Polymega - WE DON'T GET IT | Red Cow Arcade
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- Опубліковано 28 чер 2024
- Years after it's release, we review the Polymega, and we don't get it at all.
Edited by @JasonGravesPoser
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The UI they have actually looks really nice I wonder what front end they're using. But nobody is going to spend 1000 dollars for a UI hahhaa
I am now. Becsuse they told me not to get it.
Don't tell me what to do.
Wow, Gamesack is still alive. I always liked him because it seemed like he put a lot of effort into his videos, even though they were kind of milquetoast. At this day and age, for retro gaming steam deck is probably the best option if you want to buy just a single gaming device. Emulates fine and you can play even modern games with it.
Very alive. Posts almost every Sunday.
I'd more so recommend the lenovo go as that straight up has windows and performs better and it being an actual windows machine lets it be able to play games that are locked out of windows without having to Dualboot at Steam deck
The best part of emulation is that it doesn’t take up any space. Having to store all of those clunky modules and still have all of your physical media just defeats the point imo. If you’re going to take up all that space for that price, you might as well get some original consoles and a CRT.
You can install your collections onto an SSD, which is what I've done.
As someone who isnt a collector. I mostly agree with you. But these old consoles and TV's are limited and the ones that do exist are gonna break eventually. So the physical people are gonna probably have to buy these shitty emulation consoles at some point
(my worst Craig Tucker voice) "Did it ever occur to them that the gamers who were reluctant to purchase the base unit for $400 were waiting for the price to go down, because the original hardware for the games it supports also had price drops back in their day? No, of course not. They thought raising it by $150 was a good idea. And that's why gamers like myself are tracking down CRTs and original hardware."
I think the reason they upped the price was because they were out of money and didn't have enough to manufacture new orders along with existing preorders.
That Retrobit Tribute 64 looking ass controller tho
I went back and forth down the years playing my retro (ie, mostly 8 and 16 bit) games on everything from original hardware/software, Modded Wiis, to Retropies, to my PC and I've ultimately settled upon a MiSTer with a range of 8bitdo wireless controllers.
I've had a Polymega for about two years now and it's probably been one of the best investments I've made in years, I mainly bought it for the CD offerings, my Sega Saturn no longer works like it used too and the ability to use my physical media is a real benefit
a ton of emulators these days allow you to slot the disc in your PCs disc drive
😂😂😂😂😂 this thing is a ham and egger piece of trash
@@JessicaFEREM Most modern PCs dont have disc drives anymore,.
@@ToxcynArcadevery true
I got mine back in April. I love mine. I got lucky with the firmware update though and landed comfortably on 1.1.22, so all my stuff 'just works' while i wait foor the .32 update to fix the bugs introduced in .30
I’m still waiting on my Intellivision Amico 🥲😆
The rocket ship is built, they just need a little more fuel.
Atari bought it out intellivision, might actually happen now lmao
@@Dariothehungrythey bought everything but Amico
@@IDHLEB lol
Bruh
Chrono Cross in the background very awesome
I ordered my Polymega back when it was first announced in or around 2018. At the time, it was appealing to me because I wanted emulation of multiple systems in one chasis. By the time I finally received mine in the mail earlier this year, I had already installed my entire games library on my Steam Deck and been enjoying that convenience for nearly two years. I haven't even bothered hooking it up yet.
Yeah, that was my unit, and addons Joe reviewed. 😅
I waited 2+ years for it. The Polymega was originally to be an fpga machine, and then they swapped it to software emulation from hardware.
My rational thought was to get this for my son so he can easily play my collection without needing to use original hardware and servicing og hardware. Frankly, a MiSTer can do a lot more, which led me to make and package the M3 multisystem.
Get a mini PC with bluetooth and wfi-fi from a reseller for about $100 and stick Retroarch on it.
