RetroN 5 $129.99 with free shipping @ ThinkGeek - The RetroN 5 deals thread

Drclaw411

CAGiversary!
Feedback
4 (100%)
CURRENT DEALS:

$129.99 with free shipping at ThinkGeek


Important Information
​Warranty registration - http://www.retron5.com/warrantyregistration_/
Patch Notes / How to Update (Last update 6/10/2014) - http://retron5.in/?src=98f13708210194c475687be6106a3b84

I've included the text from the pre-order era of this OP in spoilers for reference.
UPDATE 5/27/14: It's real this time. Hyperkin's June 6 release date is happening. Many mom and pop stores that have received their units have started selling them already, and many people who have ordered from Amazon (myself included) are reporting getting emails from Amazon notifying them that their orders qualify for release day delivery and are updating estimated delivery status to June 6th, no longer showing the "we need more time" placeholder. It's worth noting that so far only people who have ordered the grey unit from Amazon are receiving order updates (which coincides with Hyperkin reporting on their facebook page that they had shipped Amazon's grey preorder units, but Amazon had yet to place an order for the black units). All consoles that have been shown off online by reviewers, people who have been able to buy them before the street date, or Hyperkin themselves have all been grey consoles to this point. No word on black consoles. Another note: Chris Gallizzi of Hyperkin responded to an inquiry about Newegg orders by saying that he is not aware of any issues with Newegg's preorders, and they should be good to go for the launch.

UPDATE 5/22/14: Just one day after IGN and Polygon reported that Hyperkin would begin shipping units to retailers on May 22 (today as of this writing), Hyperkin essentially confirmed that. They have announced that the launch date for the long overdue RetroN 5 is June 6th, 2014. In a much quieter fashion (just by responding to a random person's comment) they confirmed this would be for North America only and that the console would launch in the UK in September. There is also one more small hitch. The rumor that the first batch of units would be only for mom/pop B&M retailers and that NO units from this batch would go to Amazon or Newegg has been gaining some serious steam. While Hyperkin has been responding to a decent amount of comments on their facebook page from excited fans, they continue to ignore questions about when Amazon orders will ship. So it seems those of us who preordered on Amazon still don't have a solid release date. Fulfillment could happen any time between June 6th through September or beyond.

UPDATE 5/21/14: IGN today reported that the RetroN 5 would begin shipping out on May 22 (tomorrow, as of this writing)! This coincides with Chris Gazzilli, Hyperkin's project manager, posting a picture on his facebook page of a massive shipping container full of RetroN 5 units. Ladies and Gentlemen, it seems hell may have just frozen over.

UPDATE 5/13/14: Hyperkin has listed the RetroN 5, and it's controllers, on their company wholesale store for authorized retailers to buy. The console (both colors) and controllers (both colors) are listed as sold out. I'm not sure if they were in stock and sold out quickly, or if they haven't been made available yet. Regardless, it's good news that the system is listed for the first time ever. Additionally, reviewers such as GameSpot and several youtube reviewers have received their review units, which appear to be retail units. The RetroN 5 seems to finally be around the corner. We'll see, but things look promising right now. One thing to note: the listing for the console on Hyperkin's wholesale page indicates that each wholesale box contains six units. If this is the case, it would seem to debunk the previous report of the console being shipped in quantities of four per retailer.

UPDATE 4/25/14: While this hasn't technically been confirmed by Hyperkin, I take it as fact. It's worth remembering that NOTHING has been officially confirmed by Hyperkin. Hyperkin has remained silent until unofficially confirming almost all known info in random interviews with various youtubers and forum members. Therefor, again, I take this as fact:

I spoke to Hyperkin today.

Here are the "unofficial" details.

The "end of May" release is a "soft" release. Meaning they really are waiting for the next batch due in the summer for the official real release. Amazon is NOT getting any of the units released at the end of May. Each retailer is only getting 4 units. Retail on the unit is $139.99 and $39.99 for the additional controller. The reasons for the price increase are both cosmetic and technical but if it works as it should then it should be a great retro system.

