Retron4 will play GBA games

[wildbil52]

As well as NES, SNES, and Genesis.

Not really into the Retron systems myself.  Is anyone excited by this or do you feel the same way about Retron systems and you do about emulation?

[techwizard]

i love the idea behind them, but i hate that it's third party. if each major console company would do something like this as a cheap way to offer backwards compatibility, i would love it even more. as it is it does remind me too much of emulation. if i were to ever get one it would probably be for the novelty more than to actually use.

[Am4zingGam3r]

I have the first 3 Retrons, but only because I am a collector.

[Duke.Togo]

It's also slated to have HDMI out. Might be worth checking out depending on price...

[SirPsycho]

I haven't read anything about this other than headlines, I should probably research this instead of asking.

But, since it can play GBA games, will it also emulate the GBA's ability to play GB and GBC games? Or will it be a system based GB Micro without that functionality? If it can, and the video/sound quality is good I can see myself getting one to easily capture footage from the entire Game Boy line.

[blcklblskt]

It's also slated to have HDMI out. Might be worth checking out depending on price...

That is very interesting.  If the image quality is good enough, I may consider picking one up.

[bombatomba]

I wonder if it will play GB/GBC carts as well.  If so, this might be a good system to have in my family room.  Now if only they could play 2600 games...

[BadEnoughDude]

It's also slated to have HDMI out. Might be worth checking out depending on price...

That is very interesting.  If the image quality is good enough, I may consider picking one up.

HDMI is the selling point for me. This is almost a guaranteed purchase.

[Am4zingGam3r]

Now if only they could play 2600 games...

This...

[ixtaileddemonfox]

I want one

[Quackula]

I don't expect the HDMI out to look very good at all. They'll probably just transcode the composite signals or something, at least for NES, as that's the best these NOACs can output. It's not like they can throw a high quality transcoder into this thing at the price point they go for either. 

These things are cheap feeling and have audio and compatibility issues all around. They're better than most other clones (Castlevania III actually worked on one of the releases of the Retron 3) but you're still much better off with the real hardware.

EDIT: Bunnyboy (the owner of RetroUSB and the guy working on that HDMI NES) over on Nintendoage seems to think this will basically be something with a cheap ARM processor in it running everything in software. In other words, it'll just be a low-powered mini computer just emulating everything. I'm inclined to believe him, so... yeah this will probably be better than every other clone out there, but I'll probably still pass.

[bombatomba]

I think it would make sense for it to be basically an emulator box with multiple interfaces.  But even based on that assumption it would still be interesting to take apart and play with (assuming the price point is good).  If it could be hacked we would have something like a Retrode (as bunnyboy points out), which could be rather good.  Anything that introduces competition is good for consumers.

I'm willing to keep an open mind, but my collecting and regular game buying habits won't leave much room for this sort of stuff.  It would have to be either cheap or have incredibly good compatibility for me to even look twice at it, and even then it would be used as a "living room" game solution, not something I would use in my gameroom.