Anyone purchase from RetroUSB before?

[DejahThoris]

Ordered an SNES PowerPak last Wednesday morning.  Their site says "In Stock".  Yesterday I realized I hadn't gotten a tracking number so I looked at my order and it's still in processing.  Seems curious, so I delve into their FAQ to find out that they ship in 1-6 business days and that it's just an estimate not a guarantee.  I have to wonder, do they actually not have anything in stock and just make it as orders are made?  Maybe they just have the parts in stock?  Anyhow, I'm at 8 business days now with no contact at all from them outside of the initial copy of my order sent to my e-mail.

Are they normally this slow?  I'm slightly tempted to just cancel my order and find one on a forum...

[Arjak]

RetroUSB can be painfully slow sometimes, but in my opinion, the wait is worth it. It took them about half a month to produce my Tales of Phantasia cart for SNES, but it was worth it. Their quality is top notch, and I feel better about buying from them because they use brand new parts, instead of gutting used cartridges.

[djcouchycouch]

I've bought NES and SNES powerpaks. Shipping speed was fine. I've heard that support isn't that great, though. I've had no problems so I don't know first hand.

[jlued686]

I agree with Arjak. Stuff takes a long time to come, but it's worth it. Quality shit.

[sirhcman]

I got my SNES Power Pak from them.. It took 9 days from order to delivery, it was a little on the slow side but it was well worth the wait!

[GohanX]

I ordered a NES Powerpak from them, same thing. It took a good couple of weeks to get it if I remember correctly.

Totally worth it.

[DejahThoris]

I'm not questioning the quality of the product, just the amount of time it takes to ship an in stock item.  It's looking like I'm buying one from a nintendoage member for $30 less in the meantime and canceling my retrousb order.  I wouldn't have minded paying full price if they were even just a little quicker with the shipping.  I really dislike them putting "In stock" on items that take over a week to ship.

[meka]

I also got a NES Powerpak and shipping took only a week to Australia and they packaged it very well.

[SNKNostalgia]

Man, I've been putting off on buying one for the NES and SNES for soooo long now. I really need to just go ahead and get one for both consoles. I mainly want them to play FDS FM sound games and translated NES/SNES games.

Also, being able to play some protos and homebrew sounds like a lot of fun. It is nice to be able to play Rom Hacks of some games like Ninja Gaiden 3 US with all the Japanese features (less damage, unlimited continues and a password system). Stuff like that, really makes a difference to enjoy games that shouldn't have never been change for the US release.

[TheClash603]

I picked up the Nintendo World Championship repro from that place for a gaming tournament I held once.  Was a quality product and I recall mine was shipped quite quickly.

[meka]

Hopefully retrousb are going to release BattleKid 2 soon, the release date keeps getting pushed back.

[DejahThoris]

Man, I've been putting off on buying one for the NES and SNES for soooo long now. I really need to just go ahead and get one for both consoles. I mainly want them to play FDS FM sound games and translated NES/SNES games.

Also, being able to play some protos and homebrew sounds like a lot of fun. It is nice to be able to play Rom Hacks of some games like Ninja Gaiden 3 US with all the Japanese features (less damage, unlimited continues and a password system). Stuff like that, really makes a difference to enjoy games that shouldn't have never been change for the US release.

I'm eager to play Nightmare Busters on it!  And Star Ocean if I can find a properly patched version.

I'd be interested in a NES one if I could find a good compatibility list for it.

[Joe Redifer]

What's the difference/advantage between a SNES Powerpak and a Super Everdrive?

[DejahThoris]

What's the difference/advantage between a SNES Powerpak and a Super Everdrive?

Differences I know of:

Super Everdrive can't play Star Ocean, patched or not.  PowerPak can play Star Ocean if patched correctly.

Super Everdrive can't play DSP-1 games unless you cannibalize a cartridge for the DSP-1 chip.  PowerPak can play DSP-1 games as-is.

Super Everdrive uses SD cards.  PowerPak uses CF cards.

[Joe Redifer]

So basically the Super Everdrive uses cheaper flash cards and can't play Pilotwings, Super Mario Kart and Star Ocean.

