Hyperkin RetroN 5 Retro Video Gaming System - Black

by Hyperkin See the Amazon Page for this brand

• Includes: 1 Bluetooth Wireless Controller, 1 HDMI Cable, and 1 AC Adapter with 4 variable head sockets

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00DZIX3CQ
• Product Dimensions: 13.4 x 12.6 x 3.2 inches ; 4.2 pounds
• Media: Video Game
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (133 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,628 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
  • #2 in Toys & Games > Electronics for Kids > Plug & Play Video Games

Product Description

Color: Black

Now that we are all grown up and can afford these fancy toys, shouldn’t our retro systems grow up too? With the RetroN 5, you will now be able to play all of your favorite games from nine different systems on one convenient console in full HD glory. Relive your childhood, or introduce a new generation of gamers to the timeless classics that inspired the entire gaming industry with the RetroN 5. The RetroN 5 allows you to play your favorite NES, SNES, Super Famicom, Genesis, Mega Drive, Famicom, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and GBA cartridges on one system.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

151 of 161 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars A great idea with great promise... when it works (UPDATED: 7/7/2014) June 27, 2014

By Nick Barba

Color Name:Grey|Verified Purchase

I pre-ordered the Retron 5 back in March of 2014. Upon learning of a mythical neo-retro console that plays the games of 10 consoles from the yesteryear, how could one NOT be excited? Of course I still have the legacy consoles in storage, the idea of breathing new life into my old cartridges seemed way too cool to pass up. After nearly two months of silence and broken promises from the manufacturer Hyperkin regarding the release date ("Retron 5 will be released within the next 30 days" - Marketing Rep at MGC 2014, April 11th 2014), I finally received my Retron 5 from Amazon on June 8th, two days after the official release date.

It took about 30 minutes to update the console and get it in working order. Not only does the instruction booklet leave out the crucial factoid that the power button must be held for 10 seconds for the console to turn on, but at the time of release, the only place to download the most current firmware was from a link on Hyperkin's facebook page--this info wasn't noted on the Retron 5 website, nor Hyperkin's website at all.

I started working my way through some of my favorite NES games to test the system out, lo and behold, the claims were true! The games I grew up playing as a kid suddenly looked sharp and vivid! Wizards and Warriors, Super Mario Bros. 2 and 3, T&C Surf Designs, Rad Racer, Rygar and Mega Man were amongst the 15 or so games I tested on the NES, along with Donkey Kong Country and U.N. Squadron on the SNES. The more I played with the system, the more I fell in love with it... well, actually, I wasn't in love with the cartridge slots. Before receiving the system, I had watched countless Youtube videos of reviewers with the system, and nearly all of them mentioned how unnecessarily tight the cartridge slots can be. I tried my best to deal with the issue, as my Retron 5 was no different--the slots had a vigorous grip. Nevertheless, I couldn't wait to show the sytem off during the next gaming/movie night with my buddies.

The next day, June 9th, after a long work day, I plopped down on the couch and got ready to see how far I could make it through Karnov on the NES. Instead of plowing through Level 1, I was greeted with "No Cart Inserted". I took the cartridge out and reinserted it, same result. Figuring it was dirty, I cleaned it with the ol' cotton swab/70% rubbing alcohol method. While I let it dry, I decided to play Mega Man instead, had no trouble with it the day before. Suddenly it wasn't working either. I took the cartridge out and looked inside the system's slot, and to my horror, I saw the pin connectors inside the system had not only been bent and misshapen beyond repair, but two of the pins themselves had been pulled out. The NES slot was kaput.

I called Hyperkin and had the system RMA'd. I am now on my second unit after they concluded my console was faulty. I have had it for 2 weeks now (today is the 27th of June, 2014), and have only had time to play through one SNES game to completion (Illusion of Gaia), and test out a handful of NES/Genesis games to make sure this unit works fine--surprise surprise, the NES slot is starting to show signs of pin connector wear AGAIN. I have made sure to take every precaution recommended by fellow Retron 5 owners when it comes to removing cartridges (lift from one corner & remove), and I've gotten to the point of checking the NES slot each time I remove a game to make sure it's okay. As it stands, two pins are ever-so-slightly starting to become bent. It's been two weeks since I originally have had the problem, and other owners are chiming in with the same damaged pin connector problem in the NES slot. If this second unit becomes worn out just like the first unit I had, I'm not RMAing it back to Hyperkin--it's going to Amazon for a full refund.

