The concept of a "Stoker family-authorized" Dracula game is deeply funny to me. Bram Stoker died 114 years ago. His only son died 65 years ago. This is authorized by his great-grand-nephew, a relation so distant it is, in essence, meaningless.
Don't get me wrong! It looks like a cool game! It's just funny to me.
@sixrings Where do you live? If you're in the US, nearly all of your gas is refined in the United States, and the vast majority of the crude oil is sourced from either America, Canada, or Mexico. If you live in Canada, most of your oil is sourced domestically and refined domestically.
@sixrings "you know what would have been easy. When Elon went nuts. But bought Twitter. The half of the world I am a part of. The liberals. The democrats. Could have easily just deleted an app. At no personal cost to them. Yet they didn’t."
Uh, no? Lots of people deleted it. It's lost something like 40 million active users since Musk took it over. Its revenue is down by half, and it's lost something like $3 billion worth of advertising. Lots of people left. I left—deleted my account and everything. Do not miss it, let me tell you.
Like I said, you don't have to do anything. Buy the new AES, I legitimately don't care. But I do reject the premise that boycotts or corporate shaming are somehow hypocritical or misguided, even if a person's not entirely consistent in how they apply them. The world would be a better place if more people did more of them. (I will note that I'm in favor of shaming the companies and their ownership, not their consumers)
"Don’t worry about it. They bought the Chinese item off Amazon. And they posted on Facebook and X about it. And drive Teslas. So all is well in the world."
@sixrings I've seen this argument a lot and I really don't think it's the logical slam dunk you seem to think it is. It basically seems to suggest that you're not allowed to criticize anyone or boycott anything if you participate in the market economy at all. In a way, it's kind of nihilist: everything is screwed up and awful anyway, so why protest? In fact, let's complain about and insult people who do anything! The worst thing you can be is a hypocrite, so just don't have any principles you can betray in the first place! This is an argument that frames itself as honest, but in practice really just defends and carries water for the world's richest, most powerful, and most harmful people. Your apathy and learned helplessness is what they most want; it makes you more profitable and easier to control.
It's true that it's really hard to extricate yourself from supporting exploitation. It's everywhere. I personally don't expect anyone to do it. But if you choose a cause or two that matters to you—or an entity or two to divest yourself from, because you find them reprehensible—that's great. It's okay that you're not living in an off-grid cabin in the woods never buying anything. It's better than nothing.
There's also a spectrum. Some companies and some countries are worse than others. And some purchases are less essential than others. Really hard to divorce yourself from Chinese-made technology at all if you want to, like, have a job. On the other hand, it's an exceedingly low lift to not buy a $250 replica of the Neo Geo, a system that's been trivially easy to emulate since the late 1990s.
@sdelfin Yeah, that's a good point re: the drone metal Chromatic. It feels really silly to say "Well, you should separate ModRetro from Luckey's other businesses" when they release an Anduril-branded Chromatic made from killer robot metal.
@Thad Yeah, the "Are you boycotting paying your taxes because of this?" bit is, obviously, silly and not in good faith. No, I'm not going to boycott paying my taxes, because that would be illegal. I can't do much good if I'm fined into oblivion or jailed.
I will also distinguish between historical stains about which someone can do nothing, and support of ongoing moral wrongs. They are related, but distinct. I can't undo the mistreatment of enslaved Africans or America's mistreatment of indigenous people. I can pressure, financially, through my vote, and through speech and assembly, my and other governments in the here and now, though. And I can support the still-living descendants of historical stains, many of whom are still at a disadvantage today for one reason or another.
Again, in general, I come down on the side of sunlight. I'm not a moral puritan, and I know living an entirely untainted ethical life is an impossibility. Humans are fallible creatures. But I am in favor of people being more informed, I'm in favor of discussion and debate, and I'm in favor of folks making some kind of attempt to be better. Doesn't have to be perfect, doesn't have to encompass everything you possibly could do. But I don't think totally throwing up your hands and basically saying "Not my problem" is the best route to take.
It's a tricky needle to thread. I think Time Extension has done it fine in this piece.
