Retro console Polymega promises to accurately imitate Sega Saturn

The Sega Saturn is one of the more difficult consoles to emulate, but a new product seeks to make it as easy as owning the original hardware. The Polymega Retro Console is a multi-system emulator that lets you play your old games for a number of classic platforms. In particular, the Modular Polymega includes a CD player, which similar devices do not have. The Polymega base supports Sega CD, TurboGrafx-CD, Neo Geo CD, PlayStation and Sega Saturn. And it is on the latter that Playmaji, the company producing Polymega, highlights a series of videos.

While pure software emulation struggled with the Saturn (even if it improves), Playmaji claims that Sega fans will be able to play many classics as the original creators intended. In a series of videos, the company showcased the Polymega emulation of beloved Saturn hits like Burning Rangers, Virtua Fighter Kids, and Panzer Dragoon Saga. In the clips, all the games work well. And that means you can now easily play these games on a modern screen without further wearing down your 25-year-old CD-ROM drives.

Playmaji has not uploaded the new videos to YouTube, so we put the videos on your YouTube. Check them out as they go live in the playlist below:

The Polymega ships this fall, and it starts at $ 300 for the base unit. This base supports all of the aforementioned CD-based consoles. But you can also purchase separate mods that allow the Polymega to also play Genesis, TurboGrafx-16, Super Nintendo, and Nintendo Entertainment System. You can get these add-ons for $ 60 each. They include five games and a controller. Where you can get all in one package for $ 650.

Is the Polymega retro console worth the price?

Playmaji tries to woo retro lovers with the Polymega, and the device has plenty of features to woo that crowd.

First of all, the device isn’t a little Raspberry Pi stuck inside a box. The engineers at Playmaji use an eighth generation Intel Coffee Lake S processor. This company says it runs at 3.1 GHz, which probably means it uses something like that the Intel Celeron G4900. It’s not a $ 500 chip, but it costs more than a Pi on its own before you consider all the other components along with the software and design.

Polymega also promises low latency, small arms support even on LCD screens, and a modern interface.

This user experience goes beyond a simple way to open your games. It has built-in scaling to duplicate or triple the pixels to create a crisp picture for low resolution gaming on high definition TVs. It also allows you to download your CDs and game cartridges (and save the data) to a storage device so that you can read them directly from the Polymega without having to insert them.

Playmaji also includes online support for you to download more games from an online store.

When you combine all of these features, the base price of $ 300 starts to make more sense. You can pay $ 150 just for an Ossc (open source scan converter), which improves on retro classics. Getting something equivalent and a way to save your physical media in one box is a compelling product.

Is it legal?

The legality of Polymega is somewhat tricky. Hardware patents expire after 20 years in the United States. Playmaji can therefore sell a box that acts like a Saturn or a PlayStation. Copyright is different. It lasts much longer. This applies to games and things like logo designs.

I’m not a lawyer, so don’t listen to me. But you are probably fine. Especially if you own the physical games. If Polymega supports a way to play illegally downloaded ROMs, it would violate copyright. But this is not the responsibility of Playmaji.