It's impressive you guys programmed those in-house as that can't be an easy job with so many consoles supported. Sorry for the mistake in the video and thanks for the info!
@@RikkiSan1 Convenience I'd assume. Rather than searching out all the different emulators and then setting them all up, this seems to be an all in one solution for CD games. I personally wish if we're talking about an all in one system that it had the ability to play DVD games (PS2 generation) but CD is a good place to start.
@@RikkiSan1 Right now, you might be interested in the UI or low latency controllers ports on the modules, or simplifying your gaming setup in another room of your house. Later, maybe the Light gun, new 1st party exclusive games, modules, and so on.
@@MetalJesusRocks it was helpful that the BIOS functions were previously documented by nocash and others on the internet. Still, it was an incredible challenge our engineering team had to overcome.
Doodle World looks super cool! It reminds me a lot of a flash game I used to play as a kid called "Mighty Guy" in 2006/2007. It had a similar "notebook" aesthetic. Of course, that game was just a short game to play in your web browser, I doubt it holds up today. Your game's just really touching on that nostalgia for me. Real excited to play it!
This console sounds great, it's clear that a lot of effort has been put into designing this console and making it easy to use. Still, at $400, I would not buy it, at half that price it would be much more reasonable imo, especially when you consider how each module will cost $80.
@@anthonyluetmer8499 I doubt it. Too niche of a product to hit the necessary volume to decrease prices. If it sells decently, maybe we'll see a Polymega 2 that is probably just a expensive but does more or performs better.
It’s pretty cool. It has had its ups and downs and I’m glad it actually became a real product. I really wish the base system was cheaper though. $400 bucks is too much for an emulator box
For sure is expensive. If they brought down the cost then they could Increase the user base and target demographic. OwtDaftUK may just not be the proper audience. consider the cost for collectors who have a huge library but you need to buy one of each system, controllers. cables. tons of adapters or upscalers. and/Or dedicate space for Older compatible displays.
The problem with UK pricing at the moment is Polymega doesn't have a direct distributor into the market here, so there's a middle-man (German company 'Worldwide Distribtion GmbH') putting a margin on the price, on top of the margin they have to allow for the cut to the actual retailer (e.g. Amazon), plus what Playmaji need to make a profit themselves. Add all that together, and there's your £500! Hopefully they'll sort it out!
One other advantage: If you have a friend who has one of those ultra-rare and expensive games and you want to be able to play it at home without trying to borrow it from them, just have them bring the game over, save it to the hard drive and away you go:)
@@rig85 Yea, how can we be at a time where people are on the internet but are lamenting about how to borrow their friends game to rip to their hard drive...?
I still have both consoles, but they're not gonna live forever. I have the ps2 library on 2 hard drives and i feel like that's as good as it gets for now. I still have all my games, but i don't hafta break them out to swap disks, which is nice. I would love a bootleg ps2, though. Something that would boot up all regions, too. I'd pay top dollar for that.
@Carl Ward Polymega is far different from other products on the market. I wouldn't make any long term assumptions about its price or business model. It has far more revenue streams that could offset hardware costs than any other retro console, and that alone could bring the price of entry down.
@TILTAWHIRLROCK I agree. If it was $400 I wouldn't have bought it. $300 was my limit for this. Even now im debating on flipping it when it arrives. I could probably fetch $1000 for it when it arrives. Theres always somebody willing to pay.
@ Sixth generation means Dreamcast, PS2, Xbox and Gamecube. That of course could work. It's not much different from what the Polymega is doing, just adding another generation. The only problem could be XBOX emulation as that's not as far advanced as PS2, DC and GCN as far as I know.
This is stupid because electronics are constantly changing and getting better theres no computer that's 6 generations old that can compete with something new and up to date
I thought thats exactly what Xbox Cloud is doing. Except is doing it with out any "physical console". So if "virtual consoles already can "put up to" to those kind of graphics with only internet
I remember hearing about this in 2017 and was super excited about it. It’s cool to see that it is finally here. I think this is PERFECT as a “every day driver”. Instead of having all your consoles hooked up in some big entertainment center with all the spliters and upscaler boxes, just have this. You could always of course bring out the consoles for that actual hardware feel here and there.
Once TVs started getting rid of legacy inputs, I’ve struggled to be motivated enough to make retro consoles work on my modern display. I know there are many ways to make it work but with how expensive it can be, the pain it can be to have it all hooked up, and the skyrocketing price of games, I’ve just given up the ghost and have gone to “the dark side”. But for people that are still holding on to the physical, authentic thing, this device seems pretty awesome.
@@leeartlee915 EXACTLY. You hit the nail right on the head. Physical space is one, but to even get all those different cables and boxes/upscalers is SUPER expensive. I have a sort of hybrid approach. I collect all the games, accessories n such, but I play all my stuff via emulation on my PC. My computer desk is right next to my TV in the living room, so I just play from the couch with an XB1 controller. All the games and consoles are all neatly put together on a nice front-end which I can browse and play. Emulation also looks better than any HDMI mod or upscaler could ever do too.
Yeah man I hear you. I have all my original sega cd and saturn games but I hate having a million systems set up at once even though ive build a cart to hold em all. But you have a million cords all over the place.
I think it looks awesome. The convenience along of not having to download multiple things sounds great. As we all know, physical media eventually breaks down as will everything. This would be a cool way to continue to persevere history. The price point is high but from what I'm seeing may be worth it. Awesome job with the vid 👍
@Live Free Or Die Field programmable gate array. The name isn't important, what it does is. It's a chip that can be programmed/flashed for nearly infinitely different uses. The FPGA, when properly programmed, can simulate the original hardware of game consoles perfectly. Meaning 100% compatibility exactly as the original system is.
If this was still FPGA, $400 would still be steep considering you still have to buy the modules. But it would be much harder to pass up because there's still nothing out there that does all of this in FPGA. As an emulation box, hell no. It will never be worth it at that price and I'd argue that no amount of bells and whistles will ever make an emulation box worth paying more than $100 or $150 for. Everybody and their mom has a PC capable of emulating these systems at full speeds.
Yeah Id be all for this if it had fpga but with emulation id pick it up for $200 or maybe $250. I mean the emulation looks great but its still emulation
Thanks MJR i have been interested in this unit for a while and i think your review has just convinced me to purchase it. I see that the polymega is conveniently available at walmart for preorder so will probably bite on the preorder wave.
Not always. Compare the original Analogue NT with the NT Mini and the AVS (the FPGA NES still for sale) for example. But those are FPGA clones, this is an emulator box which costs over twice as much as the AVS.
@Carl Ward Well uh, that's kind of the problem with the Polymega... free emus for just about everything mentioned here but the Saturn can run more or less absolute compatibility. And Saturn is always getting improvements (plus I bet the Polymega is worse in Saturn too). You couldn't have FPGA consoles as good as the AVS or Analogue's line, not even the MegaSD without a well-known foundation laid down by software emulation.
I'm sure people will buy it, but that's rather a lot of money to be charging. Creating emulators that emulate 100% the hardware would be a better focus. Granted, that is extremely resource intensive, but over time the hardware available now will be enough to emulate any generation, just not generally the last few.
@@SmallSpoonBrigade Dude overpriced is an understatement. Almost everything on this system can be emulated with a much cheaper system like NVIDIA shield or Pi. One exception is the Sega Saturn. Very hard system to emulate.
Look at you..you got your 10 seconds of attention by trying to be a know-it-all who non-chalantly corrects everyone over petty details. So cite the facts to back up your statement? How do you know it's a Gamesir controller?
@@MrRobarino He is 100% right, though lol. It's a GameSir G3s. You can tell by the layout and that distinct depression on the shell of the controller. (Edit: you absolute moron, it literally says on the polymega website that the controller is a GameSir G3s, www.polymega.com/faq/)
Exactly. A 150 dollar thinkpad (T420/X220) plays PS2 and gamecube just fine now at native resolution which outputs at 1080p (external not internal which is what this is doing). On top of that you have a computer you can do anything else you want on it. Might as well buy a cheap i5 machine for 400 bucks and be able to play much more.
For a console with an online store? That supports updates for that many consoles? That is modular? With an Intel Processor? What are you smoking? You can't buy just a Saturn for that cheap.
With the high price I was skeptical about this but I have to admit that functionality for the Sega Saturn make me much more interested in getting this! Lower the price to $200 and I am much more likely to get it.
How did it handle interlaced resolutions? Virtua Fighter on Saturn is one that displays in 480i. Did you notice any artifacts or combing? Also, what about PAL games? Does the Polymega run them at NTSC frequency (60Hz)?