Good, balanced piece overall. I concur with (some) others here that I'm not entirely sure you've made an adequate case for covering SNK but NOT MedRetro—other than that ModRetro makes instinctively makes you queasier than SNK. (A sentiment which I share, but that's beside the point.) It really does feel like you should either not cover either, or cover both but perhaps start including requisite disclaimers whenever reporting on them. Neither option seems ideal, but hey, we don't live in an ideal world, do we?
I know there's a lot of folks here who would prefer that Time Extension "keep politics out of gaming." I understand the sentiment. I would prefer to not have to think about it, as well. But Time Extension, and Damien, aren't the ones who've injected politics into gaming. Saudi Arabia did that itself when it bought SNK—and stakes in Nintendo, and Capcom, etc. Parmer Luckey did that himself when making Mod Retro a thing. My government (America's) does it when using Microsoft as a defense contractor. You can't blame Time Extension for covering the fire as though they started it. To use an old colloquialism: don't shoot the messenger.
The reality is that gaming, even retro gaming, is a business. And business is innately political. The job of journalism, even entertainment journalism like Time Extension, is to hold a mirror up to the world as it is. It's a false framing to say that Time Extension could be apolitical—that's not really possible. It would be more accurate to say that choosing not to mention politics is ITSELF a political choice. It's a different political choice, but still a political choice. By simply never mentioning or bringing up the tangled web of exploitation innate in the gaming business, they'd still be taking a political stance—and that stance would be one of sticking your fingers in your ears. Personally, I'm not in favor that.
Now: I'm also not in favor of shaming or shunning people for their purchasing decisions. As the article articulates, you could argue that being entirely ethical in your purchases as a gamer (hell, in your purchases period) is basically impossible. But I'm all in favor of equipping readers and consumers with the knowledge. You can do that without getting on a moral high horse, which I would argue that this piece more or less does.
One last point: I see a lot of folks here arguing in favor of, essentially, giving up. Like, if you can't be entirely consistent or without hypocrisy when buying games, then you might as well not try at all. I think this is kind of a false binary. If the perfect isn't possible, you can choose the good. There's really nothing wrong with saying "Well, I really don't like insert X reason here about SNK/ModRetro/Nintendo/Microsoft/whatever, so I won't support them," without changing every single buying habit you have. Honestly, if every person in this world just picked ONE big company to not support for moral reasons, we'd probably be in a better place. It's okay to make the choice that's right for you, and I reject the notion that anyone has to be perfect. I think it's enough to try to be better.
This is ... possibly the most insane officially licensed retro thing to ever be released. I'm genuinely shocked.
Reissuing the original hardware (with cloned chips), HDMI and analog output, wired and wireless controllers, and rereleasing the actual games themselves? That's a level of full-on commitment I have not seen from any other retro hardware manufacturer ... outside of perhaps ModRetro, but that's not licensed by Nintendo, and also I don't think Plaion Replai manufactures lethal drones, so that's a plus.
To everyone who's noting that you can play these games cheaper on Switch or PS4/5 or Evercade (or free if you pirate them) ... yes, obviously. This isn't trying to appeal to everyone. It's trying to appeal to a collector's market that's interested in having a proper recreation of a system that's historically outside of the realm of affordable for most people. It's a premium niche, BUT for that niche, I actually think these prices are pretty reasonable. If you were actually trying to collect all the originals of all this stuff (especially the games in their original boxes) you'd be looking at, I'm pretty confident, $10,000 plus dollars. Twinkle Star Sprites ALONE goes for $1000.
I don't know if I'll pick this up or not. It would take up a lot of space and be the definition of unnecessary—and I already have the (pretty good!) Neo Geo Super Pocket by Evercade, and a couple of the Evercade cartridges. That kind of scratches my Neo Geo physical itch. But it's definitely tempting.
I'm a bit torn on this one—it looks awesome, and I've been kicking myself for missing the first set they did for years now. (Just not willing to drop what it goes for on eBay unless I suddenly come into some money or something.) That said, these are all arcade ports of varying quality, and I kind of wish Retro-bit would focus their energy on games actually developed for the Genesis instead (my dream releases would be Twinkle Tale, MUSHA, or, especially, Battle Mania 2.) It's a bit hard to justify dropping this much money on Grind Stormer when the superior arcade version is right there for the taking on Steam.
