There is been a revelation in Computex in Taiwan, Now there is a lifeline to collectors of classic games or people who love their retro games and want to play them but without wrecking their original consoles. The Retro Freak is a nifty little console that will provide a home for all your favourite old games, with slots for well-loved cartridges and an ’80s-perfect controller to boot.
It also promises a bunch of features that certainly weren’t around in the ’80s:
- HDMI connectivity
- 1,280×720-pixel upscaling
- Display filter to smooth out pixelated edges
- In-machine game saving (via SD card)
- Support for USB controllers such as PS3/PS4
- Supports NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, Sega Megadrive (with converter), Game Boy (Original, Color and Advance), Turbo Grafx-16, PC Engine and PC Engine Super Grafx games
Just pop in your SNES edition of Super Mario Kart, plug the Retro Freak into your TV’s HDMI port and you can recreate the experience of your youth, right down to the vintage-look scan lines on the screen that give those games a their real arcade flavour. You can also change the display filter to smooth out pixelated lines and adjust the refresh rate from what the original game demanded to up to 60Hz — all to make the games adjust a little more easily to modern TVs.
You can also use the cheat function to play games on “invincible mode” with the maximum amount of money or lives!
It is available in Asia for $180 and Australian distribution reportedly coming soon.