"What is this thing?" Is why I'm here. Alright... I feel as an old school gamer/collector you don't have to be purely old school tech (which I love) and ignore the modern. We can still blow into our cartridges if we want to but, sometimes convenience is King.
Thank you for this review very impressed since you’re an expert. I was on the edge about the system I was looking for reviews and honest ones and he pushed me towards wanting to purchase this.
I feel like with all the delays really hurt this project, and with that piece, I'm not really sure who this is going for. At this high price, it should have much more ram and storage. I just do not understand this product at all and who it's for.
Yeah, it's going to be awesome. I'm not paying over $200 for a game, so I have been buying repros of games like Shining Force III(All three with english patches) and Panzer Dragoon Saga. They even come with packaging that looks pretty damn close to the real thing(Marked as reproductions of course.) Can't wait :D
This is absolutely fantastic. My mum loves these older games. We'll she is over 70 so the older games are the one's she loves the most. Great review and a huge THANK YOU to polymega for bringing such a fantastic idea to life.
But... You DO have a TurboGrafx CD game. FX Unit Yuki 😆😆😆 I'm finally getting around to watching this in it's entirety and I'm happy to see that your thoughts on this are positive. I was the first on RUclips to stream this console (and have streamed it over 400 hours now) and I am very happy with it. I recently got the 2nd Beta unit and installed an M.2 SSD in it and it'll easily hold my entire collection. I think it's the perfect streamer box too! And now I'm rambling lol. Great video! 😃
DOOMSlayer sega was just never as good as Nintendo. Seems like my poorer friends all had sega. It's like iPhone and android of today. People with money have iPhones.
This is SUPER cool! Thanks for making a vid on this. I just got a Pandoras Box 3d and really like it. Lifetime Gamer here since Atari 2600. Looking forward to checking out more of your posts.
I pre-ordered my polymega in April and my one question is: when you play Japanese games, does it automatically switch to the language of your preference or do you have to download the fan translation? At 11:32 in your video you mentioned this, but I'm a little confused 😅. Please let me know.
My question would be, Will you be buying one with your own money in future? I like the look of it but the price, when you start adding in the additional modules will be very high.
Thank you for the review! I've been loosely following this one for a while now and I am absolutely impressed, will definitely be looking into one of these for the future. :D
11:25 there was a Sega CD version of Megarace? I had that for the PC when I was a kid (it came with a CD-Rom drive my dad bought for our computer back in the mid-90's.) I loved that game when I was a kid!
@Carl Ward Yeah, I understand the work put into developing the entire project comes at a cost including software. For me personally I don't feel the current price point is in the ballpark for me to play.
@Carl Ward The software is definitely the most advanced part about this. You could buy a PS2 for less than $100 and have access to the PS1 as well as the PS2's entire library, which I think is a much better deal than this.
@@mjdxp5688 I do have a PS2 which I use primarily for PS2 games and use my PS3 for PS1 games so I can play them at a higher resolution. I also have games for some of the other systems that the Ploymega plays so having one system that encompasses multiple platforms is useful. Also, older hardware presumably has less of a lifespan and will breakdown sooner especially for a system that ended production around 2012.
I think this has taken far too long to surface. I've been hearing about this for years. The processor isn't up to scratch for emulating more high powered consoles and the fact there is barely any storage isn't helping matters. I think I'd rather build a mini pc tbh
Really, right? You could spend $400 building a Ryzen 3400G system and end up with something far more powerful. Not to mention, most $400 laptops would also outperform it.
madmatt2024 Exactly this seems like a waste of money especially when with a pc I can fetch the games on my own and emulate past this things limitations. For $400 they need to start saying we got some 1 for 1 or better.
As someone who has (barely) attempted to "build" a PC and backed out, I never got the whole notion of how 400 bucks could allow someone to build a PC that works better without just knowing where some deals are. My current PC is 600 bucks and it can't even do Saturn emulation right. Or PS2.
@@RippahRooJizah Out of curiosity,I just tried this on Newegg. I was right around $400, all components, no special deals, all name brand parts. That's a Ryzen 5 3400G, A320 motherboard, 16gb ram, 512gb SSD or 1TB hdd, power supply, and case. If you go deal hunting then it can be done even cheaper. If you wanted something better for gaming you could swap the 3400G for a 3100, add an RX 570, and be around $515. Once again, all new, name brand, parts.
It's funny, I had this exact concept as a kid of a system that could play multiple retro systems through interchangeable adapters. I never thought it would actually exist, but it's really cool to see. I currently don't have a reason to buy one, I can already play most of the supported systems. I do hope they add Atari Jaguar support since working Jaguar CD units are so rare. 3DO and Amiga CD32 support would also be nice. Then I would definitely get one. Edit: I just love how everyone in the comments are preaching about how PCs are superior, when this is clearly, 100% not a product aimed at PC users. The people who would buy this system know PCs can play the same games. They simply DO. NOT. CARE.
I just thought of this idea last night, went online to search to see if someone else had done it and boom, they have. While I am a little disappointed, I am extremely happy. This looks like an amazing product and I really want to support these guys by getting one for myself!
I'm the same way. I got the games and the hardware and like to collect them so I don't mess around with downloading roms. The convenience and way this is setup is nice and worth the money for me. I could cover the cost of this by selling my backup systems if I wanted to.
21:14 what is that game?? I remember playing it on a demo disc but can never remember what its called. Also if they add a module for handheld systems like GBA and maybe some others such as DS and what not that would be amazing.
"If you have a PC with the emulators and ROMs, this isn't going to add much" Honestly, the idea of a console in your living room that plays thousands of classics, with a good controller, and everything just works no matter what with no issues... it's the wet dream of thousands of avid physical game collectors. Our voice of "Please can the console market stop sitting on their pile of gold and actually let a 3rd party make a new console for them" is somewhat finally being heard and it's amazing. I'd love to see PS2/Xbox support but I understand if thats where the line of generosity gets drawn. At $400, its steep but as it's an incredible solution to what is years of people wanting something like this, it's really a very good price. It takes the notion of "You're paying for graphics and power" and turns it on it's head, instead offering a consistent and pain-free nostalgia trip.
I believe it's 5 more years (2025) and we'll start seeing these types of consoles play PS2, Xbox, Dreamcast, etc. If I remember right (please correct me), you have to wait 25 years to be able to create these consoles supporting the old one. Something like that. That's why we started seeing PS1 games in recent years.
PS1 emulation was already up and running at the turn of the century. I played PS1 games on a P3 with 600Mhz. And I remember 16bit emulation already going strong in '97. The problem was back the, making the technology small enough to fit in your living room. But the power was already there. Of course more modern systems got more demanding, so the 25 year mark is starting to get pretty accurate and might even take longer in the future.
This is a Beautiful little setup for anyone who has big collection of games and wants to cut some space. I can really only see it though in rooms similar to Metal Jesus's room.
That's the thing, especially for PS1. With RetroArch you can run discs from your disc drive, and when you have those cores (like Beetle PSX which is already more compatible than the PS3) and latency options there's just not much reason to have an emulation console for this anymore. An FPGA console may still have use for your television depending on what you're into, but if it's a software emu console you may as well use an old PC or a Pi.
@@Projectwolfie21 this isn't for you. It's for the people who 1. Don't have a PC. 2. Don't have the time to get the emulation to run correctly and spend hours hunting for ROMs and the right version of emulator. And 3. Want to use their original games. Like I said, this isn't for you.
@@Ohsyrus I just said that you could use your original games (for non-CD there is the Retrode). That's a good point about not owning a PC though. Android RetroArch doesn't seem to have the ability to load a disc even though it can support a CD drive via USB (and yes, more recent Snapdragons can do what is required). Though at that point, you need to ask yourself how many don't already have a setup to play these either through CRTs or through upscalers which tend to need even less setup.
Ohsyrus if u gonna spend 400$ on a console i am pretty sure u can get a pc or more likely u already have one. ROMs are easily available especially for non-Nintendo console.
Even playing on retro consoles is becoming more expensive. The original consoles I've been following on Ebay have shot way up in price, apparently due to covid-19 and more people playing games in general. Add in the cost of an optical drive emulator and a digital modding kit and the price goes through the roof. Yeah I don't expect next generation systems to sell for less than $600.