I've a derelict laptop from about 2009 that I've configured exclusively to play emulated games that still holds up. I mostly use it to play old stand-by games with the same group of people, but there is a joy in learning about a ROM you've had for decades that can shake things up. Like, we used to debate playing the NES or SNES versions of Rampart until I discovered that Konami did their own port of the game in Japan, and it's a nice breath of fresh air in comparison.
It meant something when it was planned to be FPGA. They scraped those plans early on.
It was too hard. Though I feel like a multi purpose fpga system will come, that does things basically perfect, but won't use any media which at that point ....seems kinda useless since analogue already has locked that down. Tho as these systems age, things are getting better so when we're all dead and gone, they'll still be able to be played
Really well edited clip, Jason!
$1000, jeepers... For that price I'd want it to work flawlessly and buff my floors. Some people will just buy anything though
The retron 5 is actually great if you're into pokemon, and are using the actual carts for self-trades and compatibility with the Stadium games. I play on the Retron for convenience, write my save to the cart, and then I can do everything you need real hardware for too.
Wait you can back up saves with the retron 5? That's very interesting I need to back up my saves lol
@@LumbyMcGumby yeah, although ime compatibility isn't perfect with GBA games. My leaf green, fire red, and Japanese emerald don't work. All gb and gbc stuff works, and English ruby, sapphire, and emerald work.
The gb operator is better for backing up saves, but you have to use it in conjunction with a computer, whereas the retron is its own thing.
Retron 5 sucks
A great product. For the year 2000.
You guys think it was as lazy as I did that AVGN just didn't finish Sim City (SNES)?
Those Beelink and Minisforum mini PCs are actually really freakin' good!
If you're going to spend money on some kind of emulation device get a Mister. FPGA, no lag, modern or old tvs, and even runs N64 and Saturn now.
Yes, Polymega in theory is a niche product for those who easily want to use classic controllers, carts and have more money than time. You both nailed the reality of situation, it's too expensive, the features don't come setup out of the box and we now have quality 3rd party controllers. A used Dell for $50, an 8 bit do controller for $30 and a Retrode 2 for $70 and the experience is very good at almost 1/10 the price. My retro PC is in a beautiful ITX Lian Li Q-20 case with a used GTX 1060, core i5 6500 which were bought for peanuts ages ago and it's still impressive what's possible on these older chipsets. The evolution of the easy, plug and play, all-in-one retro device might be coming with the MARS project since originally Polymega was suppose to be a FPGA device.
When I have my druthers, I like to take it one further over the Everdrive, and use the cartridge itself. The advantage is that you don’t have to browse a boring text menu, but rather an attractive managerie of games with accompanying stickers. Also, if it’s a Gameboy, that means you’re probably on the go, so you don’t have time to go through a separate menu just to pick out the game. You want to turn it on, and immediately dive into Tetris, Space Invaders, etc.
Hi can you please post the link for the saturn emulation pc you built? bc i didn't find it in your channel
ua-cam.com/video/R-W1c2PKc_4/v-deo.htmlsi=PQ3qAx0cdJrW3qMN
I was superhyped as a diehard 32-bit collector, it's my favorite generation next to 8-16 bit. But yea, paying $1000 for a bunch of emulation modules, and they don't even play the games perfectly, nah, I'm good. As important as the input lag situation is for older games and emulation/using other displays, the 32-bit era really requires precise inputs due to all the added genres those consoles can play.
Playing a PS2 on an old HDTV with component cables looks pretty good, especially for PS1 games. 3D PS2 games still have color bleed and tons of jaggies, but PS1 seems to almost look and play better on a PS2 with component hooked to the HDTV. Luckily all the PS2 HDMI kits are getting sold for the first time right now, so we'll see if that's a good solution with all the youtuber reviews coming up.
Nice episode i enjoy it thank u from morocco
Literally you can just buy a USB cartridge reader and rip the roms yourself if you *really* care about using physical media. and you can have all the cart readers plugged in at the same time!