I think what you're talking about is slowdown—which is different from the added input latency you get from emulating and/or upscaling. All Analogue is saying is that, contrary to software emulation, the Analogue 3D won't add any latency. Which is true.
As for the NSO N64 controller, yep, it'll work with this. It's shown in their promo images.
I expected this to be pricier than this. Given that the Super NT and Mega SG were in the $200 zone with a less powerful FPGA and no 4K output (and I believe no Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, either), I was anticipating a minimum of $300, maybe more. But at $250 this is very cost-competitive with original hardware and a digital mod, with lots of extra features on top.
Pretty compelling. I'm going to try for a preorder, crossing my fingers the whole time that I can get in.
Comments 17
Re: "We Jumped At The Chance" - Industry Veteran Launches Rocket Books, And Its Debut Is All About Ridge Racer Type 4
This is great news; I secured a copy of "One More Win" but it did sell out pretty rapidly, so it's nice that folks will have another chance at it.
It's a very well-done little zine. I really enjoyed reading it. Looks excellent, too.
Re: "The First-Ever Stoker Family-Authorised Dracula Video Game" - 'Dracula: Dark Reign' Is A Castlevania-Style Title For Your Game Boy
The concept of a "Stoker family-authorized" Dracula game is deeply funny to me. Bram Stoker died 114 years ago. His only son died 65 years ago. This is authorized by his great-grand-nephew, a relation so distant it is, in essence, meaningless.
Don't get me wrong! It looks like a cool game! It's just funny to me.
Re: Struggling To Pre-Order The Neo Geo AES+ In North America? Plaion Is Working On It
@sixrings Where do you live? If you're in the US, nearly all of your gas is refined in the United States, and the vast majority of the crude oil is sourced from either America, Canada, or Mexico. If you live in Canada, most of your oil is sourced domestically and refined domestically.
Re: Talking Point: "We, The Consumers, Need To Vote With Our Wallets" - The Moral Dilemma Of Supporting SNK In 2026
Removed
Re: Talking Point: "We, The Consumers, Need To Vote With Our Wallets" - The Moral Dilemma Of Supporting SNK In 2026
@Deuteros Blazing Star—infanticide. (IYKYK)
Re: Talking Point: "We, The Consumers, Need To Vote With Our Wallets" - The Moral Dilemma Of Supporting SNK In 2026
@sixrings "you know what would have been easy. When Elon went nuts. But bought Twitter. The half of the world I am a part of. The liberals. The democrats. Could have easily just deleted an app. At no personal cost to them. Yet they didn’t."
Uh, no? Lots of people deleted it. It's lost something like 40 million active users since Musk took it over. Its revenue is down by half, and it's lost something like $3 billion worth of advertising. Lots of people left. I left—deleted my account and everything. Do not miss it, let me tell you.
Like I said, you don't have to do anything. Buy the new AES, I legitimately don't care. But I do reject the premise that boycotts or corporate shaming are somehow hypocritical or misguided, even if a person's not entirely consistent in how they apply them. The world would be a better place if more people did more of them. (I will note that I'm in favor of shaming the companies and their ownership, not their consumers)
Re: Talking Point: "We, The Consumers, Need To Vote With Our Wallets" - The Moral Dilemma Of Supporting SNK In 2026
"Don’t worry about it. They bought the Chinese item off Amazon. And they posted on Facebook and X about it. And drive Teslas. So all is well in the world."
@sixrings I've seen this argument a lot and I really don't think it's the logical slam dunk you seem to think it is. It basically seems to suggest that you're not allowed to criticize anyone or boycott anything if you participate in the market economy at all. In a way, it's kind of nihilist: everything is screwed up and awful anyway, so why protest? In fact, let's complain about and insult people who do anything! The worst thing you can be is a hypocrite, so just don't have any principles you can betray in the first place! This is an argument that frames itself as honest, but in practice really just defends and carries water for the world's richest, most powerful, and most harmful people. Your apathy and learned helplessness is what they most want; it makes you more profitable and easier to control.
It's true that it's really hard to extricate yourself from supporting exploitation. It's everywhere. I personally don't expect anyone to do it. But if you choose a cause or two that matters to you—or an entity or two to divest yourself from, because you find them reprehensible—that's great. It's okay that you're not living in an off-grid cabin in the woods never buying anything. It's better than nothing.
