Polymega
Image: Damien McFerran / Time Extension

Polymega – the all-in-one retro console capable of playing a wide range of cartridge and CD-based classic systems – has certainly taken its time coming to market. It was originally announced way back in 2017, and pre-orders opened in September 2018.

However, a series of delays have impacted the production of the console since then, leaving many disappointed – and that's not even mentioning the issue Walmart which saw customers having their orders cancelled when the relationship between the retailer and Playmaji, the maker of Polymega, broke down.

However, after three years of waiting, the Polymega is finally making its way into the hands of those who ordered it all that time ago. Playmaji has issued a statement on its official site marking the fact that today, September 12th, is the official launch day of the console, and that units are en route to consumers as we speak.

Playmaji CEO Bryan Bernal had this to say:

Despite the challenging shipping environment presented by the COVID-19 pandemic starting last year, and other factors beyond our control at our Myanmar assembly facility in 2021, our team is excited to finally reach this critical release milestone, and further, we're beyond grateful to our thousands of customers who stuck with us and believed in the vision of POLYMEGA® and what it could mean to the future of the video games industry.

We're now ready to move forward to the next phase of this project including the launch of our digital games store for Holiday 2021, and a sharp increase in production and availability of POLYMEGA® systems for 2022 and beyond.

Interestingly, the company is also talking about a future 'Element Module' announcement. Given that we already have Element Modules for the Mega Drive / Genesis, NES, SNES / Super Famicom and PC Engine / TG16, it's tempting to speculate about what could be announced next. Game Boy? Atari Jaguar? N64? Neo Geo AES / MVS?

You'll no doubt be seeing a few photos on social media this week, as well as initial impressions, but over in Japan, the console is already firmly ensconced under the televisions of many gamers due to the fact that Polymega's Japanese distributor made deliveries on Sunday the 11th of September.

Interestingly, it looks like some Polymega consoles have made their way into Japanese retail outlets, selling for 48,000 Yen ($435):

We reviewed the beta version of the Polymega last year and concluded that the machine was "set to become a highly desirable piece of hardware for retro fans".

Let us know if you've pre-ordered the system and have had a notification about when yours will be arriving by posting a comment below.

This article was originally published by nintendolife.com on Mon 13th September, 2021.