In my mind for that money you should either get a MiSTer or an HDMI/RGB mod for original hardware.
I use a raspberry pi. It was really fun to set up everything and runs great. I'm sure it's not the best, there's always something better out there, but it was great for my retro fix
one of the reasons that i like having records is for the pointed experience. you are not just throwing tunes on in the background. i still find myself playing my 3ds most out of all. it's cozy af.
I believe the sound lag issue on Polymega stems from Linux because the Genesis Mini and Turbografx16 Mini have a similar problem.
AJ: Dude you are getting a DELL! Me: 😢
Do the enough electrons move through reality to make it an authentic experience?
Hiyah
I use Lemuroid on my tablet for free, it doesnt run anything past PS1 but for ds games its awesome. F Metal Jesus hes a hack.
Whenever I think I want this I always talk myself out of it. 1000 dollars Canadian for the base unit is just ridiculous.
I’ve never seen EJ so passionate about anything!
For that price you'd be way better off getting a mister. I built myself one of those Mister Multisystems a while back and it's super solid. I couldn't really think of a worse bang for your buck than the Polymega. That thing blows.
I actually recently bought a Beelink mini PC and I’ve been running just Shmup MAME on it for Dodonpachi and it’s been amazing. I was actually able to 1CC it. I would imagine it would be able to do a ton of other emulation if it can do that.
Okay maybe not Saturn, but ODEs have been around for Saturn for some time. I don’t think I paid $1,000 for mine.
I gave up on the POLYMEGA and got a Mister back in 2020, never looked back.
I wanted this thing SO bad but then I just got a cheap used PC and installed Lakka on it. It's just a consolized version of RetroArch.
I'm a Red Cow noob (2 months old) but I have never seen EJ be this passionately against something (for good reason).
I am going to get one now.... because you told me not to.
The original hype was that it was going to be FPGA. Then it became emulation, so the main selling point was lost.
Many great points about the problem with this product are brought up in this video.
The other issue for me is the need to even swap out modules for the cartridge based systems. Hypothetically speaking, even if all of this was lower in price, the emulation was top-notch, and it was more "plug and play" without the need for mess with all of the various settings.... there is still the need to swap out an entire module (not just a cartridge and possibly a controller) if I want to go from N64 to SNES, or any of the other cartridge based systems.
That just sounds like a pain in the arse. It is also another potential long term failure point. Even if it is no worse on the hardware than swapping out cartridges is for the pin connectors or swapping out controllers are for the controller ports, it it still a level of gradual wear and tear that just seems unnecessary. But more importantly, it is very inconvenient. Having to essentially swap out a major piece of the console itself just to play different games defeats the purpose of an all-in-one console. At that point, whether I'm using original hardware or some kind of modern emulation or FPGA based clone consoles, I feel like I'd be better off having separate units for the consoles that I want to play, even if I would need to get some kind of HDMI switcher to connect them all up at one time, would be a better option. I can just swap between inputs on the TV and HDMI switcher (if necessary), turn on whichever device I want to use, and I'm good to go. Or if I'm limited on space or just don't want to hook that many units up at one time, I can hook up the one/couple that I want to play now and swap them out when I want to play a different one, which is no less convenient than swapping modules on this thing.
It just seems to be overly complicated for what should be relatively simple to accomplish.
I have a batocera build on my ROG flex tablet.
Never understood people that play retro without emulation. You can literally make the game look 8x better, mods, cheats, save states, etc. And you can get a new import translation running in like 2 minutes.
Playing ps1, wii, xbox360 in 4k is god's work
This is why I love both.
Original hardware is mostly going to look and play poorly on a flatscreen, so in that case emulation can be better. Original hardware on a CRT is leagues better than emulation. Cheats and save states are boring imo, but all of that stuff can be done easily on an everdrive, including the translations and mods.
Some people are interested in chasing the dragon of somehow making the game “better,” but some people just want to cut the crap and have the game work the way it always worked.