UPDATE (7/7/2014): It's back in Amazon's hands now. I was getting tired of using my Retron 5 in paranoia, checking the NES slot after each cartridge removal. I called Hyperkin, wanting to speak with Tech Support. First time I tried, they were out to lunch. Second time I tried, which was 3 hours later, they had left for the day. Instead, I was put in touch with the lead product developer himself, Chris Gallizzi.

I told him of my experience with the console & wanted to know if there was a set-in-stone recommended way to remove NES cartridges. He said the way he takes them out was the same method I'd been using--lift from one corner and remove. He wrote down a bunch of feedback from me and relayed some curious info. Evidently, MANY people are reporting the pin connector issue. Hyperkin made the connectors tight enough to ensure the best connection possible, but on hindsight, Chris admitted they made them TOO tight. They're only seeing the misshapen/popped pin issue with the mass produced consoles, NOT the beta units. They are looking into a possible hardware revision with a looser grip for all slots & stronger pins. With that, I thanked him for his help, and settled on holding onto the system for a bit longer.

Knowing that I was removing the NES cartridges the correct way from the product developer himself, I set my worries aside and had fun with it. First game of choice from my arsenal was Wrecking Crew. Inserting it felt a bit snug to me, but it played fine. After 30 min., I took the cart out, which was still a hassle. Checking the pins again, I noticed now there were two more pins popping up. I put in Dr. Mario, Othello, and Mega Man, all of them played fine with no pin trouble. Tried Wrecking Crew again, and after removal, another pin popped up. For whatever reason, my copy of Wrecking Crew was pulling the pins out. A fellow Retron 5 owner with my exact problem had theorized a week earlier on the Hyperkin Facebook page that the various sizes and thickness of NES cart PCBs could be a factor to why the Retron 5's NES slot pins were getting destroyed. Coupled with the unnecessary tightness, it seemed to be exactly right, in my case. I packed it up & returned it to Amazon for a complete refund.

Hyperkin is aware that it exists as a problem among mass-produced units. They haven't said anything publicly, and seem to be dealing with it on a case-by-case basis. With the product developer telling me they are possibly looking at a hardware revision with a looser grip & better pins, I cannot recommend the Retron 5 as it stands right now. I docked it a star after discovering the pins were still very much faulty on my "tested" refurb unit, leaving this as a one-star product in my eyes. Read more ›

101 of 115 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars What I think of this so far June 1, 2014

By Mike

Color Name:Black

My local retro videogame store had just received a small shipment of the RetroN 5 units this past week. I managed to pick up the last unit on hand after a pre-order was cancelled. Here are my thoughts so far:

Construction: The top part with the cartridge ports is made very cheaply and prone to bending. Removing some cartridges is a rather scary endeavor and I'm afraid one day I'll end up breaking the case removing a cartridge. The worst culprit are Genesis/Megadrive carts, they do not like to fit inside the RetroN at all and require a LOT of downward force and pulling to get them in or out. I do not know how long that port will last by doing this, use Genesis/Megadrive carts at your own risk. Gameboy games go in and out very smoothly and require very little effort to insert or remove. The controller is absolute crap, I cannot stand it. It's awkwardly built and feels cheap; the directional pad is absolutely stupid, why did they make it like that? The console is made somewhat sturdy, but be careful.

Operating System: The Android operating system is not too bad. Its easy to navigate and has some neat options regarding filtering, aspect ratios, and even sound enhancement; most of which we have come to expect from emulators on Windows/Mac/Linux. I am not a fan of having to write firmware requests to an SD card and go through a multi-step process to upgrade/update the system. Not only that, firmware downloads are given a DRM mechanism to be locked to the console that requested it, so no sharing updates with friends or family. The reason for doing that is beyond me, so whatever. The console has problems with sometimes figuring out if an SD card is actually present. Sometimes when remove it, still reads as inserted and vice-versa when I insert it. Minor irritation, so no biggie. I had a few problems with some games not reading properly at first before the first update. Specifically I had problems with Donald Duck's Quackshot, but after cleaning the cart and updating, the OS now recognizes it. Despite being coded into the OS, writing saves to the cartridge batteries is currently non-functional, so if you are 100 hours into a game on the retron and want to take it with you on the cart, tough luck that doesn't work yet . With some experimenting one may be able to port SRAM files from your PC to the SD card to use, but this is in theory I haven't tested it yet. Over time, there will be new features and fixes arriving via updates, so my review will be outdated in about a year or so. As of the time of this review being written, multiple cartridge support is non-existent. Only one cartridge at a time can be inserted, but Hyperkin has promised a fix for that in the future. The packaging says cheats are built-in? Haha yeah right, you need to download the cheats.xml file to the SD card which by what I am told Hyperkin is only giving to select people at the moment.

