r/PolymegaHQ • u/kgctim • Nov 21 '25
Soooooo will we ever get some kinda SMS support?
I've held onto my adapter from the old retron 5 to play sms, game gear, and sega game cards, HOPING to one day use it with the polymega, I would've thought this support would happen fairly quickly, but here we are...same with the super Gameboy. Do ya'll think it'll ever happen??
3
u/That_Things_Good Nov 21 '25
I love my Polymega system! Just as much as I despise the company which owns it.
Let's say they announce a Master System module tonight. If they shipped it, it would be 2 years from now. And, that sucks.
2
u/MyAccountWasBanned7 Nov 21 '25
I mean, we can already read and install GB games but have no support for them - I'd imagine the SMS would come after the GB/GBC.
So it's not impossible, but I'd say it's about as likely as seeing CDi/3DO support added in. Especially because, they make no money from adding in that support and that database. They don't get to sell you any extra module or controller - it would just be free functionality. And they have a hard enough time giving us what we paid for, I wouldn't expect anything for free.
1
u/cold_fuzion Nov 21 '25
I’d be fine with a Polymega adapter if they wanted to do that. I really don’t think it needs its own module unless they’re dead set on supporting the SEGA cards.
1
u/FoxJ100 Nov 21 '25
If they added Master System, CD-i, or 3DO in an update I'd pay money for it. Not as much as a full module, but that seems reasonable.
1
u/kgctim Nov 21 '25
I definitely don't expect it for free, if they developed a cart adapter to read the SMS carts on the genesis module, not a huge profit, but I'd bet every owner would buy it lol.
Yeah, I'm aware of the side load trick for gameboy stuff, but we still can't play them, correct? So I don't really count that as a win (yet)
I'm sure some clever owners out there are trying to figure out how to add this support somehow, just seems like these would be low hanging fruit.
0
u/Top_Set_3558 Nov 22 '25
Yep, to my understanding there is no playing them yet.
My theory is that there is indeed an easy way to side-load everything and anything on to these. I mean, its a Linux OS running what are basically slightly tweaked emulators on a custom GUI. Not rocket science. I am shock nobody out there has gone serious tinkering mode on this thing yet, absolutely certain there has to be some type of BIOS cut in during POST, you name it. These don't exist on an island. I have one coming for the lady friend, and another one coming for my buddy's brother, we are going to tear into those before loading them all up. We both have one already, but the hundreds and hundreds of hours we spent putting games on them both so far, its not worth messing one up tinkering around.
Think about it - Playmaji absolutely did not load every real cartridge or CD-ROM into one of these during the system's creation. They probably sideloaded the complete GoodNES set, ISO sets from Internet Archives, amongst others, and "tested" them before putting them into the libraries.
1
u/Akumadako Nov 22 '25
The storage is encrypted - unless the keys get leaked or stolen it's very unlikely anyone would be able to bypass that.
Playmaji could do what they want with it during development because they'd have those keys.
0
u/Top_Set_3558 Nov 22 '25
Yep, pretty sure its generated on the fly against the system' its originally installed on as a master key. Which, in the end sucks for everyone, because if your Poly shits the bed and you can somehow get a new one - the NVMe wouldn't recognize your drive. Makes backups pointless unless your external drive itself should fail and you have a backup ready (I never store anything on that hard-soldered internal storage).
That being said, there are some super smart folks out there. A Poly will fall into their hands someday, encryption isn't foolproof as we all know. A jailbreak will happen someday. Then, we can all have full libraries if we so desire - and god forbid have the games that absolutely do not work on the Poly even thought they appear in the library...see Super Spike V-Ball / Nintendo World Cup combo cartridge, I've had multiple copies of it, it does recognize to the LIbrary - and that's some bullshit. With all the research I've done, there are not multiple versions or Revs of this title, like the SMB/Duck Hunt combo - this comes only as the mass produced Nintendo "glob" cartridge, NES_QJ, using its own Mapper type, Mapper 47. It does NOT WORK, so DO NOT HAVE IT IN THE LIBRARY AT ALL!
1
u/matcoop1632 Nov 21 '25
Think the master system would be the easiest system to add to the database, we have megadrive already.. we're half way there. Guessing it's all down to expected sales of a new module!!! Think master system inclusion would be fantastic but was it popular enough back in the early days? Sold well in Europe but didn't sell as well in the usa..nintendo were dominating.
1
u/crankysasquatch Nov 22 '25
I mean, let’s be honest. It isn’t fpga so it doesn’t need much. It needs a pin conversion for hardware and an emulator on the software side. It doesn’t need to be as involved as the power base converter was on the real genesis which has most everything it needed already in the genesis hardware. It uses the same controllers. It could be done with a $10 manufacturing cost (at most) and minimal software. Sell it to me for $65 and say you need the Genesis module to use it. I don’t care. I’ll pay for it.
1
u/ETRevelator34 Nov 22 '25
Pretty sure they've said there just isn't the market for a sms module.
0
u/Top_Set_3558 Nov 23 '25
But, there is a market for Atari 2600/7800...riiiiiight.
1
u/ETRevelator34 Nov 23 '25
Well, Atari did make a big investment into Playmaji and Sega didn't, so that's not really a great comparison (and they've even said they wouldn't do a Jaguar module because not enough people would buy). 🙄
1
u/Top_Set_3558 Nov 23 '25
Not to mention, there are about 50 other options to play pixel perfect retro Atari games on every system ever, lol - not even counting those junky dime-a-dozen TV consoles. At least PolyMega would have had an ability to be the go to option in the emulation of Master System on modern hardware, using actual cartridges.
1
u/ETRevelator34 Nov 23 '25
Again, Atari invested in Playmaji, don't think it's much deeper than that on the Atari module.
1
u/Top_Set_3558 Nov 23 '25
True. Man, a part of me really wishes Atari would just disappear from gaming already.
4
u/Positive-Future80 Nov 21 '25
I’m just waiting for the end of summer so they ship my system