I spent years emulating. It‘s a fine way to play games. Its huge advantages are convenience and price.
@@fishingmule3266 idk man, I think its just nostalgia. And even if I go with your crt argument, that's only for the Third and Fourth generation. Beyond that, there's no way you see a ps1 or saturn game upscaled 4x and think it looks better on original hardware.
@@Imsanthisismychannnelhi nostalgia would be if I was just going on memory. I’ve tried both back to back with a number of different systems. Everything looks and runs better on the consoles with the CRT, especially stuff like the N64, Saturn, and PS2. If anything, the SNES and earlier translate better to emulation than that early 3D stuff. I’m not knocking emulation. It’s very convenient, and sadly CRTs won’t be around forever.
accuracy is a big reason. it's the authentic experience. also old games at 4k resolution look horrible idk what you're smoking.
the electrons don't even move through reality, what were they thinking?
The best thing about the Polymega is that it got me into FPGA instead.
Same here.
I have a PlayStation classic i paid $29 clearanced and added a flashdrive and can emulate PlayStation on back and have every game i ever needed.
7:16
What were they thinking?!
EJ gives the most impassioned plea of his life.
Totally worthless and yet overpriced.
Ripping roms from your own games for personal use is legal. Making personal backups of media has always been legal. It's only piracy if you try to sell or distribute them after.
don't think I've seen EJ this fired up lol
I was interested in this system until they gave up on FPGA and switched to emulation. Same feeling I had at the time. Just get an emulation box that costs a fraction of the price.
For $200 or $300 you can get yourself a Retroid Pocket or any of the countless other handheld emulation systems and within a few hours you’ll be playing anything from Dreamcast backwards flawless. With pretty decent emulation now for PS2 and GameCube. And like I get it, it’s fun to want to use the cartridges you already own. Especially if you’ve got a large collection already.
But when the system you are buying is just ripping the rom anyway… like what’s really the point?
I don't get the point of these systems that take the original disc/cart if they're not reading directly from them, or in the case of carts, writing the save to them.
I bought a Saturn and an Ode that can output scary or SVideo (which I use)…It’s fantastic. Fuck the polymega
I wonder if the Poly Mega becomes financially advantageous if you actually own a library of games for all of the CD consoles it can read and play. Maybe it’s cheaper than buying a working PlayStation, Saturn, NeoGeo etc. I enjoy listening to you guys discussing all of the options for emulation and video game consoles/games.
I imagine someone with all of those games would already have the working consoles. Getting a retro console is generally cheaper and easier than getting the games for it (especially for those older CD based consoles).
@@fishingmule3266 I don’t disagree, I’m just speculating about what situation would make this a reasonable purchase 😂
'How 'bout NO!'
Wrong information, I got my console with all the add ons for $750. It’s a great little box I really enjoy all my games being installed.
For this money you can get a mini PC or an RPi that performs much better as an emulation machine. You are basically paying for the form factor, which isn't even that appealing.
I get it
I wonder if the Polymega will improve now that Atari has bought them.
Wait, what? Atari bought them??? Really?
@@Aki_Lesbrinco no joke. Sorry, in their words they call it a "strategic collaboration," but they gave them a bunch of money. Their parent company is called Playmaji.
Also doesn’t make sense to buy it since we live in an imperfect physical world
My first impression is, I hate the shape of the controller.
4:17 they should have made this console $8 cheaper.
Its so strange cuz its media based, emulation. Its only good seemingly for disks. If your someone with a huge library you constantly use, i guess its cool. By now id think there would be a way to say, hack an xbox series x, where you can put your disks in and have them read.but even thats tok much workaround and hassle. The emulation for polymega needs to be amazing to jump in,orher wise for the money, you just go original console. You can get a ps1, sega cd,saturn etc for not that much money relatively to the several hundred for the polymega with accesories. Than the cartridge side. Which if you wanna buy a smes,nes,, genesis, you can get all 3 for like 200$
playing the games through emulation made it pointless cause most of us kept our discs & carts to have an authentic experience
I never understood the point of those consoles that rip the games and just emulate it.