Emulation Ability: This is what most people came to read: How well does it emulate the games? First you need to figure out how to turn it on, which requires you to hold the power button for 5 seconds. Why? I don't know but its not a big issue for me. In my experience using emulators since the mid-90's, the goal was to emulate games with that ran at a consistent speed. Accuracy in reproducing sound effects was always an incredibly tough task. By what I have seen, the OS handles everything very well, including some of the most accurate sound effect reproduction I have used in a long time. I tested it with Rockman 7 - Shukumei no Taiketsu for Super Famicom and the lightning bolt sounds sounded almost like what the original hardware could put out. Big plus from me. Games look stunning in 720p HD. However, in the age of HDTV, there is the problem with input lag. Most of these old games required precise timing that HDTV's cannot seem to match an analog CRT in. The original input delay from the SNES from controller to TV was 16ms alone, add another 50+ and some games are almost unplayable. Game mode can help, but I ended up hooking up to an ASUS VK-266H monitor which only has a 2ms input delay and games are playable again. This is not an issue created by Hyperkin obviously, I just wanted everyone to be aware. By what I've read, supposedly the console actually dumps the ROM image to its memory instead of reading directly from the cartridge in real-time. Bottom-line, emulation seems solid so far, but is riddled with many issues that will hopefully be resolved over the course of the consoles support-cycle

The bottom-line is this: This console is obviously not ready for prime-time, so if you do find yourself a unit, you will basically be a beta-tester and you risk putting the data on your original carts at risk doing so. If you have the necessary hardware, try to make backups of all your old game cart data onto your pc before using this just in case something goes awry. There is potential here, but until more people have the unit and start reporting things to Hyperkin, they'll have no idea what needs to be fixed. That is assuming they actually listen. I know I probably am leaving many questions, so I can try to fill in stuff over time. If you are at this point, thanks for reading and I hope I was able to help with certain questions.

EDIT/UPDATE 6-3-14: I have discovered a massive flaw with GBA games. Saves are deleted off the carts immediately upon inserting the cartridge and no data can be written back. Use this feature at your own risk as you cannot write the data back yet without external equipment aside from the RetroN.

UPDATE 6-17-14: The problem with GBA saves has been resolved with firmware update 1.31, it no longer wipes out the cartridge and writing back to gameboy games is finally supported. The dreaded cartridge power fault for famicom and nes games seems to have been resolved as well so I can finally play Rolling Thunder and Castlevania again. Read more ›

58 of 73 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars First Review from someone who PLAYED it. May 29, 2014

By Lane Stadlman

Color Name:Black

Well I got my hands on the long awaited Retron 5 today and its , , OK. First off i was pleasantly surprised by the controller's buttons which has switch buttons, it gives a nice click when pushing the buttons but after playing it for a while i switched to the original controller and it was better (of course)

NES:
After figuring out you have to hold the power button in for 10 seconds to get it to power on, I was greeted by its menu. I put in my first game, and it couldn't read it, second game, couldn't read it. Long story short it could only read 1 of 6 of my copies of super Mario/Duck hunt cartridges. All of these cartridges work flawlessly in my original NES system, ( I fired it up just to make sure).
Genesis:
I put in my copy of 6 pak, BAM, it knew what it was!, I was greeted with the selection screen of 6 different games and chose Shinobi, and it played fine. I selected reset from the Hyperkin menu and it reloaded , , , Shinobi (NOT the game selection menu). I tried to take the game out and it it was STUCK in there. I had to REALLY pull hard to get that genesis game out. Finally did and it loaded it, Shinobi. Power cycled the console, Shinobi. I had to go into the Hyperkin gamesave manager and totally delete all files associated with the 6-Pak game. Got the selection screen again! I selected Sonic this time. played it, hit reset and Sonic again. SIGH, looks like it needs a major software update because the only way I can play another game on that 6-Pak is to to totally delete all gamesave files Each and EVERY time.
Snes:
Played every game i stuck in and worked well!
GameBoy Advance - GameBoy - GameBoy Color:
It played them all with little complaint except for GBA games it didnt recgonize many of them but allowed me to play them anyway after pushing through a warning screen.

OVERALL: My fingers are sore because it holds onto cartridges on the nes and genesis and does NOT want to let go of them. The menu is clunky although it does allow you to re-map buttons. The wireless controllers button identifications are, , weird. Just look at it, its strange. It plays NES games faster than the original console, yeah I noticed that. The Hyper-Picky-Kin Retron 5 needs some work and I think 3 stars are generous. Maybe the next batch will be better! Read more ›