I've been following Polymega, and I've watched dozens of hours of Sarumaru's streams showcasing the product in real time (all the goods, and all the bads... he's really doing Yeoman's work over there). I'm really impressed with Polymega's product. What it sets out to do, it does way better than anyone would have expected from being simply an emulation device. It also has the added bonus that it's an honest system (thats something I value at least). It's using licensed bios and it's all above board from their end of the transaction. It's also a product that can improve over time with system updates and once they get a large base of customers using this thing, and reporting hiccups here and there... it will eventually be honed to a sharp edge. My only gripe with this system is the price point. While you can make any manor of justifications of what buying OEM legacy hardware, upscallers, high quality cables... exc, I still don't understand the price. I don't think it's fair to compare this to an FPGA solution like say the Analogue... if you did that, you would win the argument of price and scope of supported systems for sure, but you would never touch the performance. You could compare it to the MiSTer, and while you would be almost dead even in price, the MiSTer covers all but 2 of the systems the Polymega supports, but then on top of that offers dozens more, as well as older computer systems and scores of arcade PCBs. The MiSTer also enters into the potentially "not above board" with ethical licensing which might be seen as a downside, but lets be honest, thats not stopping anyone from buying a MiSTer. You could compare it to modern consoles like the Switch, Xbox One, Playstation 4, and this argument really comes down to "what would YOU the consumer rather spend your $400 on" because it's the least "apples to apples" comparison. Polymega's product stands on it's merits, and it's just one more competitor in a VERY saturated marketplace. While it sets itself apart from its competitors by offering a pre-configured CD capable emulation platform with massive storage potential... there are many solutions that do "nearly" the same thing for 1/4 the price if you don't mind doing the configuration yourself or having someone do it for you (via pre-configured system images for various SBC's such as the Raspberry Pi, or LaunchBox on the PC). I don't know what it costs to develop, market and sell through a retailer like Walmart... and I'm not about to. This is a device that is only going to succeed when it actually gets into the hands of consumers and they gush about it to all their friends on social media. Polymega probably doesn't have the marketing budget to really shove this device in the faces of its potential customer base, and that's unfortunate... they have a great product to sell. Sadly, the price point takes an already niche market (retro gaming), and carves it up into an even smaller niche market (premium experience retro gaming), and not all of them are going to drop $400 for starters, another $100 on a nice side NVMe drive and $75 for each additional module when they already own real hardware for many of these systems. Sorry, I am just not confident thats how its going to pan out. Your average Walmart gamer that isn't plugged into the gaming community, isn't aware of the options out there and is going to see a Polymega sitting on the shelf next to a brand new Switch and think... It's time to dust off my old CD games! After all... who wants to play Breath of the Wild and Mario Universe anyway!? I can get a Switch instead and save $100 to buy a dozen digital games or a couple brand new blockbuster titles all the cool kids are talking about right now. These competing platforms have digital marketplaces that not only cover multiple platforms, but are growing exponentially every... single... day... and will continue to expand until the platform goes end of life 5-6 years from now. I want Polymega to succeed, but I'm not confident that starting out where they are now is going to result in anything but disappointing launch that will be overshadowed by the next hype train of a device. Maybe they aren't in an equitable position to sell it for less, and this is all a moot point. Anyway... I wish them the best, I hope I'm wrong on every point.
One specific game I wanna see playing is Top Gear 3000 for the Snes, that game uses a special and unique chip that no other game use, mostly of the handheld and emulator struggle to play, if someday you got the Snes module please please try that game
@DOOMSlayer No. They're right. I think the UI is nice and works well with the system, but I want to know where that $400 is coming from. Because the most expensive thing in there is probably the SSD. MAYBE the CPU, depending on how old it is, but I doubt it, you don't need much.
I'd say this is a no brainier for someone who doesn't own a PC (perhaps one of the hundreds of millions of Apple Computer customers) and is interested in classic games with no setup / fuss.
From what I can tell from looking this up, $500 just for the first Nintendo and accessories? Does it even make light gun games work on modern TV's for that kind of money?
dapperfan44 mmm light guns don’t work with non CRT screens... however it’s true that the Mini NT is crazy expensive. Got a Mega SG and Super NT for the same price of the NT Mini... added a de10 nano FPGA to the hardware collection. Best Buy for hardware emulation!
As a package this is worth the $400. Those saying otherwise have no fucking idea what it costs to bring a product to market. Now they just need to add 3DO support and maybe work on Dreamcast.
Definitely getting one of these for the living room. And yes I have setup a htpc before and honestly the hassle isn't worth it anymore. Not only that but I love the idea of using my actual collection. Great job playmaji can't wait to get mine.
Yea, I just can't be bothered with that stuff nowadays. Being basically plug and play, using my physical games, and having a nice menu and OS setup sold me on this.
@Christopher Howard That's another good point, the convenience of others. Like my wife who may play more of the puzzle games she likes if she doesn't have to drag out and figure out what goes to what to hook up the Genesis ( with a Sega CD so 2 power supplies) up to the TV and such, and definitely isn't going to mess around with emulator menus on whatever system to boot up Columns.
For an FPGA with "perfect" playback...I'd put down $400 without blinking - I have tons of supported games for this. But for software emulation?? Nope. I guess I'll just wait for Analogue to get around to the CD era. $200 is about as much as I would pay for an emulation box - this is basically like a Retron5 for CD games. If I want to play on an emulator, I'll just use my PC for free!
@@CaptAwesumNo1Zone And you know this...how? They've done the Neogeo, NES, SNES, and Genesis. The Pocket does most of the handlelds. Maybe they do the Turbo or the N64? They're going to make a CD system at some point - it just makes sense.
@@CaptAwesumNo1Zone Analogue systems being sold out doesn't make the Polymega worth $400. Not sure what point you are making...? If you want to emulate these systems NOW...most modern PCs will do that. For this kind of money, I'd prefer to wait for an FPGA option. So people wont - and that's cool too.
The concept is kinda cool... The company (at least on social media) are assholes, especially if you question certain aspects of their devices. I got banned on twitter for asking how it's really different than a mister. They didn't seem to like questions. For that price point, I'd rather have original hardware with an OSSC and use original controllers. I'm not saying there isn't a market for this. In fact, I might have considered on had the MiSTer not come out (because I just ripped all my CD based games anyway). Just the way they treated their customers on social media. They never did explain what hybrid emulation really is.... so with emulation, it can do the same thing a Windows PC can do with 20 minutes of downloading. Also, I got my gen 2 sega genesis, a 32x and a sega cd for like 80. It did take me about a week of nights recapping, cleaning and fixing. So yeah, there's that and most people won't want to or can go to that extreme. I know you said it's a Linux flavor they are using, I'm hoping they are using ext3 or ext4 for the file system otherwise, if it's fat32 and they are constantly writing and deleting from the hard drive, there's going to be a lot of fragmentation overtime. Also, 40 Winks is definitely a good game! Yeah, I wrote a wall of text but I did also watch the whole video!!
When companies (especially small ones like these) start being bums on social media, I instantly get turned off from their product. That goes for RUclipsrs as well.
They did a really good job with this I was impressed that I could play burned burned games with the English translation the convenience as you said essentially just being plug and play again they did a great job
Its basically Retroarch on a box like a Pie but this system has a Coffeelake core processor and DDR4 Ram also the room to expand storage via M.2. For around $450USD you can build a Ryzen 3200G APU based PC that can emulate all of these Games fine using Retroarch. $400 is steep then extra for the expansions to play other consoles, I would personally prefer to build an APU based rig and that's exactly what I did. pcpartpicker.com/list/By3Xjp
or you can simply buy a playstation classic for 30 dollars and a 15 dollar USB drive and put retroarch on it (project eris being the newest build as for as Im aware) and play all of these games just fine...thats what I did lol
@@kyles8524 Slightly cheaper alternative, I do prefer a decent PC as an Emulation machine because I can emulate newer consoles but I'm sure it works perfectly fine.
@@hardcorehardware361 Its pretty cool, the thing I really like about using retro arch on the ps classic is you can load up game genie and action replay cheats and others like gameshark into your games for basically all the emulators and they have tons of codes for each game and the Liberto cores for each console or aka emulator cores ensures you dont run into compatibility issues.Its kind of cool if you are off on a road trip or something and dont want to haul around a computer cause I dont know if you have ever handled a ps classic but its even smaller than the snes classic.You can also load your built in playstation games that come installed on the console or ones you put onto the USB drive from retro arch instead of bleemsync so you can load cheats into those games as well
This is exactly what I need, I have a fair collection of old consoles and games but recently I'm back to playing my old GameCube, would this play GameCube disc's aswell?
I thought about that as well! Wish I would have mentioned it in the video that DOSBOX support of PC games would be pretty cool! Even support usb keyboard and mouse!
@@cosmickatamari I'm talking about plug and play, I played DOS games on PC or on the web but it's not the same. There's also "PC Classic" by unite, not the real thing but at least a mini system for DOS games. I'm not sure if it'll make it to the market because last update was more than a year ago.
