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/vr/ - Retro Games

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File: 80 KB, 600x491, powerpak_main_large[1].jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1746983 No.1746983 [Reply] [Original]

Hey /vr/, are there any ultra-cheap NES flash carts that I don't have to spend over $100 for? The Everdrive series and the Powerpak are fucking outrageous and I can't understand how these fucks justify charging that much money.

I just got a great eBay score on an NES plus games and I'm pretty hype. What I really want to do is play ROM hacks and English translations on a real NES.

>> No.1747048

Anyone?

>> No.1747064

They've cornered the market it seems like, so with no competition they can charge whatever they want. This is pretty neat, but I can't see myself paying that much for it. Hope someone can help you out, op.

>> No.1747067

>>1746983
Supply and demand. There's how you justify the price. Go make your own if you don't want to pay for it - oh wait.

>> No.1747072

>>1746983
Deal with it or fucking don't. Thats all there is to it.

Its incredibly specialized. This isn't Walmart shit where you can sell 10 million items and make 20 cents an item. You need to make profit per piece sold, which means, guess what? An inflated price for individual items.

Man /vr/ is fucking cheap I swear to god. An everdrive/power pak isn't -that- expensive if you shop around. The only real problem is that most of the retailers are "sold out" constantly.

>> No.1747089

Tehres a Chinese Everdrive N8 clone but..............

http://krikzz.com/forum/index.php?topic=1842.0
http://krikzz.com/forum/index.php?topic=1779.0

>> No.1747103

>>1747072
Poor retro hipsters are pissed they paid $150 for an eBay NES bundle and found out about flash carts after.

>> No.1747105

The wife calculated very quickly that an everdrive was significantly cheaper than trying to buy some of the overpriced bullshit. It was worth every penny.

If you can't afford it, then, sorry.

>> No.1747110

>>1747105
Hey now... moustache wax and ironic retro necklaces can get pricey!

>> No.1747123

>>1747105
>Everdrive
>Literally less then the price of shit like 1 cart of little samson or the entire Megaman Library.

The fact you couldn't do this yourself and had your wife do it is quite telling.

>> No.1749781

Speaking of retroUSB, they used to sell blank NES cartridge casings in various colors, but it seems like they stopped recently. It's not even under their discontinued section of the site, did they run into legal trouble or something? And where can I get such casings elsewhere?

>> No.1749807

Considering you're getting 98% of the nes library, a little over $100 is nothing to complain about. You're also paying labor. Flashcarts are hand assembled and tested, usually by one person. If they're getting paid only about $20 in profit, why bother? Stop being cheap and expecting a lot for little.

>> No.1750486

>>1746983
ITT: I want everything handed to me without any work or money.

>> No.1750504

What's the difference between a Mega Everdrive and an Everdrive MD?

>> No.1750682

>>1750504
Price. Hurr hurr. The Mega Everdrive functions as a Sega CD RAM cart, allows you to load different BIOS versions for the Sega CD as if they were just game ROMs (and this of course starts the Sega CD playing whatever disc you have in it). It also does most Master System and 32X games. Be advised that due to memory bus issues, you have to disconnect the 32X to play Master System games, and to play the Bad Apple demo or any other MASSIVE homebrew project, you have to disconnect the Sega CD, too.

Pricey, but if you can get down with a group buy, you can save quite a bit. I got my Mega Everdrive when there was a four-site-wide group buy back in early spring. Mods kept deleting the threads here, though.

I guess the Everdrive MD doesn't do all of the fancier stuff.

Mega Everdrive
http://krikzz.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=55

Everdrive MD3
http://krikzz.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=50

>> No.1750697

>>1750682
As the bloke that has recently finished a group buy, it is the way to get them cheaper.
I probably wont do another as its to much hastle

>> No.1750710

>>1750697
You're telling me. I'm still sitting on a pile of unsaleable inventory from a few years back when I went on a 250-mile long shopping trip for /toy/, and a large chunk of people fucked off and never paid me.

>> No.1751254

>>1750710
The one I did people paid me before I put the order in, it works out best that way

>> No.1751349
File: 66 KB, 1802x509, flashcart prices.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1751349

>> No.1751389

Could always just make your own. It's not rocket science.

>> No.1751434

>>1747105
>The wife calculated
>being so beta you can't do math

>> No.1751443

>>1751434
>Not getting married to save on calculators

>> No.1751450

>>1751443
>Not using a calculator to find out how much you save by not getting married.

>> No.1751453

>>1751450
>Not saving on getting married by buying loads of NES games

>> No.1751471

>>1751453
>>1751450
>>1751443
>>1751434
>implying implications

>> No.1751507

>>1751453
>Not marrying your NES games

>> No.1751564

I would just suck it up and pay the full price for one. They're both pretty good in quality.

>> No.1751913

If you're too cheap to play on a flash cart, use an emulator
if you don't want to use an emulator, pay for the flash cart

>> No.1751976

>>1751913
>not just 3D printing cheap flash carts

>> No.1752728

I understand that they are priced that way for a reason.

