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

Drclaw411

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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

 
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Now that the console has been out a few weeks and some reviews and first observances have bee published, I'm actually quite shocked at the number of people who said that the games they tried putting in were not recognized. Wasn't one of the delays due to the fact they were trying to test as many games as possible? Did hyperkin ever release a list of know issues with games? I'm glad I held out on buying this console with all the issues they're experiencing. I may have save a good deal of money with an Amazon pre-order, but this thing is far from reliable as a retro console clone.
They hide now behind firmware updates, man...it's the wave of the future. Until they release one that bricks all of the consoles ;)

 
My gray console from amazon should be here Thursday. I'm more nervous about this than when I ordered a "not for sale" ps4 from amazon warehouse deals. I feel really sorry hearing about the wide range of hardware defects you guys are experiencing.

This is such a niche product with a small but very passionate customer base. It's spilled milk now but hyperkin should have launched the console at 199.99 msrp or maybe higher in the first place. It seems like they need revenue for better manufacturing, marketing, PR, customer service, and warrantee repair. Many die hard early adopters would have paid more. We are seeing that from ebay and amazon 3rd party sellers.

I understand hyperkins strategy to create an affordable product at $99.99, but that was unrealistic with such a specialized piece of technology. But even the best project manager probably couldn't have anticipated all of the problems they would run into during development. I wonder how much more money they spent on those work hours during the extra months of development. I also wonder how much more they would have needed to spend on manufacturing to reduce the defect rate of their hardware.

Hello all, been following this topic for a while. Signed up here to post because it's one of the few discussions I've found on this product online.

Anyway, I followed the advice of an earlier user who said retron5's were available at 2nd & Charles in DE. I live in Philly and figured I'd take a chance. Unfortunately they were sold out, but a nearby store "gamer doc" had one in stock.

I got home and everything was going well. Games worked, looked great, played well - even the few imports I have ran fine. Then I found the flaw... My consoles gba slot is faulty. Nothing registers in it at all. Bummer.

I contacted hyperkin and am waiting to see what type of malarkey they give me. I figure I could fix it myself as I have the skill and general knowledge, but I don't want to void any warranty.

It's a shame because when this thing works it's really fantastic. The low quality and shoddy production is the only drawback, and it's a major drawback.

Thanks for reading. I appreciate being part of your community.
Welcome to the community!
 
My gray console from amazon should be here Thursday. I'm more nervous about this than when I ordered a "not for sale" ps4 from amazon warehouse deals. I feel really sorry hearing about the wide range of hardware defects you guys are experiencing.

This is such a niche product with a small but very passionate customer base. It's spilled milk now but hyperkin should have launched the console at 199.99 msrp or maybe higher in the first place. It seems like they need revenue for better manufacturing, marketing, PR, customer service, and warrantee repair. Many die hard early adopters would have paid more. We are seeing that from ebay and amazon 3rd party sellers.

I understand hyperkins strategy to create an affordable product at $99.99, but that was unrealistic with such a specialized piece of technology. But even the best project manager probably couldn't have anticipated all of the problems they would run into during development. I wonder how much more money they spent on those work hours during the extra months of development. I also wonder how much more they would have needed to spend on manufacturing to reduce the defect rate of their hardware.
My thoughts exactly.

Mine will be here within the next hour and a half (according to UPS' website) and my excitement has almost turned to a sense of fear. lol

 
Mine arrived today. I haven't been able to get home to look at it, but I was told:

"The box is kinda mangled and it looks like it's been opened/resealed."

Oh, boy...
 
Mine arrived today. I haven't been able to get home to look at it, but I was told:

"The box is kinda mangled and it looks like it's been opened/resealed."