Our 4 are already taken with pre-orders. If you know any stores locally that are getting units, and you want one for end of May, then i suggest you contact them and put money down. Keep in mind that each store is getting 4 units only for the soft launch.
UPDATE 4/17/14: Hyperkin has increased the price of the RetroN 5, saying "north of $100, between $129.99 and $149.99". Alll pre-orders from Amazon should be honored via their pre-order price guarantee. I believe Newegg has the same guarantee, I am not sure about Stone Age Gamer or 8 Bit Classics. Think Geek still hasn't opened pre-orders on the unit, instead offering a link to be signed up for email notifications as to when it will be available. Also on the Amazon front, they have sold out or pre-orders. Furthermore, it is more likely you'll learn the ETA from Amazon, Newegg, or whoever you ordered it from. Hyperkin has gone on record of saying they will never again announce a hard release date for anything.

UPDATE 4/12/14: After Hyperkin denied the console was delayed again and vigoruosuly shoved the month of April up everyone's ass for half a year, today they delayed the vaporware console yet again. At the Midwest Gaming Classic, they did their annual presentation. They ignored the planned April 2014 release, but finally somebody in the crowd asked about it. The Hyperkin rep said it was releasing in "30 days, guaranteed". This is not the first time they used the word "guaranteed", last time was about April so this doesn't mean jack shit. So maybe it'll randomly show up at people's houses at the end of may, maybe it wont, and maybe my ass will fly out of my ass.

Retron 5 Delay History:
-Summer 2013 (which they continued to say after summer was over, claiming they meant "Indian Summer" or "California Summer"....i'm not making this up)
-December 10 2013
-Quarter 1 2014
-Quarter 2 2014
-First two weeks of April
-April 2014, guaranteed
-Gauranteed within 30-40 days of April 12, 2014
-June 6 2014

DELAYED. ANY UPDATES FROM HYPERKIN WILL COME ON THEIR FACEBOOK PAGE: https://www.facebook.com/HyperkinGames

UPDATE: In a recent interview, Hyperkin confirmed that the initial batch of units WILL NOT BE ENOUGH to meet day ome demand. Also confirmed was the ability for the system to act as a multitap. Example: in a four player SNES game, two players could use snes controlles, one player could use the retron controller, and one player could use a genesis controller. Interview can be found here.


Pre-order at Amazon (SOLD OUT)
Pre-order at Newegg: Black (SOLD OUT) or Grey (SOLD OUT)
Pre-order at Stone Age Gamer (DUE TO HIGH DEMAND, RELEASE DAY DELIVERY NOT PROMISED)
Pre-order at 8 Bit Classics (DUE TO HIGH DEMAND, RELEASE DAY DELIVERY NOT PROMISED)





UPDATE: Hyperkin claims that they opened up some packaged retail units and discovered some units had faulty pins. because of this, the Retron 5 has been delayed. No new release date has been announced, although Hyperkin has stated the unit will release in 2014 and that they are aiming for Q1. This is the Retron 5's third delay.

EDIT: Preorders are sold out at Amazon and Newegg.

Retron5 pre-orders have finally (about damn time) opened.

For those of you who have been following this console, you know it's quite highly anticipated and looks to be far better than any clone system released before.

For those unfamiliar, here's a little info:

  • It's one system that plays games for the following systems: NES, SNES, Genesis, Mega Drive, Famicom, Super Famicom, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance.
  • Two controller ports for each console will be built in with the system. It will also come with one wireless universal controller.
  • Outputs in HDMI and upscales for HDTVs. Early impressions and videos of this have been extremley postive. From the website: "The RetroN 5 will up convert the video signal to show clearer and cleaner images, with vibrant colors on an HDTV with a resolution output of up to 720p through the use of shaders. You will also be able to select the aspect ratio in our GUI, from the standard 4:3 to the HD ratio of 16:9."
  • Features a user interface (dashboard. Somewhat similar of the PS3 interface in appearance, in my opinion).
  • Features save states. From the website: "Most games did not allow for you to freely save your games. The RetroN 5 will allow you to save their games at any point during gameplay, and will feature an autosave feature upon shutdown. You will be able to load your saves at anytime during gameplay."
  • Button reassignment supported. From the website: "Users will be able to program the controller to assign buttons to their preference. In turn, the RetroN 5 will save these custom layouts, so that users will not have to constantly reconfigure the button configuration. This feature will also be available to people wanting to remap their buttons on their original controllers."
  • 100% game cartridge compatibility, without lag.
  • Sega Power Base Converter compatible, allowing Sega Master System games to be played.
More information is here. It may be a bit dated since this was from back when they first announced the console, but I figured it was the best site to link since it also featured some screenshots as well. http://hyperkin.com/blog/2013/03/retron-5-details-revealed-from-the-midwest-gaming-classic/ There is also plenty of info on Hyperkin's facebook page.

I've been looking forward to this for a long time, and i'm extremley excited that pre-orders are finally open. For one console that not only plays all of these console's games, but upscales them and features save states (either to the cartridge (if supported) or the console itself)...this seems like a great deal. And if you've been following the hype for the console, there is a good chance it could end up selling out. Hyperkin isn't a huge company and this thing has a TON of pre-release demand (just check out the comments on the facebook page). I like the look of the black one a bit better, because it seems to be the traditional console color nowadays. But I opted for the grey model because the black console and controller seem like they'd be fingerprint magnets.

Preorder either color here at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Hyperkin-RetroN-Gaming-Not-Machine-Specific/dp/B00DZIX3CQ/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8&qid=1378958043&sr=8-13&keywords=retron+5 or here at Newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=retron%205&N=-1&isNodeId=1&RandomID=65244712392254220130925161655

Here are pictures of the two consoles, since the pictures on Amazon aren't that great:

Grey:
Retron-5.jpg


Black:
e3_retron5_03550.jpg

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Hmm... It looks like when I moved my black console preorder over to gray the other day the Amazon rep didn't cancel the black order. It still says "not yet shipped." That is definitely an interesting turn of events. Hopefully between the two consoles, at least one works properly.

Finally managed to get all the cartridge ports to work on my system. Was starting to get very frustrated with the system then remembered I had a Chinese NES clone console (Lin Tong 800) that had a similar problem with the games not reading and inserting a cartridge and pushing it back and forth caused the cartridge port to shift to a better position that the cartridge would be read. This seemed to be the case as well for my Retron 5 since I heard a sound like something was clicking into place when the cartridge was recognized. I also was not getting the death grip with the Genesis cart port which people have been talking about until now which I think is because the system was not allowing me to fully insert the cartridge until doing this. If anyone else tries this make sure you do it with a cart you can replace cheaply because this is definitely not good on the cart's contacts XD.
Thank you for this advice. How exactly did you push the cartridge back and forth? Do you mean inserting it and removing it over and over? Or pushing the cartridge from front to back or pushing the cartridge from side to side?

 



Thank you for this advice. How exactly did you push the cartridge back and forth? Do you mean inserting it and removing it over and over? Or pushing the cartridge from front to back or pushing the cartridge from side to side?
Front to back; which I believe caused either the slot to loosen enough for the cartridge to be read or caused the mother board to shift which I don't think is possible because it should be screwed into place. Just make sure your doing it with a cart you are not worried about possibly ruining or can replace it for cheap.
 
Is is Black the harder to find and more popular color to get?
I just think the demand for black electronics is greater then grey (or any other color for that matter) that's why you see most electronics in a black color. Because of this I imagine there were more preorders placed for black consoles and therefore Hyperkin has had a more difficult time fulfilling them but now that Amazon has gotten or at least started to get their allotment I think orders are going to start getting fulfilled and they will be more common

 
Alien 3 for Genesis worked fine for me.
Can anyone confirm that Alien 3 for the Genesis or Xevious for the Famicom work or not? Purchased both today so I could test the slots to see if they worked and it doesn't seem they are being read at all =(. Just wanted to make sure if I should return the system or get some other carts to test. Starting to wish I put out a little more money on couple more carts but the Genesis selection at my local retro store was small and overpriced.
 