@@--avi I gotcha. You could always look into buying a mini pc (like the old pc WIndows XP terminals) and referbed it for DOS 6.22 or Windows 95. I made one for a friend, it's plug and play for hardware, just time consuming. There's also scouring the internet and building from real hardware but you're looking at cleanup of PCBs because of age.
I would love to know if Shining Force 3 works on this perfectly cause I know it has issues with emulation. If you've tried it offscreen, can you please let me know if it's working well or not. Thank you Metal Jesus!!!
Hope no more delays again. Many retro gamers are skeptical about this due to covid 19 pandemic situation that affect manufacturing process & meeting the demands.
@@praveshmaharaj4387 I mean most of the controllers can be used via usb or you can find a usb version of said controller online secondly in my opinion digital roms are much better and don't clutter up my room finally the price advantage is more than worth it so....
@@praveshmaharaj4387 These machine its not playing physical editions. Its downloading the rom, and emulating theme. Downloading it from yout cartridge or of other people cartridge on internet is almost the same.
I'm sold! The disk drive on my Sega Saturn just went out. And to get it fixed cost the same amount as getting another one. I was looking for another Saturn and I came across this system. I totally forgot all about it. I needed to get it not only to play my Saturn but every other systems it plays out of the box. I got a pretty big collection.
Quick clarification: we licensed existing emulators but created the BIOS replacements in house. Nice review! 🤘
So let me ask...as someone who has access to most consoles and have a decent PC that can emulate, why should I buy this over what I already have?
It's impressive you guys programmed those in-house as that can't be an easy job with so many consoles supported. Sorry for the mistake in the video and thanks for the info!
@@RikkiSan1 Convenience I'd assume. Rather than searching out all the different emulators and then setting them all up, this seems to be an all in one solution for CD games. I personally wish if we're talking about an all in one system that it had the ability to play DVD games (PS2 generation) but CD is a good place to start.
@@RikkiSan1 Right now, you might be interested in the UI or low latency controllers ports on the modules, or simplifying your gaming setup in another room of your house. Later, maybe the Light gun, new 1st party exclusive games, modules, and so on.
@@MetalJesusRocks it was helpful that the BIOS functions were previously documented by nocash and others on the internet. Still, it was an incredible challenge our engineering team had to overcome.
Hey, that's my Turtle Rescue game shown at the very end! And shout out to Doodle World and the other great NESmaker games that are preinstalled! :)
Nice!!!!!!!!!
@Jack Burton Per Google: The definition of gey is a Scottish word for considerable. An example of gey is saying there's a lot of something.
your game looks so cool !!! its beatifull
Doodle World dev here. Glad you enjoyed the game! the demo featured on the PolyMega is a little dated. Trying to get a new one to them soon.
Doodle World looks super cool! It reminds me a lot of a flash game I used to play as a kid called "Mighty Guy" in 2006/2007. It had a similar "notebook" aesthetic. Of course, that game was just a short game to play in your web browser, I doubt it holds up today. Your game's just really touching on that nostalgia for me. Real excited to play it!
@@FoxJ10027 thanks for the kind words! You can follow my development on Twitter @doodleworldgame. Hopefully will have a new demo out very soon.
Thts awesome
Keep making great games! Will def pick up ypur game when I get the Polymega
For all those interested, Doodle World is now on Kickstarter! www.kickstarter.com/projects/natepeters/doodle-world
The user interface on this thing looks fantastic. Reminds me of Netflix.
And without all the leftist SJW propaganda on Netflix. Can you believe it?
James Matthews It’s heavenly!
Earl Glock hey that’s racism. I’m gonna go tell Idiot Lives Matter on you and they’ll riot you
James Matthews cracks me up seeing snowflakes like you get triggered at the slightest thing 😂😂😂
I'm 40 years old, and this is the kind of thing I dreamed of as a child. So awesome to see retro all in one consoles taking off in the 21st century.
Same age bro, how fuckin cool is this, all in one 👍
Well it's never too late to grow up you mama boy
peter pacel growing up is overrated
@@luschen-laschet9635
If I weren't grown up I'd make a joke about how your initials are "PP", and your first name is a common euphemism for penis.
@@glennt69lol
Totally rad for sure. If I still had all my old games I'd by this thing in a heartbeat.
This console sounds great, it's clear that a lot of effort has been put into designing this console and making it easy to use. Still, at $400, I would not buy it, at half that price it would be much more reasonable imo, especially when you consider how each module will cost $80.
grimSleeper59 don’t forget the 2TB $279 ssd and a $99 light gun!
Nope not worth it imo
im sure they'll eventually lower the prices.
@@anthonyluetmer8499 I doubt it. Too niche of a product to hit the necessary volume to decrease prices. If it sells decently, maybe we'll see a Polymega 2 that is probably just a expensive but does more or performs better.
@Kenneth Mitchell
A 2tb hard drive isn't a requirement.🙄
It’s pretty cool. It has had its ups and downs and I’m glad it actually became a real product. I really wish the base system was cheaper though. $400 bucks is too much for an emulator box
I agree, but what helps is that it can be used to preserve our classic units.
i can emulate ps3 on my pc cause my pc is that powerfull so why would i spend 400 when i can just use my pc lol
Yep. If it was closer to 150 bucks I'd definitely buy one.
Im good with just finding a cheap ossc and cheap consoles.
+ an NVMe looks pretty much essential, another $100 right there
Those specs are so shocking when you think of the price. Even worse when you see it cost £500 in the UK.
as of now $400 = £303.42 UK should refuse to buy even 1:1 conversion rate nevermid this!!
£500 WTF TOO EXSPENSIVE
For sure is expensive. If they brought down the cost then they could Increase the user base and target demographic.
OwtDaftUK may just not be the proper audience.
consider the cost for collectors who have a huge library but you need to buy one of each system, controllers. cables. tons of adapters or upscalers. and/Or dedicate space for Older compatible displays.
I guess those fancy proprietary emulators are costly to develop lol
The problem with UK pricing at the moment is Polymega doesn't have a direct distributor into the market here, so there's a middle-man (German company 'Worldwide Distribtion GmbH') putting a margin on the price, on top of the margin they have to allow for the cut to the actual retailer (e.g. Amazon), plus what Playmaji need to make a profit themselves. Add all that together, and there's your £500! Hopefully they'll sort it out!
One other advantage: If you have a friend who has one of those ultra-rare and expensive games and you want to be able to play it at home without trying to borrow it from them, just have them bring the game over, save it to the hard drive and away you go:)
Just grab the ROM online...
Just grab the ROM online...
@@rig85 Yea, how can we be at a time where people are on the internet but are lamenting about how to borrow their friends game to rip to their hard drive...?
@@tonymorris4335 some people pretend it's morally wrong to rip old games nobody cares about anymore, for whatever reason.
Just grab the ROM online...
this console is really sexy. It's on my "I'll buy this when I have money" list
Same
Yeah too sexy. If it were real I’d try hitting on it.
Really, I think its ugly. Like the idea
Sega CD was on the same kind of list, I still haven't had money
@@kennyperry230 I think sega cd had the best RPGs at the time
This is cool, can they make Gen 6 version of it because I want to play Gamecube/PS2 without issues.
I'd like to see that added as well!
I'd buy that instantly, even at 400usd
I would love N64 as well.
I never buy anything like this, but even at $400 I'd have to buy one if it had GC and PS2
I still have both consoles, but they're not gonna live forever. I have the ps2 library on 2 hard drives and i feel like that's as good as it gets for now. I still have all my games, but i don't hafta break them out to swap disks, which is nice. I would love a bootleg ps2, though. Something that would boot up all regions, too. I'd pay top dollar for that.
I love the idea of this thing. It's just too bad it costs so much.
@Carl Ward Polymega is far different from other products on the market. I wouldn't make any long term assumptions about its price or business model. It has far more revenue streams that could offset hardware costs than any other retro console, and that alone could bring the price of entry down.
Get a better job 400$ isn’t much
@Moggy Mog
Bought mine in March for $300. Finally got a hold of somebody and they said mine will be shipped in October.
@TILTAWHIRLROCK
I agree. If it was $400 I wouldn't have bought it. $300 was my limit for this. Even now im debating on flipping it when it arrives. I could probably fetch $1000 for it when it arrives. Theres always somebody willing to pay.
Dart Dude unlike you, people with jobs have bills to pay.
Now imagine a system like this that could perfectly run EVERY disc based games til gen 6... Would be a paradise machine for gamers!