I also remember hearing about the PolyMega like, 4-5 years ago, and like you guys, came across the Game Sack review and was like, "...Who is this even for??" This thing actually seems even worse than the retron. and over a grand for this pile of trash? Noooooo thank you.
If you're interested in retro gaming, either stick with the original hardware, emulation, or grab something like the MiSTer. The Polymega isn't even worth half of what they ask for.
based on the raw specs alone, it is a staggeringly atrocious price-to-performance ratio, it's up there w/ the atari vcs in that department, literally a worse price-to-performance ratio than switch, if you want a pc you can emulate on get a steam deck it doubles as a handheld & is waaay more worth it lol
EDIT: also frankie, it is perfectly legal to dump your own backup copies, it's the distribution of said copies that's illegal
I have a retroid pocket 2+ that i have hooked up to my tv and my kids use it all the time. Took some config on my end but its also portable....what a waste of money this is.
Hell guys you can still soft mod an original Wii to do the majority of stuff this thing does...and better
Inviten a cesarito he is the best
Real tired of youtubers who keep parroting "this is not for everybody, this is for collectors" fuck that shit
When it was released it did sound promising because of the Saturn emulation which wasn't out yet and they promised N64 cart emulation. Then they were plagued with controls, pandemic happened and the MiSTer started to get competent cores. If they released when they were supposed to, it wouldn't have been a disaster.
I wanted to like this product. My collection of retro and emulation gear is never complete. I just can’t put my finger on anything the Polymega does better than its competitors or that justifies the price.
A $1000 PC, assuming it was built using the best components available within budget, could emulate all of these consoles, play most modern games, and still function as a computer.
If you have original hardware you could mod it to have HDMI or read from an SD card instead of an ancient optical drive. You could use an analog bridge and scaler.
FPGA is another option that’s cheaper and doesn’t have the issues Joe from Game Sack pointed out.
I have an Evercade and it’s almost the same scenario, i.e. it doesn’t really do much I couldn’t get with an emulator. But the price is reasonable, they created new physical media, and if they keep doing stuff like porting over Duke Nukem 1 & 2 they might build a decent catalog of exclusives.
I’ve seen cartridges endure decades of abuse/neglect and still work like a charm. On the other hand, I’ve also had CDs disintegrate, rot, crack, and get scratched, not to mention issues with drives like bad lenses or motors.
The big difference with the Retron5 is that it was created at a time when retro stuff was cheap, accessible, useful and simple.
Polymega is the antithesis and symbol of the current market, overpriced, complicated and useless
More like PolymegaSHIT!!
If you are paying money for unlicended products, then you might as well stick to emulators
I love how yanks pronounce the word "mega" 😂 "MAYGA." 😂😂 Always makes me smile.
In the midwest we pronounce it Meh-ga. We don't all speak the same, we're a big country.
Something like this has to be turnkey, but it's not and it's crazy expensive. No point in it.
Im sorry but Batocera is trash overall.
Lots of incorrect information here.
1000 dollars ?????
Buy a computer
Objectivley better use of your money
Polymega sounds like a dark and edgy Zack Synder Polly pocket reboot. Think mighty Max without Max.
I don't get It either it's Just an overpriced piece of crap that , yes use emulation but with real media... That converts then into Roms and ISO anyway
The controller is cringe
Just get real hardware and an everdrive. Quit being lazy. I hate these clones, they are always ugly and their controllers are a joke and there is always issues.
There are no shortcuts for real hardware.
If you want a good time with emulating all these systems get at least a quadcore with AVX2 instruction set and basic DX12 and Vulkan support at least 1.1. That might not be every old dell you find online.