My black Retron shipped from Amazon and will be here... today?  I ordered it September 12th.  Hope everyone gets their orders fulfilled soon.

I've been checking this thread for months to get info about the Retron 5's production/shipping status.  Thanks everyone for keeping me informed, happy retro gaming.

Fingers crossed for no problems.

 
[quote name="SonictheHedgehog1337" post="11853845" timestamp="1403195789"]The grey console I asked amazon to switch to got delivered today. I'm looking forward to checking it out this weekend. Last night I just realized that I have 3 genesis controllers and they are all third party. I'm not sure what happened to my official controller. Have you guys had luck with 3rd party controllers working on the retron?[/quote]
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00HM3QAWK?pc_redir=1402980209&robot_redir=1
 
Well... I hit my first major disappointment with the Retron 5; although it's possible only related to me. I put in Super Mario All Stars and noticed that Mario 3 felt...weird. It was not nearly as responsive as I been used to. I thought it might just be me; so I started it up on my SNES which was still hooked up on the same TV and it felt WAY more responsive. My TV doesn't have the fastest response time out there; but it's definitely above average and I've never noticed any lag with any other system. The only game my wife ever plays is Mario 3; I had her try it and she felt the Retron was very laggy. I also noticed that Turtles in Time didn't feel "right"

While I realize that the HDMI and upscaling can cause some lag; what's troubling is I notice NO lag when playing NES/Genesis on the Retron. In fact I hooked those systems back up to the same TV as well and notice no difference between the Retron and NES/Genesis in terms of lag. 

So I'm wondering... Is the SNES emulation on this thing fairly poor? Any of you notice the same thing? While I still really like the Retron, I find this a little disappointin. Perhaps it is my TV, but I just can't see how when the NES/Genesis have no noticeable lag.

 
So, I went home and grabbed another SNES controller...and this one works just fine in my Retron 5.  I have a SNES here and the first controller I tried in the Retron 5 (that didn't work properly) works perfectly fine in my SNES.  In fact, they are all clean and in very nice condition.

I'm a bit conflicted with video so far.  I've tried the following:

SNES - Super Mario World

SNES - Chrono Trigger

Genesis - Mortal Kombat

GBA - Castlevania (not sure which one)

Super Mario World looked great.  MK, however, looked awful.  I don't remember if the Genny version looked poor on a Genesis or what.  And the GBA game looked okay...but character sprites looked off?

I should've chosen games I would easily recognize.

Can somebody do me a favor?  Can someone put in the Genesis MK and take a few screenshots?  I'm going to do the same when I get back to it and see if they compare.  In a fight would be good, as well as maybe the character select screen.

 
My Gray unit played everything I threw at it flawlessly, aside from one issue with GBA Golden Sun freezing once. Had to get another cart to put in to clear the cache of Golden Sun out of there, or whatever. Placed GS back in and it worked fine from there.

I'm satisfied with my purchase. I have yet to update the firmware though.

Also I am not noticing the "death grip" on the carts as stated by many. SNES carts were a little tough to get out the first time, but everything else feels like it should when putting carts in/removing them.

 
Can somebody do me a favor? Can someone put in the Genesis MK and take a few screenshots? I'm going to do the same when I get back to it and see if they compare. In a fight would be good, as well as maybe the character select screen.
I'm assuming you mean the original one? I have it packed away but I think I know where you're coming from. I think anything with digitized sprites on the Retron looks like crap. I think it's because of the clearer picture now that we're noticing all of the imperfections of the graphics. I played Toy Story on the SNES and had a similar reaction.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I'm assuming you mean the original one? I have it packed away but I think I know where you're coming from. I think anything with digitized sprites on the Retron looks like crap. I think it's because of the clearer picture now that we're noticing all of the imperfections of the graphics. I played Toy Story on the SNES and had a similar reaction.
Yep, original MK for Genny.