@ Sixth generation means Dreamcast, PS2, Xbox and Gamecube. That of course could work. It's not much different from what the Polymega is doing, just adding another generation. The only problem could be XBOX emulation as that's not as far advanced as PS2, DC and GCN as far as I know.
took some digging to find but check this out from 2002
www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/cblfm/yoshis_boxx_a_custom_made_console_that_plays_pc/
@@Winnetou64 Fair enough. I never did understand the generational stuff. Thanks for the info.
This is stupid because electronics are constantly changing and getting better theres no computer that's 6 generations old that can compete with something new and up to date
I thought thats exactly what Xbox Cloud is doing. Except is doing it with out any "physical console". So if "virtual consoles already can "put up to" to those kind of graphics with only internet
I remember hearing about this in 2017 and was super excited about it. It’s cool to see that it is finally here. I think this is PERFECT as a “every day driver”. Instead of having all your consoles hooked up in some big entertainment center with all the spliters and upscaler boxes, just have this. You could always of course bring out the consoles for that actual hardware feel here and there.
Once TVs started getting rid of legacy inputs, I’ve struggled to be motivated enough to make retro consoles work on my modern display. I know there are many ways to make it work but with how expensive it can be, the pain it can be to have it all hooked up, and the skyrocketing price of games, I’ve just given up the ghost and have gone to “the dark side”. But for people that are still holding on to the physical, authentic thing, this device seems pretty awesome.
@@leeartlee915 EXACTLY. You hit the nail right on the head. Physical space is one, but to even get all those different cables and boxes/upscalers is SUPER expensive. I have a sort of hybrid approach. I collect all the games, accessories n such, but I play all my stuff via emulation on my PC. My computer desk is right next to my TV in the living room, so I just play from the couch with an XB1 controller. All the games and consoles are all neatly put together on a nice front-end which I can browse and play. Emulation also looks better than any HDMI mod or upscaler could ever do too.
Original NEO GEO CD Games without the long loading times? I’m in!
In my country, Colombia we grew up with the "poly station" a knock off of the NES, it was super cheap and had tons of games, good memories
In Brazil we had a NES-clone called "Poly station" too. It was my first videogame.
Its in Indonesia too, bought one because my parents thought it was a playstation. They also sold cartridges with ton of games in it
In Russia we had a Famiclone "Dendy"
I think if this thing were $200, it'd sell pretty well. At double that, hard to imagine.
Yes this is what I was thinking too
yup pre-order from walmart (sigh..out of all places) is $509 with that little add-on to play cartridges. It is a bit too much.
Yup and with 80 dollar addons, which isnt even clear what they will be not happening.
I would buy it for 400 if it also came with a free module of my choice and ofc the accessories that come with it
Totally wasn't expecting to see Star Wars: Masters of Teräs Käsi in there!
Now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time...
I wasn't expecting Kileak or that I was able to restrain myself from punching the screen.
Been waiting forever for this and you've sold me on getting one, MJR. Gonna rip my whole Saturn library to it!
Yeah man I hear you. I have all my original sega cd and saturn games but I hate having a million systems set up at once even though ive build a cart to hold em all. But you have a million cords all over the place.
I think it looks awesome. The convenience along of not having to download multiple things sounds great. As we all know, physical media eventually breaks down as will everything. This would be a cool way to continue to persevere history. The price point is high but from what I'm seeing may be worth it. Awesome job with the vid 👍
It’s like they priced it at the $400 when the plan was to do fpga, and never updated it when they went emulation
Yesterday's technology at today's prices.
@Live Free Or Die Field programmable gate array. The name isn't important, what it does is. It's a chip that can be programmed/flashed for nearly infinitely different uses. The FPGA, when properly programmed, can simulate the original hardware of game consoles perfectly. Meaning 100% compatibility exactly as the original system is.
If this was still FPGA, $400 would still be steep considering you still have to buy the modules. But it would be much harder to pass up because there's still nothing out there that does all of this in FPGA. As an emulation box, hell no. It will never be worth it at that price and I'd argue that no amount of bells and whistles will ever make an emulation box worth paying more than $100 or $150 for. Everybody and their mom has a PC capable of emulating these systems at full speeds.
Yeah Id be all for this if it had fpga but with emulation id pick it up for $200 or maybe $250. I mean the emulation looks great but its still emulation
@D Dub You could at least watch the whole video before saying something stupid.
Thanks MJR i have been interested in this unit for a while and i think your review has just convinced me to purchase it. I see that the polymega is conveniently available at walmart for preorder so will probably bite on the preorder wave.
These Clone machine systems are getting more expensive yet the quality never really seems to majorly change.
Emulator boxes are boring too.
speedwaynutt it’s not a clone system. It’s a very expensive emulator box.
I see you are new to the retro scene. Welcome.
Not always. Compare the original Analogue NT with the NT Mini and the AVS (the FPGA NES still for sale) for example. But those are FPGA clones, this is an emulator box which costs over twice as much as the AVS.
@Carl Ward Well uh, that's kind of the problem with the Polymega... free emus for just about everything mentioned here but the Saturn can run more or less absolute compatibility. And Saturn is always getting improvements (plus I bet the Polymega is worse in Saturn too). You couldn't have FPGA consoles as good as the AVS or Analogue's line, not even the MegaSD without a well-known foundation laid down by software emulation.
It's a boutique collector's item. You're paying for the convenience of preconfigured emulator machine.
They promised FPGA and made a rom dumper. They lost their integrity when they did that and me as a customer.
I'm sure people will buy it, but that's rather a lot of money to be charging. Creating emulators that emulate 100% the hardware would be a better focus. Granted, that is extremely resource intensive, but over time the hardware available now will be enough to emulate any generation, just not generally the last few.
@@silvervalleystudios2486 analouge does fpga
Not fpga? No thanks, fpga is the future, emulation is the past.
@@SmallSpoonBrigade Dude overpriced is an understatement. Almost everything on this system can be emulated with a much cheaper system like NVIDIA shield or Pi. One exception is the Sega Saturn. Very hard system to emulate.
4:00 "Custom made controller."
No, it's a GameSir controller with the PolyMega logo painted on it.
Look at you..you got your 10 seconds of attention by trying to be a know-it-all who non-chalantly corrects everyone over petty details. So cite the facts to back up your statement? How do you know it's a Gamesir controller?
@@MrRobarino He is 100% right, though lol. It's a GameSir G3s. You can tell by the layout and that distinct depression on the shell of the controller. (Edit: you absolute moron, it literally says on the polymega website that the controller is a GameSir G3s, www.polymega.com/faq/)
@@MrRobarino It looks like he's right. It appears to be the GameSir G3s controller
It most definitely is the GameSir G3S.
You think so? Those look pricier. It looks just like my Matricom G-Pad XYBA, which is like $20.
160-180 seems like a reasonable price
I would buy one for $160 as I would love to perserve my PS1 collection & the Saturn is the next console I plan to collect for
To be worth $400 they'd at least need to add PS2 compatibility, and even then...
@Carl Ward They'll almost certainly release entirely new hardware for 6th gen and it'll be even more expensive
Exactly. A 150 dollar thinkpad (T420/X220) plays PS2 and gamecube just fine now at native resolution which outputs at 1080p (external not internal which is what this is doing). On top of that you have a computer you can do anything else you want on it. Might as well buy a cheap i5 machine for 400 bucks and be able to play much more.
For a console with an online store? That supports updates for that many consoles? That is modular? With an Intel Processor? What are you smoking?
You can't buy just a Saturn for that cheap.
With the high price I was skeptical about this but I have to admit that functionality for the Sega Saturn make me much more interested in getting this! Lower the price to $200 and I am much more likely to get it.
I hope this thing gains traction just so Analogue can be encouraged to release their own Saturn clone console ^_______^
@@themcfaceman True, if anything this should spur competition for things I actually want.
Nvidia Shield TV does Saturn for that price.
Oh wow. That saturn footage is so clean! I was a non believer, but this vid turned that around real quick. Thats amazing!
this thing sounds like it would be a great living room space saver for someone that collects games.
How did it handle interlaced resolutions? Virtua Fighter on Saturn is one that displays in 480i. Did you notice any artifacts or combing?
Also, what about PAL games? Does the Polymega run them at NTSC frequency (60Hz)?
Yeah, I want a saturn review in huge depth
"What is this thing?" Is why I'm here. Alright... I feel as an old school gamer/collector you don't have to be purely old school tech (which I love) and ignore the modern. We can still blow into our cartridges if we want to but, sometimes convenience is King.
It’s very interesting. Especially for the Saturn, and Sega Cd.
