacement for it. And yes, I'm already fully aware that replacement 72-pin connectors are available.

 

--Zero

[Jagasian]

Considering how unreliable and annoying my NES is, I believe it will be a great replacement for it. And yes, I'm already fully aware that replacement 72-pin connectors are available.

 

--Zero

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You should send your NES into Omne's OSG shop to have it fixed. Hell, you could try to see if Nintendo's official shops are willing to fix your NES, as they use a better quality 72-pin replacement part.

[DeadlyDiskKun]

I figured I would bring this discussion back to life, because it was a good one to help users know about different models of NES/Famicom clone game systems.

[Epicenter]

To me, this is proof that anything that anyone can write up anything, put it up on the web and make it look official.

 

In the blurb that they wrote, they spelt Messiah wrong as well as called their system the NESX when they say that it was a "huge flop." Why would anyone believe a news article from a site where two easy to find facts are dead wrong and could've been researched in two minutes?

 

The Retrocon looks nice, but I would want to hear about it from someone else before I would even think about getting such a thing.

Spelling mistakes don't make or break the factuality of an article for me; it's about the content. Nesworld is fairly reputable in my experience. At any rate spelling accuracy or not, they called this one. The NEX is a piece of crap for all the hype. It isn't that bad as far as Famiclones go, and it at least looks very nice and has the gimmick of wireless controllers which is at least innovating, and internally the construction is pretty good. At least you won't find it held together by hot glue like the Yobo/NeoFami. But for all the company (Messiah)'s deceit and claims it was the be-all and end-all reproduction of the NES/FC .. it doesn't deliver and all the hype just makes it look WORSE when there are FOAC systems that work BETTER and cost much less money.

 

I don't think that article is fair on a technical level. They seem to think just because the NES guts look more complicated it's better. They don't seem to realize that the same thing can be done now, 21 years later, without all of that stuff inside. They call it cheap because it looks less complex.

 

The problem here is that the FOAC/NOAC chips used in these systems aren't 2007's reproduction of the FC/NES. They're poorly built ASICs using technology that would've been considered outmoded 10 years ago. There is nothing advanced about their design and the reason the issues like sound reproduction and inconsistency in the 6502 processor clone's operation speed hasn't improved in all this time that single-chip FC/NES solutions have been on the market (at least a decade..) is because the people making them are just out for a quick buck. They don't care if they could make the product better by using modern knowledge of the NES/FC hardware. It's well understood enough now that a proper clone can be made; Kevin Horton's FPGA NES with top-notch audio reproduction proves this. But as long as they can put the same shit in pretty new housings and sell it as a new product why should they try to make it any better?

Edited May 1, 2007 by Epicenter