There's also a spectrum. Some companies and some countries are worse than others. And some purchases are less essential than others. Really hard to divorce yourself from Chinese-made technology at all if you want to, like, have a job. On the other hand, it's an exceedingly low lift to not buy a $250 replica of the Neo Geo, a system that's been trivially easy to emulate since the late 1990s.
Re: Talking Point: "We, The Consumers, Need To Vote With Our Wallets" - The Moral Dilemma Of Supporting SNK In 2026
Removed
Re: Talking Point: "We, The Consumers, Need To Vote With Our Wallets" - The Moral Dilemma Of Supporting SNK In 2026
@sdelfin Yeah, that's a good point re: the drone metal Chromatic. It feels really silly to say "Well, you should separate ModRetro from Luckey's other businesses" when they release an Anduril-branded Chromatic made from killer robot metal.
Re: Talking Point: "We, The Consumers, Need To Vote With Our Wallets" - The Moral Dilemma Of Supporting SNK In 2026
@Thad Yeah, the "Are you boycotting paying your taxes because of this?" bit is, obviously, silly and not in good faith. No, I'm not going to boycott paying my taxes, because that would be illegal. I can't do much good if I'm fined into oblivion or jailed.
I will also distinguish between historical stains about which someone can do nothing, and support of ongoing moral wrongs. They are related, but distinct. I can't undo the mistreatment of enslaved Africans or America's mistreatment of indigenous people. I can pressure, financially, through my vote, and through speech and assembly, my and other governments in the here and now, though. And I can support the still-living descendants of historical stains, many of whom are still at a disadvantage today for one reason or another.
Again, in general, I come down on the side of sunlight. I'm not a moral puritan, and I know living an entirely untainted ethical life is an impossibility. Humans are fallible creatures. But I am in favor of people being more informed, I'm in favor of discussion and debate, and I'm in favor of folks making some kind of attempt to be better. Doesn't have to be perfect, doesn't have to encompass everything you possibly could do. But I don't think totally throwing up your hands and basically saying "Not my problem" is the best route to take.
It's a tricky needle to thread. I think Time Extension has done it fine in this piece.
Re: Talking Point: "We, The Consumers, Need To Vote With Our Wallets" - The Moral Dilemma Of Supporting SNK In 2026
Good, balanced piece overall. I concur with (some) others here that I'm not entirely sure you've made an adequate case for covering SNK but NOT MedRetro—other than that ModRetro makes instinctively makes you queasier than SNK. (A sentiment which I share, but that's beside the point.) It really does feel like you should either not cover either, or cover both but perhaps start including requisite disclaimers whenever reporting on them. Neither option seems ideal, but hey, we don't live in an ideal world, do we?
I know there's a lot of folks here who would prefer that Time Extension "keep politics out of gaming." I understand the sentiment. I would prefer to not have to think about it, as well. But Time Extension, and Damien, aren't the ones who've injected politics into gaming. Saudi Arabia did that itself when it bought SNK—and stakes in Nintendo, and Capcom, etc. Parmer Luckey did that himself when making Mod Retro a thing. My government (America's) does it when using Microsoft as a defense contractor. You can't blame Time Extension for covering the fire as though they started it. To use an old colloquialism: don't shoot the messenger.
The reality is that gaming, even retro gaming, is a business. And business is innately political. The job of journalism, even entertainment journalism like Time Extension, is to hold a mirror up to the world as it is. It's a false framing to say that Time Extension could be apolitical—that's not really possible. It would be more accurate to say that choosing not to mention politics is ITSELF a political choice. It's a different political choice, but still a political choice. By simply never mentioning or bringing up the tangled web of exploitation innate in the gaming business, they'd still be taking a political stance—and that stance would be one of sticking your fingers in your ears. Personally, I'm not in favor that.
Now: I'm also not in favor of shaming or shunning people for their purchasing decisions. As the article articulates, you could argue that being entirely ethical in your purchases as a gamer (hell, in your purchases period) is basically impossible. But I'm all in favor of equipping readers and consumers with the knowledge. You can do that without getting on a moral high horse, which I would argue that this piece more or less does.