That's kind of what I was thinking. My guess is I really didn't grab games that looked good to begin with. (Except SMW, which again, looked very good.)

 
Just got my black unit from amazon. Of note, this one has a bit more packaging inside including a foam insert and some Hyperkin stickers none of which have been present in the two gray consoles I've purchaced. Makes me wonder if those consoles are the older ones manufactured.
 
Just got my black unit from amazon. Of note, this one has a bit more packaging inside including a foam insert and some Hyperkin stickers none of which have been present in the two gray consoles I've purchaced. Makes me wonder if those consoles are the older ones manufactured.
My first grey one had no stickers, second one did....don't think it had a foam insert though.

 
Just got my black unit from amazon. Of note, this one has a bit more packaging inside including a foam insert and some Hyperkin stickers none of which have been present in the two gray consoles I've purchaced. Makes me wonder if those consoles are the older ones manufactured.
My gray was was part of the initial shipment that shipped from Amazon and it had foam inserts and stickers. I'm not sure what you're talking about?

These things were packed by people, not a machine, so it's quite possible some things didn't get packed in. I know many pages back someone posted theirs was missing the damn controller.

 
Resellers have dropped their prices a lot in the last day.

I also go so many more sega games and just have to wait. Bought a SD card adapter and a reader for my computer to read them. I'm ready!

 
Found a black one for sale at CGR games (classic games revisited) in doylestown PA.
He had 5 or 6 grey ones left as well. I grabbed it because I wanted a black one and will just return the grey one I ordered from thinkgeek when it arrives later in the week.

I mailed off my broken grey unit to hyperkin today. $16 return shipping FFS.

Regardless that I've only opened one unit so far, on paper I've bought 3. Hopefully the 3rd time is the charm.
 
Got home. Tested out blackie here and everything is working!!

Also picked up a power base converter today and that is working fine too. Although it is extremely cumbersome to remove w the R5.

And there was much rejoicing.
 
Bloodlines works on my unit.

And oddly enough, Kirby super star works on my new black unit, but did not on my broken grey unit. Maybe more was broken than just the GBA slot???

Both consoles were running the newest 1.31 firmware.

Finnicky.
 
Bah, thanks for the info. I just bought a bunch of carts and this one was the only one that didn't work. Great stuff too-all Genesis, Contra, Castlevania, Alisia Dragoon, Strider II, and Crusader of Centy. I have a Genesis lying around but I can't find the AV/power cords for it right now. I know they are around here somewhere. I'm too tired to look tonight but I know I have them.

 
Nice. Contra and bloodlines are 2 of the more sought after genny games. I have both w no cases from back in the day. Saw both (oddly enough) today w cases at CGR games for roughly $70 each.

Perhaps it needs a cleaning? Have you updated the system firmware?
 
I'm up to date on the firmware and the pins on this particular cart looked so good I thought it might have been a repro. I've never seen white pins before. I had to Google the cart to see if it was in fact a repro but I found some images of other people's carts and the pins looked identical. Maybe it's damaged and I can't tell. Here's a couple quick pics:





If I wasn't hosting a game night tomorrow I probably wouldn't have bought so many carts especially given a couple were a bit on the high end of what they go for on eBay, but I really wanted to play these with friends tomorrow and an extra $5 a cart isn't going to kill me.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Mine looks identical to those pics.

Can anyone help me w the correct path to put the Cheats folder on the SD card?

I followed hyperkins instructions here http://www.retron5.com/cheats/
But to no avail. System says "the cheat database file 'codes-gba.xml' was not found on the SD card. Cheat database files must be installed on the SD card before cheats May be used"

Also, if I go into Settings/System/File Manager/SD card on the R5 there is nothing shown despite using this same SD to update the firmware.