Oh, boy...
The least exciting Quantum Leap opening teaser...ever

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbt-xpwTE3k

 
Thought I would chime in that I am also having controller port issues on my gray unit from Amazon. I updated the firmware and fiddled with every option in the menus but my SNES controllers just won't work properly from either port, Genesis and NES are no problem. The only two buttons that do anything are the L trigger, which seems permanently mapped to Down, and the X button, which seems permanently mapped to Up. So, you know, that's...useful. I was already annoyed that the box was beat up when it arrived and the unit itself was already scratched all to hell as well. I did get a response from Hyperkin through their Contact Form so we'll see what happens, I'm not holding my breath to catch an Amazon restocking in the next couple of weeks to get it exchanged through them. But color me very disappointed with the construction quality of this thing. In the words of Luke Skywalker, "What a piece of junk!"

 
Just got home and mine is working like a champ so far. Update went smooth games look great. There is that death grip with the genesis carts. Going to pull out the collection tonight and start checking games.  

 
Tried one game so far and it seemed to have worked. Yu-Gi-Oh: Dual Destiny Board and Dungeon Dice Monsters...I actually bought this about a year ago to play but never got around to it so it will be fun to try it out on a much bigger screen.

 
Upon even further testing it looks like the SNES controller I was using may have been messed up, although I'm 99% sure it's the same one I was using to play Ken Griffey on my SNES a few weeks ago. 

So now it looks like the only port that doesn't work is NES 1. I even tested out all the game ports and the work. It really sucks that I have to send this thing back and deal with these clowns because of one controller port.

I'm also a bit sad that I can't get Baseball Simulator 1000 (NES) to work. I've tried everything. Blowing in the cart numerous times. Swabbing the connectors with alcohol. Nothing. The best I can get is a gray screen. Even carts that appear in much worse condition play fine. :(

 
Contra hard corps sounds amazing on this thing!!! I double dog dare you to turn on the audio boosts and play through the sound tests. Holy crap!!

Kirby super star refuses to be recognized at all. That's odd.

Went ahead and bought another one off think geek. Hopefully it's gba and the rest is ok. Haven't heard anything from hyperkin yet for setting up my return.

Seriously. Hard corps sounds IN-FRIGGIN-CREDIBLE!
 
So far everything I have thrown at it works perfectly. I find it strange that some carts it puts the death grip on and others it doesnt. Kinda strange

 
Lovely. Amazon switched my $76 black Retron preorder to a gray version for the same price but then I just found a $140 charge on my credit card.
 
Got mine hooked up and updated.
Chrono Trigger is the only game I have here right now. Need to get into storage and get out some of my games/controllers.
 
So finally got mine today and the controller doesn't fully work and neither do the ports. I haven't updated yet so would the firmware fix any of these issues?
 
Kirby super star refuses to be recognized at all. That's odd.
Yep, my copy is oddly doing the same thing. To test the SNES slot I put in Super Punch Out!!, took it out, and then when it dumped its save, I yanked it out and swapped it for Kirby... and now Super Punch Out loaded with Kirby in it. Clearly that game is glitched or incompatible for it.

EDIT: Okay, while I do pull off that odd glitch Kirby Superstar loaded right after I yanked out Super Punch Out (to try it again). Man this thing can be weird sometimes, lol.

 
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I heard back from hyperkin. They offer a repair or replacement RMA to which the buyer pays the return shipping cost (mentioned previously by a user in this thread). I called them out on it being a lousy business practice when it's their fault, but I doubt my complaint will matter.

Waiting to hear back as to "how" they want the console shipped back to them.

They also suggested doing a return/replacement with the seller but I bought the last one a state over so I'd spend more in gas than I would in postage if they had one.

Just posting the process if anyone else gets caught having to deal with a similar scenario.

In other news, Damn I love this machine. Me and the missus beat tmnt hyperstone heist today. Me w a genesis controller and her w a SNES pad. Wonderous!
 
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?
 
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?
3rd party controllers definitely work on it, I used one before (also was a Genesis one)

Has anyone got cheats to work on NES games? Tried with TMNT and Star Tropics but they didn't work.
Just checked, they did not work on Kirby's Adventure either, and they do work on SNES games for me as well.

 
Has anybody had any trouble with input lag? I've noticed some latency issues with games that require fine/quick reactions. Namely the Super Mario games that can really hinge on a well placed landing after a jump.

 
I have yet to update via SD card.