One last point: I see a lot of folks here arguing in favor of, essentially, giving up. Like, if you can't be entirely consistent or without hypocrisy when buying games, then you might as well not try at all. I think this is kind of a false binary. If the perfect isn't possible, you can choose the good. There's really nothing wrong with saying "Well, I really don't like insert X reason here about SNK/ModRetro/Nintendo/Microsoft/whatever, so I won't support them," without changing every single buying habit you have. Honestly, if every person in this world just picked ONE big company to not support for moral reasons, we'd probably be in a better place. It's okay to make the choice that's right for you, and I reject the notion that anyone has to be perfect. I think it's enough to try to be better.
Re: "No Emulation, No Compromise, No Comparison" - The $250 Neo Geo+ AES Aims To Be A 1:1 Replica Of SNK's Classic Console
@MontyMole Totally fair point re: SNK's Saudi ownership.
Re: "No Emulation, No Compromise, No Comparison" - The $250 Neo Geo+ AES Aims To Be A 1:1 Replica Of SNK's Classic Console
This is ... possibly the most insane officially licensed retro thing to ever be released. I'm genuinely shocked.
Reissuing the original hardware (with cloned chips), HDMI and analog output, wired and wireless controllers, and rereleasing the actual games themselves? That's a level of full-on commitment I have not seen from any other retro hardware manufacturer ... outside of perhaps ModRetro, but that's not licensed by Nintendo, and also I don't think Plaion Replai manufactures lethal drones, so that's a plus.
To everyone who's noting that you can play these games cheaper on Switch or PS4/5 or Evercade (or free if you pirate them) ... yes, obviously. This isn't trying to appeal to everyone. It's trying to appeal to a collector's market that's interested in having a proper recreation of a system that's historically outside of the realm of affordable for most people. It's a premium niche, BUT for that niche, I actually think these prices are pretty reasonable. If you were actually trying to collect all the originals of all this stuff (especially the games in their original boxes) you'd be looking at, I'm pretty confident, $10,000 plus dollars. Twinkle Star Sprites ALONE goes for $1000.
I don't know if I'll pick this up or not. It would take up a lot of space and be the definition of unnecessary—and I already have the (pretty good!) Neo Geo Super Pocket by Evercade, and a couple of the Evercade cartridges. That kind of scratches my Neo Geo physical itch. But it's definitely tempting.
Re: Yuzo Koshiro Warns The "Current Global Situation" Could Impact Earthion On Genesis
"We also hope the world finds more stability as soon as possible."
Boy, you and me both, Yuzo. You and me both.
Re: Three More Sought-After Toaplan Shmups Are Resurrected On Genesis / Mega Drive At Bargain Prices
I'm a bit torn on this one—it looks awesome, and I've been kicking myself for missing the first set they did for years now. (Just not willing to drop what it goes for on eBay unless I suddenly come into some money or something.) That said, these are all arcade ports of varying quality, and I kind of wish Retro-bit would focus their energy on games actually developed for the Genesis instead (my dream releases would be Twinkle Tale, MUSHA, or, especially, Battle Mania 2.) It's a bit hard to justify dropping this much money on Grind Stormer when the superior arcade version is right there for the taking on Steam.
Re: Pre-Orders For FPGA N64 'Analogue 3D' Open Next Week, Will Cost $250
@Friendly "Every N64 game: ‘lagging constantly’"
I think what you're talking about is slowdown—which is different from the added input latency you get from emulating and/or upscaling. All Analogue is saying is that, contrary to software emulation, the Analogue 3D won't add any latency. Which is true.
As for the NSO N64 controller, yep, it'll work with this. It's shown in their promo images.
Re: Pre-Orders For FPGA N64 'Analogue 3D' Open Next Week, Will Cost $250
I expected this to be pricier than this. Given that the Super NT and Mega SG were in the $200 zone with a less powerful FPGA and no 4K output (and I believe no Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, either), I was anticipating a minimum of $300, maybe more. But at $250 this is very cost-competitive with original hardware and a digital mod, with lots of extra features on top.
Pretty compelling. I'm going to try for a preorder, crossing my fingers the whole time that I can get in.