Why is the SD2SNES so hard to come by?

There's a ton of games that the NES Powerpak can't run, right?

[meka]

One big downside of the SNES Powerpak is that you have to manually save games by holding the reset button and then saving it, with all the RPG's on the SNES it would be a hassle.

[DejahThoris]

So basically the Super Everdrive uses cheaper flash cards and can't play Pilotwings, Super Mario Kart and Star Ocean.

Why is the SD2SNES so hard to come by?

There's a ton of games that the NES Powerpak can't run, right?

SD2SNES is hard to come by because it's being made in really low production numbers, and if I'm not mistaken the next batch is already pre-sold.  It's far costlier despite only playing what, a half dozen more games than the PowerPak?

And my understanding is yes, there are a ton of games the NES one can't play due to the large number of mappers across the NES/Famicom library.  I've yet to find a good compatibility list though.

[sirhcman]

Dejah, if you find a compatibility list please post it here

[mcarnage]

Here's a Compatibility List I think the key to the NES Powerpak is that you have to install loopy's mappers over the latest beta mappers (both found at the link above) and that helps out.

Speaking of support I noticed over a year ago when I got my SNES Powerpak that game genie codes didn't work on HiROM games and emailed support and I never heard back. I started a thread on NintendoAge and was told that they got my email and were going to look at it, so yes if you find a bug good luck on getting it fixed as I don't believe either Powerpak have been updated since I got them .

Loading: twitter.com/krikzz/status/240376634157457408

Krikzz mentioned working with mappers on twitter a week or two ago and then he did answer someone that the mappers he was referring to was working with 8-bit mappers so maybe he means NES? It's the only other 8-bit system I can think of that he doesn't support and uses mappers but I could be wrong!

[KnightWarrior]

I ordered a USB NES RetroPort for the PC came in 2 days

also I live near in California, Near San Francisco..that's why it was fast

[Joe Redifer]

NES/Famicom Everdrive was announced 2 days ago.  Definitely gonna wait to see how that turns out.

[Frank_fjs]

Krikzz is working on a Famicom flash cart:

[DragonmasterDan]

There's a ton of games that the NES Powerpak can't run, right?

There's a lot of mappers that aren't supported. It becomes more apparent if you're trying to play strange unlicensed stuff that used custom mappers. It's worth owning one if you're interested in experimenting with odd games on real hardware but it's far from perfect.

[GohanX]

I mainly want them to play FDS FM sound games and translated NES/SNES games.

It's worth noting that the FDS sound emulation on the Powerpak isn't that good. I mean, it plays the sound, but it doesn't sound like a real FDS. That being said, most of the extra FDS sounds aren't that much of a departure from what you're used to hearing anyway, that it doesn't matter. On the Zelda games, I actually prefer the sounds of the US versions.

[SNKNostalgia]

I mainly want them to play FDS FM sound games and translated NES/SNES games.

It's worth noting that the FDS sound emulation on the Powerpak isn't that good. I mean, it plays the sound, but it doesn't sound like a real FDS. That being said, most of the extra FDS sounds aren't that much of a departure from what you're used to hearing anyway, that it doesn't matter. On the Zelda games, I actually prefer the sounds of the US versions.

I did not know that the FDS sound is of lower quality. I really only want it for games like the JP version of Castlevania 3 actually. I did play quite a few FDS games on the emulators to test out the sound. It doesn't seem to be much of a big deal for most games, but those few that does it right is what I want it for.

Maybe the Everdrive version will be better for FDS sound I hope.

[KnightWarrior]

If I had extra money I would get Stuff from Krikzz

[Drakon]

I bought both the nes and snes powerpaks.  Getting the nes one went fine.  The snes one showed up with a borked ram chip.  I mailed it back, in a box with my name and address on it.  Somehow they weren't able to link it to my account so it sat at their place for months not getting fixed.  I didn't get it fixed and sent back until I kicked up a huge storm on nintendoage about it.

I bought krikzz's mega everdrive and turbo everdrive both from retrogate and both showed up in record time with zero issues.  I must say retrogate rules.