One SNES controller works fine... Powered off, swapped for another and it doesn't get detected. Weird.

Tried Aladdin and Super Mario World. Aladdin is "Unknown" but works good, and they both look fantastic. Can't wait to try so many others...
 
I have yet to update via SD card.

One SNES controller works fine... Powered off, swapped for another and it doesn't get detected. Weird.

Tried Aladdin and Super Mario World. Aladdin is "Unknown" but works good, and they both look fantastic. Can't wait to try so many others...
I updated mine before I ever put a game in it. I have yet to play a game with a original controller. So far I have had no issues with the Retron5 one.

 
Did Amazon ever ship any Black Retron 5? I'm still waiting for mine :(.
No. It really sucks not knowing as well. When the grey console showed in stock on Amazon, a few of us had luck calling amazon and switching our black preorders to gray with our original preorder price. It's ymmv depending on the amazon customer service rep. I'd suggest trying the same thing if gray comes back in stock and you don't want to wait any longer.

It might not be a very long wait if hyperkin actually shipped black consoles to amazon. I think it might be a very long wait if haven't even put them "on the boat" or whatever they said in April or May. Lots of mom and pop stores received black consoles already so hopefully amazon will too. We don't know. We don't even know if hyperkin knows. I guess we don't even know what we don't know. If anyone knows more, please correct me if I'm wrong.
 
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My Black Retron 5 just shipped from Amazon and will be here tomorrow! :)
Gotta love getting both colors for a little over the new MSRP of one system! ($76.19 each) :D

 
some of the cheats work and some of them don't. They are reworking the whole cheat system for the next system update. Tanooki from the nintendo age forums was given a beta update to test out and this is  some of the changes that they are working on for the next update.

Cheat system completely re-done
Improved SNES cartridge detection logic (resolving HiROM/LoROM related errors)
Better handling of Genesis cartridge saves
SMS compatibility fixes
Fixed a bug affecting a few NES CNROM cartridges
Sonic & Knuckles "lock-on" fully supported
Added support for NES mapper 232
Added support for SMS controllers
Added support for save access on NES MMC6 cartridges (Startropics)
Fixed NES "Top Gun"
Fixed GBA Dragon Ball Z games
Modified the default button mapping between the wireless controller and GB/GBA/NES to match the layout of the original controllers
Fixed bug preventing console region setting working correctly with some games

 
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.
 
Black model ordered 9/12, just shipped from Amazon

I have no idea where all my games are, but while looking for them I found a Final Fantasy I still shrinkwrapped!
 
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Pretty sure my SNES ports don't work properly. UGH!

Pressing the D-pad acts as "start". "X" is like up. I can't get any other button to work/do anything. With the SNES controller plugged in, neither it nor the Retron controller will do "accept" in the menus.

Genesis controller works just fine when plugged in. Gonna test the NES as soon as I go grab one of those.

Regardless, it looks like it's likely going to be returned. I'm not paying to ship it to them...
 
Damn! This feels almost like Christmas waiting for my black Retron to ship. I was only moderately excited about it until the madness started last month, now I'm checking every hour to see if my January order has shipped. Lol!!!
 
Damn! This feels almost like Christmas waiting for my black Retron to ship. I was only moderately excited about it until the madness started last month, now I'm checking every hour to see if my January order has shipped. Lol!!!
 
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.
 
Man I love Bing Rewards. Just cashed in all the credits I could and saved another $25 off my second Retron 5. Figured I'd better do it now in case mine ships tomorrow.

 
I ordered mine on SEP 14th and no news yet. Seems like only some 11s are getting shipped.

Edit: No legit black Amazon reviews out yet. Once I see one I'll know for sure they have shipped :D

 
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Would be nice if mine was going to ship, would have had it for the weekend!
I didn't know mine was ready to ship until someone else brought the topic up so I checked my order history and it was in "shipping now" phase and an hour or two later I got the shipping notification and the tracking says it'll be here tomorrow. It's a good sign though---I would expect them to be able to fulfill all the orders relatively soon

 
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