Combining a number of older consoles into one box and having them HD-compatible would be nice, right? Of course, which is why I personally am excited about Hyperkin’s RetroN 5 console. I’ve gone through two SNES consoles in the past six years, I don’t think I can bear losing another.
The RetroN 5 has several cartridge slots compatible with the following classic consoles:
- Nintendo/Famicom
- Super Nintendo/Super Famicom
- Sega Genesis/Megadrive
- Game Boy and Game Boy Color
- Game Boy Advance
To top it all off, the console upscales to 720p in a way that does not blur classic titles, meaning you can play the games compatible with the consoles listed above on your shiny modern television without getting a headache. Science!
There really is a lot to cover in the functions department. Save states (don’t save scum, you scrub), overclocking, cross-controller compatibility, and quality audio rendering are all in the box. It relies on hardware emulation instead of software emulation, which will hopefully negate some of the issues that software-based emulation presents.
If you’re looking for a similar console offering compatibility with disc-based platforms, you’re out of luck for the time being. While I would love to play my Sega Saturn games without having to rely on the native console’s memory battery, patents on the Saturn, PlayStation, and later consoles have yet to run out.
Hyperkin is hoping to release the RetroN 5 in July for under $100, but they cannot give a firm release date or price just yet. Let’s hope their date and price estimation is more than a guess.
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