Just wondering, which flashcart is best for SNES bearing in mind pal region. I'd like to be able to play other regions though.

Same question for n64 flashcarts

>> No.1752782

Newb question,
Do these work with any NES? I have a PAL one, also, are there SNES ones.

>> No.1752818

Old consoles are hardly DS levels of profitability so they’re a niche item and as such somewhat expensive. If you can't see how much money you're instantly saving with a flash cart you should just stick to emulation.

>>1752728
You'll need to get a 60hz switch mod or something if you want to properly play NTSC games on a PAL SNES.

Personally I'd just grab a cheap Super Famicom as you could get a single SFC/PAL style case that will work on both without needing to widen slots or anything.

>>1752782
PAL NES works fine but you won't be able to play NTSC at full speed without an NTSC console.

>> No.1752878

>>1752818
Thanks. I can get a super famicom pretty cheap on ebay, or I can go even further and get my cousin to send me one. Just would need a power converter, of which I know little about.

>> No.1752894

>>1752878
All you need is an AC adapter for the US.

I use a Genesis 1 AC adapter for my Japanese Neo Geo, because using the one that came with it would overvolt the system by 20%.

>> No.1752998

>>1752894
I'm from the PAL region (Australia to be specific) and I believe a converter it required, that is, at least what I have seen from my searches, there's little definitive info on what I need exactly, however.

>> No.1755057

>>1752818
When you say NTSC, does that just mean the ROMS? Can I use PAL ROMS fine? is it like this for flash cards up to and including the n64?

>> No.1755235

Krikzz, the guy who makes the everdrive n8 explained on his forum in detail why it's that price.

He's not gouging, it's a niche item and everything is done by hand.

Buy one instead of buying a handful of regular carts. It's well worth the price. You can play imports/translations/homebrew and regular games on it and there is regular updates and support.

>> No.1755261
File: 15 KB, 228x266, considerthefollowing.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1755261

>>1752998
I had the same issue recently, albeit with a US SNES but the solution is the same.

Super Famicom takes 10V DC (1.2A)
SNES (US) takes 10V DC (1.2A)
SNES (PAL) takes 10V AC (1.2A) for some fuckstupid reason
All use different sized jacks/slots to plug into the console, but all are center-negative.

You have two choices;
1. Buy a Megadrive Model 1 power supply locally (PAL MD uses a PSU with the right specs) and splice the cable onto the jack that came with the Super Famicom.
2. Buy something like this www.ebay.com.au/itm/251384221247/

I opted for the Megadrive PSU solution for a little more robust. Also I just happened to search on eBay at the right time.

>> No.1757516

Sometimes I feel like the only person on the board that just doesn't *get* flashcarts.

If you don't want to own the actual game, why spend over a hundred dollars to emulate the game when you can just plug a USB controller into your computer and play some ROMs there for free?

Is it just justifying the purchase of the system to yourself? Is there some secret advantage here that I'm not seeing?

>> No.1757635

>>1757516
It's not emulation. Everything runs exactly as it would if it were the real game.

That's why people buy them.

>> No.1758109

>>1757635
It's exactly emulation. The only difference between it and downloading games on your computer is that one of them is being played via your computer and the other by a console. Since neither is using the actual game or even requires ownership of the game... why pay hundreds of dollars for one and not the other?

I get collecting retro games. I get just wanting to play retro games and doing that for free. I don't get wanting to play the games, but not wanting to own them but still wanting to spend a huge chunk of money.

>> No.1758120

>>1758109
>It's exactly emulation.
An NES emulator is an imitation of the original hardware. Running an unofficial ROM on an actual NES isn't what you would call emulation.

>> No.1758143

>>1758109
>why pay hundreds of dollars for one and not the other?
Everything runs exactly as it would if it were the real game. The console makes no distinction between the two.

Think of it this way, this isn't really for collectors, some people want to play games on the original hardware, flash carts allow them to do that at a more affordable price than if they were to go out and buy each individual game.

To get base functionality for retro consoles flash carts only cost around $100, the most expensive flashcart so far is the SD2SNES which is around $200, but you have to realize that this is because it has to have additional hardware to play games with enhancement chips.

If you don't see the point of it then don't buy it, but clearly since you didn't see the point of my past post I guess I'll spell it out for you. Accuracy, accuracy accuracy accuracy, people who buy these things buy them for accuracy, and not just to hold an original cartridge in their hand.

Considering the fact that I can answer one of your questions with a statement I've made in my previous post, it seems like you read the first three words of my post and latched onto the term of emulation, when really the cartridge in the case of most consoles, holds nothing but information, even if you could describe it as emulation, it is emulating only the cartridge itself, and not beyond that, as the data the console is receiving is the same as the cartridge. Arguments could be made for both sides in terms of the dictionary definition for emulation, and how it's generally used in communities that focus on retro hardware, but that's not the important thing here. If you take anything away from this post, I hope it will be that the people who buy flash carts buy them to have an accurate game experience without paying exorbitant amounts in order to play anywhere close to the same number of games.