Yup. That's why I'm here.
ditto that bro
two platforms I completely missed out on
Saturn and dreamcast are my next systems to collect for. It would be cool if Analogue was following this and taking notes.
@@Negrodomaus Since they've already shown disinterest in doing an N64 clone console, then this would be the most logical next step for them
Incognegro I wonder why Sega wouldn’t make an all-in-one hdmi system that plays their classic games and charge what they want.
Thank you for this review very impressed since you’re an expert. I was on the edge about the system I was looking for reviews and honest ones and he pushed me towards wanting to purchase this.
I feel like with all the delays really hurt this project, and with that piece, I'm not really sure who this is going for. At this high price, it should have much more ram and storage. I just do not understand this product at all and who it's for.
if polymega can read backup cd that should be quite interesting actually
Yeah, it's going to be awesome. I'm not paying over $200 for a game, so I have been buying repros of games like Shining Force III(All three with english patches) and Panzer Dragoon Saga. They even come with packaging that looks pretty damn close to the real thing(Marked as reproductions of course.) Can't wait :D
This video has more commercial breaks than a Saturday morning cartoon.
Yeah it's unusual for a MJR video!
Yeah, I don’t get it either.
I assumed it was a paid advertisement until I looked at the description.
I’m sure he realized a lot of people would watch this video so he’s gonna milk it for ad revenue. You have to make your coin somehow
ADBlock (:
This is absolutely fantastic. My mum loves these older games. We'll she is over 70 so the older games are the one's she loves the most. Great review and a huge THANK YOU to polymega for bringing such a fantastic idea to life.
Loved this video Mr. Jesus! Thanks for the awesome entertainment, as always.
Thank you for taking your time with writing this review. I think every question i entered with was answered.
But... You DO have a TurboGrafx CD game. FX Unit Yuki 😆😆😆
I'm finally getting around to watching this in it's entirety and I'm happy to see that your thoughts on this are positive. I was the first on RUclips to stream this console (and have streamed it over 400 hours now) and I am very happy with it. I recently got the 2nd Beta unit and installed an M.2 SSD in it and it'll easily hold my entire collection. I think it's the perfect streamer box too! And now I'm rambling lol. Great video! 😃
This is awesome. I think it's worth it and can't wait to see the new modules.
Never expected a system to play both Sega Saturn and Sega CD both.
Suite Life of Dio Brando the Saturn wasn't backwards compatible with SEGA CD? No wonder it failed.
Both you and me both.
DOOMSlayer sega was just never as good as Nintendo. Seems like my poorer friends all had sega. It's like iPhone and android of today. People with money have iPhones.
I was pleasantly surprised by that also.
I like it when RUclipsrs disclose that they were provided the review unit for free in their videos. Transparency and full disclosure is respectable.
This is SUPER cool! Thanks for making a vid on this. I just got a Pandoras Box 3d and really like it. Lifetime Gamer here since Atari 2600. Looking forward to checking out more of your posts.
I pre-ordered my polymega in April and my one question is: when you play Japanese games, does it automatically switch to the language of your preference or do you have to download the fan translation? At 11:32 in your video you mentioned this, but I'm a little confused 😅. Please let me know.
You have to download a patch. Pretty easy to find via a Google search. You then apply that patch via the polymega and ya ready to go.
@NumptyMagnet bless you
@NumptyMagnet you throw up into a tissue? What a strange fellow.
@NumptyMagnet you're telling me.
@NumptyMagnet Thats one of the features, sure. What else can it do?
My question would be, Will you be buying one with your own money in future? I like the look of it but the price, when you start adding in the additional modules will be very high.
Plus you can do everything it does for free on a PC. I understand the appeal of it being pre configured, but 400$ is a bit much for that convenience.
look up an nvidia shield android tv. Its much cheaper and has better specs
I was hoping it supported Dreamcast
That would be pretty cool!
they would be smart to just patch that one in for free one day
There's no reason why this couldn't run Dreamcast games. It makes no sense that it's not present here.
It would need a GD rom drive to support disc based Dreamcast games.
What about 3D0?
Thank you for the review! I've been loosely following this one for a while now and I am absolutely impressed, will definitely be looking into one of these for the future. :D
11:25 there was a Sega CD version of Megarace? I had that for the PC when I was a kid (it came with a CD-Rom drive my dad bought for our computer back in the mid-90's.) I loved that game when I was a kid!
I did too. I played the Sega CD version recently. Not sure if it's bad because of being Sega CD and not pc but it was rough.
Knock off at least $200 and I'm in.
@Carl Ward Yeah, I understand the work put into developing the entire project comes at a cost including software. For me personally I don't feel the current price point is in the ballpark for me to play.
@Carl Ward The software is definitely the most advanced part about this. You could buy a PS2 for less than $100 and have access to the PS1 as well as the PS2's entire library, which I think is a much better deal than this.
@@mjdxp5688 I do have a PS2 which I use primarily for PS2 games and use my PS3 for PS1 games so I can play them at a higher resolution. I also have games for some of the other systems that the Ploymega plays so having one system that encompasses multiple platforms is useful. Also, older hardware presumably has less of a lifespan and will breakdown sooner especially for a system that ended production around 2012.
I think this has taken far too long to surface. I've been hearing about this for years. The processor isn't up to scratch for emulating more high powered consoles and the fact there is barely any storage isn't helping matters. I think I'd rather build a mini pc tbh
Really, right? You could spend $400 building a Ryzen 3400G system and end up with something far more powerful. Not to mention, most $400 laptops would also outperform it.
@@madmatt2024 You don't even need to spend half as much for a more performant PC.
madmatt2024 Exactly this seems like a waste of money especially when with a pc I can fetch the games on my own and emulate past this things limitations. For $400 they need to start saying we got some 1 for 1 or better.
As someone who has (barely) attempted to "build" a PC and backed out, I never got the whole notion of how 400 bucks could allow someone to build a PC that works better without just knowing where some deals are. My current PC is 600 bucks and it can't even do Saturn emulation right. Or PS2.
@@RippahRooJizah Out of curiosity,I just tried this on Newegg. I was right around $400, all components, no special deals, all name brand parts. That's a Ryzen 5 3400G, A320 motherboard, 16gb ram, 512gb SSD or 1TB hdd, power supply, and case. If you go deal hunting then it can be done even cheaper. If you wanted something better for gaming you could swap the 3400G for a 3100, add an RX 570, and be around $515. Once again, all new, name brand, parts.
It's funny, I had this exact concept as a kid of a system that could play multiple retro systems through interchangeable adapters. I never thought it would actually exist, but it's really cool to see.
I currently don't have a reason to buy one, I can already play most of the supported systems. I do hope they add Atari Jaguar support since working Jaguar CD units are so rare. 3DO and Amiga CD32 support would also be nice. Then I would definitely get one.
Edit: I just love how everyone in the comments are preaching about how PCs are superior, when this is clearly, 100% not a product aimed at PC users. The people who would buy this system know PCs can play the same games. They simply DO. NOT. CARE.
Ask for royalties
Sue them
Iv been waiting for something like this, I’m starting to run out of space for my different systems! But will wait for more reviews!
I just thought of this idea last night, went online to search to see if someone else had done it and boom, they have. While I am a little disappointed, I am extremely happy. This looks like an amazing product and I really want to support these guys by getting one for myself!
I do not download roms, so the thought of being able to use my own physical games I've owned for decades with HDMI is very appealing.
I'm the same way. I got the games and the hardware and like to collect them so I don't mess around with downloading roms. The convenience and way this is setup is nice and worth the money for me. I could cover the cost of this by selling my backup systems if I wanted to.
21:14 what is that game?? I remember playing it on a demo disc but can never remember what its called. Also if they add a module for handheld systems like GBA and maybe some others such as DS and what not that would be amazing.
Blast Chamber
@@kiddxspazz1714 thank you and @KingdomofNerdom. Now I know what I wanna play now
Where is the CD-i support? I want to get my Zelda on!
He covered it but all the ads were playing during those parts, sorry.
I'm really questioning why it has a SNES/PlayStation like 4 button layout Instead of a Saturn/Arcade 6 button layout.
"If you have a PC with the emulators and ROMs, this isn't going to add much"
Honestly, the idea of a console in your living room that plays thousands of classics, with a good controller, and everything just works no matter what with no issues... it's the wet dream of thousands of avid physical game collectors. Our voice of "Please can the console market stop sitting on their pile of gold and actually let a 3rd party make a new console for them" is somewhat finally being heard and it's amazing. I'd love to see PS2/Xbox support but I understand if thats where the line of generosity gets drawn.
