What a joyous day for N64 fans, the first clone system has finally been announced for Nintendo’s 64 bit powerhouse! Coming courtesy of Hyperkin, clone hardware manufacturer, the new product will be called the Ultra Retron. The Ultra Retron, a play on the old Ultra 64 name the N64 used before release, looks to be an emulation clone system which will allow for 4 players and HDMI video output. The Ultra Retron also looks set to include a Hyperkin version of the classic three pronged N64 controller rather than their new 2 handle take. To preview the new Ultra Retron product manager Andrew Steel made a quick video that you can check out below!
Now while I am super excited about this system being revealed and coming out, as I hope it will open the flood gates for other companies to follow, there are some things to be aware of. First off N64 emulation is actually pretty substandard and inaccurate. What does this mean for the average user, well for anyone looking to play only the most popular titles on N64 like Mario and Zelda the experience will be fine and you might never notice a difference. There are games that will flat-out not work in many N64 emulators like the Factor 5 games. and the ones that can run it require hardware that the Ultra Retron is likely not using. Seriously my 7700K overclocked to 5GHZ still can’t get Battle for Naboo up to decent frame rates… Other games will likely exhibit graphical glitches which we can already see in Hyperkin’s own demo video during Mario Kart 64.
Ah, hello my dear framebuffer emulation errors, its been a while!
Regardless I am still pumped progress has finally been made on replacement N64 consoles! I will get to go hands on with this one at E3 next week so stay tuned for my hands on report of what the Ultra Retron is like in motion.
