With the Retrode (Retrode.com) you can now pop in your own cartridges for SNES and Genesis and use any emulator you please.
No more grey area on legal use of roms and such.



You can also use this to dump roms. With this ability, you can ensure you have YOUR rom with you on your PSP, DS, PC, phone, or where ever you emulate.

The Retrode can also be used to backup your saves before the battery goes out in your 20 year old cartridges.



Right now, there are two stores to buy from. Currently one in the USA and one in Germany. The Retrode releases in early February 2012 and the USA store is taking preorders now at $84.99.

Pricey but for some, worth the cost.

Totally getting one of these... holy crap.

I don't get it.

doesnt use roms.

ie not emulation of said roms.

ie irrelevant to legality of emulation.

What would be super neat (and less legal) if you could get a blank cart and import a rom on it so you can play it on a legit console. I understand why it isn't a function on this device... I'm just saying that if they came out with another model including that...

The Retrode is an interface device that allows emulators to run the rom on the cart. It doesn't run the games so the emulator on the PC is still emulating the hardware. You can use this to dump the roms of the games you own and run them on any emulator. Seems like it is emulation and relevant to emulation to me.


Could you replace the rom chip with a flash chip? That would allow you to have a blank cartridge that is now writable. Unfortunately, you run into issues with games that expect to see Nintendo's Super FX, DSP1, SA-1, or S-DD1 chips; or Sega's Virtua Processor chips and your blank doesn't have them.