It's FAT32 format.
 
Did you put the cheat files directly on the SD card? You need to drop the "Retron" folder on the SD card. Just open the zip file and drop the first folder you see direclty on to the SD card. The instructions are kind of ambiguous about it.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I've tried 2 SD cards now. The retron sees both and can write to both but fails to see anything written to the card via my laptop.

They are SDHC cards.
 
So I just re-read your post about this and figured out your problem. There is no codes-gba.xml in the current zip file. Either they took it out or more likely haven't put one in yet. Have you tried using the cheats for the systems that are included? Gameboy/Genesis/NES/SNES

 
Ok.... Must have been a game that didn't have cheats available.

I tried killer instinct and cheats appear.

Wow. The wording of the message suggests its a SD card error, not a simple 'no cheats available for th his game' error.

That's so strange. Problem solved I suppose.

Thanks, and sorry for the multi-post.
 
So I just re-read your post about this and figured out your problem. There is no codes-gba.xml in the current zip file. Either they took it out or more likely haven't put one in yet. Have you tried using the cheats for the systems that are included? Gameboy/Genesis/NES/SNES
Ahhhh!! Duh!!

That's so simple I never even noticed.
I had been bingeing on GBA games and didn't think to check.

Thanks!
 
Ahhhh!! Duh!!

That's so simple I never even noticed.
I had been bingeing on GBA games and didn't think to check.

Thanks!
No prob. It didn't occur to me either. I was staring at the files in a window on my PC and just happened to notice that there wasn't one called codes-gba.xml. You'd think they would at least have the file in place even if it didn't have any codes. There really should be a master system one too, but at least that system isn't natively supported so it's understandable to have that file missing.

 
Anyone played Castlevania Bloodlines? I can't get anything but a red screen. It recognized the cart but then it doesn't play.
I had the red screen issue with Contra Hard Corps. I would insert other carts like Castlevania Bloodlines and it would load up fine but whenever I would put in Contra I would get a red screen. I do recall checking which cheats were available for the game when I first put it in and I activated one and tried playing but got the red screen of death. So I made sure the cart was clean went into the main menu and made sure no cheats were activated, turned off the autoplay when the cart is inserted and turned the system off and when I turned it back on and inserted Contra it worked fine. I think the cheats were causing the problem because I tried to activate the cheats and I got the red screen again.

 
I finished out testing my collection last night and every game worked fine. Now I just need to pull my controllers back out and make sure those ports are working.
 
I had some major issues with Mega Man X. When attacking certain enemies the game would kick me back to the level select screen, then eventually would only load the introduction level. 

Still have issues with controllers too. I find myself using two controllers because the Retron doesn't recognize all the buttons on my SNES controller. 

 
I had some major issues with Mega Man X. When attacking certain enemies the game would kick me back to the level select screen, then eventually would only load the introduction level.

Still have issues with controllers too. I find myself using two controllers because the Retron doesn't recognize all the buttons on my SNES controller.
Have you had any issues where if you plug in two controllers for player 1 and 2 and in-game player 2 is stuck in the upwards direction? I tried several genesis games and player 2 is always pushed to the top of the screen.

 
Just opened it and my black Retron 5 will not turn on at all. I have tried everything! Anybody else have this problem!?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I just tried it and it didn't work. I don't understand this at all. Will a light come on if it's on?
Wow, it sounds like your unit is DOA. Way too many problems with this console for me to jump in, even at $100 or less (much less $140). It's a shame that so many of these clone consoles are so poorly made, but I guess they have to cut corners to keep the price down (and their profits up).

I'll be waiting for a long time before considering buying one of these, for sure.

 
I just tried it and it didn't work. I don't understand this at all. Will a light come on if it's on?
If the unit powers on correctly you should see the lights for all the different consoles light up and flicker. Then the picture should pop on the screen. But, you do have to hold down the power button for about 10 seconds to get it to boot.

 
bread's done
Back
Top