>> No.1758173

>>1758120
The game is still an emulation, regardless of whether you're using a computer or the console itself.

>>1758143
The point you've seemed to make on why someone would prefer this to just playing a ROM that's been perfectly duplicated from the source is... that they'd rather play it on the console; which in no way impacts the gameplay whatsoever. And the difference between a few dollars for a USB NES controller and hundreds for a flashcart is immense.

As far as the "Accuracy, accuracy, accuracy"
... Playing a copy of Super Mario on the FCEUX emulator would give you a perfectly identical experience. Unless there's something that these flashcarts are doing that every emulator and ROM online can't do that I'm unaware of that makes the gameplay more... authentic?

>> No.1758185

>>1758173

>In computing, an emulator is hardware or software or both that duplicates (or emulates) the functions of one computer system (the guest) in another computer system (the host), different from the first one, so that the emulated behavior closely resembles the behavior of the real system (the guest).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emulator

Having a way to read software on REAL HARDWARE is not emulation. That's like saying burning Playstation games and playing them on a modded Playstation is emulation.

Just....no.

>> No.1758218

>>1758173
The problems you get with emulation comes from the emulation software, not the rom. The rom is a perfect duplicate of the game on a normal cartridge. Hence using a flash cart being perfect accuracy. The console recognizes no difference between the rom stored on the original cartridge and the rom stored on a newer cartridge.

>> No.1758232

>>1758185
>If you only emulate the cartridges and not the console, it's not REALLY emulation!
Yeah, okay.

The mental gymnastics you'll go through to justify why you spent a ton of money for something that's free in abundance already.

>It's okay to not own any game and use stuff to fake it, but not owning and faking the console? That crosses a line!

>> No.1758236

>>1758218
I don't follow. So the emulator on your computer is playing it incorrectly? How? Like, give me a specific example of an issue that an emulator would have that's solved by the flash cart.

>> No.1758242

>>1758236
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEC02hp90vQ

2 seconds in google

hundreds of examples. If issues don't bother you that's fine. if you can't afford a flash cart, that's cool. I personally like to get as close as possible to the way the developer intended me to enjoy the game.

>> No.1758263

>>1758236
Emulators don't play games 100% right, some do aim for accuracy but only to a point. The main purpose of most emulators is to run the game, not for it to look right, but to just play properly (if my wording makes sense). The colors, the pixels, the speed of the game can often be off. This bothers some, not me, but there's a good amount of people who it bothers.

>> No.1758327

>>1758242
>N64
Now bring up an NES example next time to be relevant to the thread.

>> No.1758378

>>1751349
i looked for that image forever (or about five minutes) until i gave up.

thanks for posting, i saved it this time

>> No.1758392

>>1755057
You can play PAL fine on a PAL system, yes.

>>1752878
>>1755261
You shouldn't need to splice the cable if you get a PAL MD1 PSU, the connectors are the same for the MD1/SFC/FC at least. At least, that's the case with a UK PSU. I'm assuming the mainland one doesn't use a different jack.

>> No.1758485

>>1758242
Every example in the video you linked is refuted and explained on how to make it work properly in the emulator.

So, I guess this is the flash cart's big selling point?

"If you hate spending a few seconds to google how to adjust your settings to fix a game error, then this pointlessly expensive emulator cartridge is the thing for you!"

>if you can't afford a flash cart, that's cool.

I personally just buy the game I want. If I want to play something I don't have and am iffy on whether to buy it or not, there's heaps of free emulators to try it out on.

>> No.1758640

>>1758485
Not him but I like playing the game on a television and with a controller, I'd rather buy this for translated games than play it on emulator just for that. I already have a SNES so why shouldn't I buy this ?

>> No.1758720

Mega Man 6, real cart and Everdrive. I forget which is which, and the title and description were intentionally reversed to keep me from remembering.
http://youtu.be/FPTGAxPbVbk

There is NO difference after the game is loaded. Playing homebrew games and hacks/translations on a real system with first-party pads is nice.

>> No.1759274

>>1757516
>>1757635
>>1758109
>>1758120
>>1758143
>>1758173
>>1758185
>>1758218
>>1758232
>>1758236
>>1758242
>>1758263
>>1758327
>>1758485
>>1758640
>>1758720
I love how all these posts are just saying the same shit over and over. You guys are wasting your time on someone who's most likely trying to get a rise out of you.

Stop shitting up the thread.

>> No.1759295 [DELETED] 

>>1759274
Stop dripping your euphoria everywhere. It stinks of ammonia.

>> No.1759341

>>1759295
>euphoria
What does Atheism have to do with retro gaming?

>> No.1759367

>>1759341
It was indicative of "EVERYBODY IS WRONG BUT ME" smugness.