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Sound Problems with The Generation NEX?
Today I received a comment from a reader Gordon who got his Generation NEX and was not to happy with it. I have not played one and have not tried those games on it. I do have River City Ransom and Castlevania III and they will be some of the first games that I will test.
I still want one and I have five Famicom games waiting for it. I take this with a grain of salt and I'll make up my own mind when I get mine home.
Gordon wrote:
"I just got my Generation NEX today via FexEx, part of the first shipment. First off, the included controller is terrible. The buttons are slanted and mushy, the controller itself is tiny, and it's an awkward button layout to begin with. The sound on all the games I've tested (incl. SMB1, 2, 3) is off and not accurate (compared to being played on an original NES). Huge bummer. Also, games like River City Ransom do weird stuff when you play them, including garbleing up the menus, changing colors, and generally not working properly. Castlevania III doesn't even work at all for me either (just a blank green screen). Did they even test this thing? How hard could it be to make a 100% compatible NES clone in 2005? And how could they possibly say it's compatible with anything? Damn marketing lies."
I am not sure about this because I have not tried it out. Hopefully I'll get mine this weekend. I am not sure about this because I have not tried it out. Hopefully I'll get mine this weekend. There is an official compatibility chart on the Messiah website.
Jake at November 1, 2005 
Games
Comments
The Generation NEX is going to sound different since it outputs simulated stereo sound (something the original NES could not do). And even if you use the composite A/V jacks on the side of an original NES for audio it sounds slightly different than the RF we all grew up with. Also honestly if someone hates the controller so much then they should just plug in a good old NES controller - that's one of the points of this system's design after all.
The only thing that is dissapointing is that the unlicensed games (except for the Tengen releases that use a clone of the NES lockout chip, the Tengen "rabbit" chip) seem to have a very high failure rate. Ease of playing these is one of the reasons people buy top-loading NES' since there's not lockout in them and the games load no problem - it was something I was looking forward to with the Generation NEX, I think they built it a little TOO much like the NES. I still find it odd that Gauntlet, the licensed or unlicensed release, doesn't work. And the Rad Racer errors are mapper problems, which are still an issue with most NES emulators to this day.
In the end that compatibility list is great, but how undetailed it is brings up the issue of where the problems lie. I was saying at the DigitalPress forums that I'll have to buy one myself and go through my hundreds of NES carts and write a detailed compatibility list like I did with KGen98 in high school and NESterDC 7.1 last year.
Posted by: InsaneDavid ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.8bitjoystick.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at November 2, 2005 12:22 AM
hmmm, wanted to get one too, but now I'll wait for your findings... thx.
Posted by: Jim at November 2, 2005 11:07 AM
We also have a post that NEsdev has done with some problems of the NEx. theyve been known to really rip apart the machines and really get into it. I trust em.
Posted by: Josh at November 2, 2005 5:16 PM
Hello. I am the Gordon who originally posted the complaint about the NEX. I have fleshed out my arguments into a mini-review of the Generation NEX on my blog at Vintagecomputing.com. The URL is
http://www.vintagecomputing.com/?p=6
If you have anything to add, feel free to leave some comments on there.
Posted by: Gordon at November 3, 2005 12:19 PM
You know, I just remembered something I saw at Assembler awhile ago...
http://assembler.emugaming.com/Black_Market/Mini_Nes/mini_nes.html
...hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Posted by: InsaneDavid at November 3, 2005 9:39 PM