At $400, its steep but as it's an incredible solution to what is years of people wanting something like this, it's really a very good price. It takes the notion of "You're paying for graphics and power" and turns it on it's head, instead offering a consistent and pain-free nostalgia trip.
@Jon Dheaux I have to magic beans for all the people on this thread who have money to burn.
There is one - its called a Wii U or just use PC.
I believe it's 5 more years (2025) and we'll start seeing these types of consoles play PS2, Xbox, Dreamcast, etc. If I remember right (please correct me), you have to wait 25 years to be able to create these consoles supporting the old one. Something like that. That's why we started seeing PS1 games in recent years.
PS1 emulation was already up and running at the turn of the century. I played PS1 games on a P3 with 600Mhz. And I remember 16bit emulation already going strong in '97. The problem was back the, making the technology small enough to fit in your living room. But the power was already there.
Of course more modern systems got more demanding, so the 25 year mark is starting to get pretty accurate and might even take longer in the future.
Talking bullshit.
@@chrisburgess7756 Care to elaborate? Because Bleem and Virtual Game Station would like to have a word with you.
@@nettack Wasnt talking to you. Calm down flake.
@@chrisburgess7756 That's why I asked to elaborate. A simple @ goes a long way, kid.
Like sonic 3D? Here try Barney’s hide and seek game.
Soo An emulator basically?
That's what I was thinking, Its a well made emulator for $400. Compare the specs to a modern console worth $400 and this becomes a enthusiasts piece
A very well made emulator
Thanks for this review! Was waiting for some.
This is a Beautiful little setup for anyone who has big collection of games and wants to cut some space. I can really only see it though in rooms similar to Metal Jesus's room.
400 and it's just emulating, no thanks
That's the thing, especially for PS1. With RetroArch you can run discs from your disc drive, and when you have those cores (like Beetle PSX which is already more compatible than the PS3) and latency options there's just not much reason to have an emulation console for this anymore. An FPGA console may still have use for your television depending on what you're into, but if it's a software emu console you may as well use an old PC or a Pi.
@@Projectwolfie21 this isn't for you. It's for the people who 1. Don't have a PC. 2. Don't have the time to get the emulation to run correctly and spend hours hunting for ROMs and the right version of emulator. And 3. Want to use their original games. Like I said, this isn't for you.
@@Ohsyrus I just said that you could use your original games (for non-CD there is the Retrode). That's a good point about not owning a PC though. Android RetroArch doesn't seem to have the ability to load a disc even though it can support a CD drive via USB (and yes, more recent Snapdragons can do what is required). Though at that point, you need to ask yourself how many don't already have a setup to play these either through CRTs or through upscalers which tend to need even less setup.
Ohsyrus if u gonna spend 400$ on a console i am pretty sure u can get a pc or more likely u already have one. ROMs are easily available especially for non-Nintendo console.
Even playing on retro consoles is becoming more expensive. The original consoles I've been following on Ebay have shot way up in price, apparently due to covid-19 and more people playing games in general. Add in the cost of an optical drive emulator and a digital modding kit and the price goes through the roof. Yeah I don't expect next generation systems to sell for less than $600.
I've been following Polymega, and I've watched dozens of hours of Sarumaru's streams showcasing the product in real time (all the goods, and all the bads... he's really doing Yeoman's work over there).
I'm really impressed with Polymega's product. What it sets out to do, it does way better than anyone would have expected from being simply an emulation device. It also has the added bonus that it's an honest system (thats something I value at least). It's using licensed bios and it's all above board from their end of the transaction. It's also a product that can improve over time with system updates and once they get a large base of customers using this thing, and reporting hiccups here and there... it will eventually be honed to a sharp edge.
My only gripe with this system is the price point. While you can make any manor of justifications of what buying OEM legacy hardware, upscallers, high quality cables... exc, I still don't understand the price. I don't think it's fair to compare this to an FPGA solution like say the Analogue... if you did that, you would win the argument of price and scope of supported systems for sure, but you would never touch the performance. You could compare it to the MiSTer, and while you would be almost dead even in price, the MiSTer covers all but 2 of the systems the Polymega supports, but then on top of that offers dozens more, as well as older computer systems and scores of arcade PCBs. The MiSTer also enters into the potentially "not above board" with ethical licensing which might be seen as a downside, but lets be honest, thats not stopping anyone from buying a MiSTer. You could compare it to modern consoles like the Switch, Xbox One, Playstation 4, and this argument really comes down to "what would YOU the consumer rather spend your $400 on" because it's the least "apples to apples" comparison.
Polymega's product stands on it's merits, and it's just one more competitor in a VERY saturated marketplace. While it sets itself apart from its competitors by offering a pre-configured CD capable emulation platform with massive storage potential... there are many solutions that do "nearly" the same thing for 1/4 the price if you don't mind doing the configuration yourself or having someone do it for you (via pre-configured system images for various SBC's such as the Raspberry Pi, or LaunchBox on the PC).
I don't know what it costs to develop, market and sell through a retailer like Walmart... and I'm not about to. This is a device that is only going to succeed when it actually gets into the hands of consumers and they gush about it to all their friends on social media. Polymega probably doesn't have the marketing budget to really shove this device in the faces of its potential customer base, and that's unfortunate... they have a great product to sell. Sadly, the price point takes an already niche market (retro gaming), and carves it up into an even smaller niche market (premium experience retro gaming), and not all of them are going to drop $400 for starters, another $100 on a nice side NVMe drive and $75 for each additional module when they already own real hardware for many of these systems.
Sorry, I am just not confident thats how its going to pan out. Your average Walmart gamer that isn't plugged into the gaming community, isn't aware of the options out there and is going to see a Polymega sitting on the shelf next to a brand new Switch and think... It's time to dust off my old CD games! After all... who wants to play Breath of the Wild and Mario Universe anyway!? I can get a Switch instead and save $100 to buy a dozen digital games or a couple brand new blockbuster titles all the cool kids are talking about right now.
These competing platforms have digital marketplaces that not only cover multiple platforms, but are growing exponentially every... single... day... and will continue to expand until the platform goes end of life 5-6 years from now.
I want Polymega to succeed, but I'm not confident that starting out where they are now is going to result in anything but disappointing launch that will be overshadowed by the next hype train of a device. Maybe they aren't in an equitable position to sell it for less, and this is all a moot point.
Anyway... I wish them the best, I hope I'm wrong on every point.
Nobody read that trash dude.
I have been watching this for a while but at the moment the Price puts me off, especially with the next generation consoles coming out.
You can't fault the Polymega for issues with Heimdal. I too often have issues whenever a naked Viking is involved
ok im buying one.This looks like a space saver and overall game saver.Nice useful review thanks i was waiting to see your review
One specific game I wanna see playing is Top Gear 3000 for the Snes, that game uses a special and unique chip that no other game use, mostly of the handheld and emulator struggle to play, if someday you got the Snes module please please try that game
FPGA could be expensive. We only want 400$ for software emulation. The interface looks good tho and it has nice features.
You're basically paying 400$ for an android-tv-like UI on top of a closed-platform underpowered HTPC.
@DOOMSlayer No. They're right. I think the UI is nice and works well with the system, but I want to know where that $400 is coming from. Because the most expensive thing in there is probably the SSD. MAYBE the CPU, depending on how old it is, but I doubt it, you don't need much.
I'd say this is a no brainier for someone who doesn't own a PC (perhaps one of the hundreds of millions of Apple Computer customers) and is interested in classic games with no setup / fuss.
@@Vachey Nothing for $400 is a "no-brainer".
@@Vachey Running OpenEmu for most/all of these systems and works great. I have zero desire to acquire this.
$400? No. And I say that as someone who has bought a $500 NT Mini.
From what I can tell from looking this up, $500 just for the first Nintendo and accessories? Does it even make light gun games work on modern TV's for that kind of money?
dapperfan44 mmm light guns don’t work with non CRT screens... however it’s true that the Mini NT is crazy expensive. Got a Mega SG and Super NT for the same price of the NT Mini... added a de10 nano FPGA to the hardware collection. Best Buy for hardware emulation!
Then you’re a moron.
Destruction derby 2 doesn't play on emulators without a bios. There are a handful of games like that.
As a package this is worth the $400. Those saying otherwise have no fucking idea what it costs to bring a product to market. Now they just need to add 3DO support and maybe work on Dreamcast.
Im just interested in their lcd lightgun that is still in production.
I got a sneak peak of the prototype light gun this week! I'm very interested in reviewing it too!
Check out the Sinden Light Gun. It was demo'd pretty extensively on Linus Tech Tips.
@@MetalJesusRocks that would be cool. Another work around to play light gun games on modern tvs
I can't wait
Shit yeah, can't wait for this ... I love playing old light gun games with my son. Specially House of the Dead on Sega Saturn.
Definitely getting one of these for the living room. And yes I have setup a htpc before and honestly the hassle isn't worth it anymore. Not only that but I love the idea of using my actual collection. Great job playmaji can't wait to get mine.
@Zeus yes. I had an amazing setup that I spent a LOT of time getting right and it was still too buggy to navigate for my wife and kids
Yea, I just can't be bothered with that stuff nowadays. Being basically plug and play, using my physical games, and having a nice menu and OS setup sold me on this.
@Christopher Howard
That's another good point, the convenience of others. Like my wife who may play more of the puzzle games she likes if she doesn't have to drag out and figure out what goes to what to hook up the Genesis ( with a Sega CD so 2 power supplies) up to the TV and such, and definitely isn't going to mess around with emulator menus on whatever system to boot up Columns.
For an FPGA with "perfect" playback...I'd put down $400 without blinking - I have tons of supported games for this. But for software emulation?? Nope. I guess I'll just wait for Analogue to get around to the CD era. $200 is about as much as I would pay for an emulation box - this is basically like a Retron5 for CD games. If I want to play on an emulator, I'll just use my PC for free!
@@CaptAwesumNo1Zone And you know this...how? They've done the Neogeo, NES, SNES, and Genesis. The Pocket does most of the handlelds. Maybe they do the Turbo or the N64? They're going to make a CD system at some point - it just makes sense.
@@CaptAwesumNo1Zone Analogue systems being sold out doesn't make the Polymega worth $400. Not sure what point you are making...? If you want to emulate these systems NOW...most modern PCs will do that. For this kind of money, I'd prefer to wait for an FPGA option. So people wont - and that's cool too.
This is really cool actually! I look forward to how this evolves.
HOLY CRAP!! What is that game at 21:15 with the red blue green and yellow guys? I played that when I was a kid and have been searching for years
The concept is kinda cool...
The company (at least on social media) are assholes, especially if you question certain aspects of their devices. I got banned on twitter for asking how it's really different than a mister. They didn't seem to like questions.
For that price point, I'd rather have original hardware with an OSSC and use original controllers. I'm not saying there isn't a market for this. In fact, I might have considered on had the MiSTer not come out (because I just ripped all my CD based games anyway). Just the way they treated their customers on social media.
They never did explain what hybrid emulation really is.... so with emulation, it can do the same thing a Windows PC can do with 20 minutes of downloading.
Also, I got my gen 2 sega genesis, a 32x and a sega cd for like 80. It did take me about a week of nights recapping, cleaning and fixing. So yeah, there's that and most people won't want to or can go to that extreme.
I know you said it's a Linux flavor they are using, I'm hoping they are using ext3 or ext4 for the file system otherwise, if it's fat32 and they are constantly writing and deleting from the hard drive, there's going to be a lot of fragmentation overtime.
Also, 40 Winks is definitely a good game!
Yeah, I wrote a wall of text but I did also watch the whole video!!
When companies (especially small ones like these) start being bums on social media, I instantly get turned off from their product. That goes for RUclipsrs as well.
They did a really good job with this I was impressed that I could play burned burned games with the English translation the convenience as you said essentially just being plug and play again they did a great job
Its basically Retroarch on a box like a Pie but this system has a Coffeelake core processor and DDR4 Ram also the room to expand storage via M.2. For around $450USD you can build a Ryzen 3200G APU based PC that can emulate all of these Games fine using Retroarch. $400 is steep then extra for the expansions to play other consoles, I would personally prefer to build an APU based rig and that's exactly what I did.
pcpartpicker.com/list/By3Xjp
or you can simply buy a playstation classic for 30 dollars and a 15 dollar USB drive and put retroarch on it (project eris being the newest build as for as Im aware) and play all of these games just fine...thats what I did lol
@@kyles8524 Slightly cheaper alternative, I do prefer a decent PC as an Emulation machine because I can emulate newer consoles but I'm sure it works perfectly fine.
@@hardcorehardware361 just for the older stuff
@@kyles8524 I need to try this honestly, purely out of interest.
@@hardcorehardware361 Its pretty cool, the thing I really like about using retro arch on the ps classic is you can load up game genie and action replay cheats and others like gameshark into your games for basically all the emulators and they have tons of codes for each game and the Liberto cores for each console or aka emulator cores ensures you dont run into compatibility issues.Its kind of cool if you are off on a road trip or something and dont want to haul around a computer cause I dont know if you have ever handled a ps classic but its even smaller than the snes classic.You can also load your built in playstation games that come installed on the console or ones you put onto the USB drive from retro arch instead of bleemsync so you can load cheats into those games as well
Totally got pumped when I saw Tenchu play on this!!! 🙌
This is exactly what I need, I have a fair collection of old consoles and games but recently I'm back to playing my old GameCube, would this play GameCube disc's aswell?
I don't think the DVD player will rip a Gamecube disk as it needs a specific dvd drive on a PC to read them.
The controller for that is just a cheap Chinese controller you can get from Amazon. I have one just like it for my Switch
You don't think the entire console is made in China?🤔
So is the Switch, Xbox, PlayStation, your phone and everything else.
While an incredibly cool concept, that's a hard price to want to jump in with.
I wish for a MS-DOS emulator with creative sound blaster like sound, VGA and HDMI connections, floppy drive and IBM M keyboard replica.
I thought about that as well! Wish I would have mentioned it in the video that DOSBOX support of PC games would be pretty cool! Even support usb keyboard and mouse!
It exists and it's called the MiSTer. Or use PCem on your desktop.
@@cosmickatamari I'm talking about plug and play, I played DOS games on PC or on the web but it's not the same. There's also "PC Classic" by unite, not the real thing but at least a mini system for DOS games. I'm not sure if it'll make it to the market because last update was more than a year ago.
@@--avi I gotcha. You could always look into buying a mini pc (like the old pc WIndows XP terminals) and referbed it for DOS 6.22 or Windows 95. I made one for a friend, it's plug and play for hardware, just time consuming. There's also scouring the internet and building from real hardware but you're looking at cleanup of PCBs because of age.
Thanks for doing this video. Love your work.
Hey Metal Jesus can you do a newer review of the Polymega base unit again with sega games?
Fun drinking game for every MJR episode..take a shot everytime he says 'cool'...
Or OSSUM.
Hey, someone put a video in your ads
RUclips premium you won’t get those cheap ass
RUclips Vanced if you're on android. It's the shit.
@@tb-xy7lg Yes I did player
@@tb-xy7lg Why should I tell you oh and one more thing I’m not your buddy buddy
You’re right I’m a dumb ass What you trying to say is this whole video is nothing but a sales pitch by metal Jesus
I would love to know if Shining Force 3 works on this perfectly cause I know it has issues with emulation. If you've tried it offscreen, can you please let me know if it's working well or not. Thank you Metal Jesus!!!
Pretty sure I saw a Japanese version of SF3 playing perfectly well on the Polymega. The vid was on RUclips somewhere.
@@Princescyther thank you much, I'll sort it out and see it it is 😊
Hope no more delays again.
Many retro gamers are skeptical about this due to covid 19 pandemic situation that affect manufacturing process & meeting the demands.
Better than I was expecting after hearing about this a while back. Great overview.
Man Megarace, that takes me back! Back to when OST's tried to sound trancy.
Ikr
400 for an emulator? No thanks when you can get an old dell for 50 bucks.
dell cant play physcail editinos or use controllers of the consoles thou/
@@praveshmaharaj4387 I mean most of the controllers can be used via usb or you can find a usb version of said controller online secondly in my opinion digital roms are much better and don't clutter up my room finally the price advantage is more than worth it so....
@@praveshmaharaj4387 These machine its not playing physical editions. Its downloading the rom, and emulating theme.
Downloading it from yout cartridge or of other people cartridge on internet is almost the same.
@@Psychommuniter It's EXACTLY the same.
decent laptop which takes care of 80% of your emulation needs cost 200/300$ now a days and you can use it for other things
The packaging alone is epic in itself. Shame I don't have the money for this.
Hahaha nice one
Did you get a change to try Vib Ribbon for the PS1? I think Digimon is another unique one that you can change out the disc to get extras.
I'm sold! The disk drive on my Sega Saturn just went out. And to get it fixed cost the same amount as getting another one. I was looking for another Saturn and I came across this system. I totally forgot all about it. I needed to get it not only to play my Saturn but every other systems it plays out of the box. I got a pretty big collection.
20:39
"thousands" in Arnold Schwarzenegger voice 😁
"Get to da chopper"