Everdrive GG X7, official GBAtemp review

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I am proud to announce the completion and release of the Everdrive GG X7 review, for GBAtemp.

The Everdrive GG X7 is a simple to use Flash Kit solution for the Sega Game Gear. Designed by talented Flash Kit designer Krikzz, the Everdrive GG X7 joins a lineup of excellent retro hardware solutions. It supports GG, SMS, and SG-1000 ROMs, offering a library of over 600 games while on the go!

Please give the review a read and let us know your experiences with Krikzz Flash Kit solutions in the comments below!

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Everdrive GG X7 Review
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Homepage
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GG X7 Support Forum
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Official Everdrive Product Store (https://everdrive.me)
 

mrjoshuaco

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Why are everdrive products so overpriced (not counting shipment to my country etc...)?

Also are there any cheaper but equally good alternatives or similar?

You can answer both of these questions by simply re-reading your questions. It's priced like it is because people pay that price. They pay that price because it's the best product in class depending on your use case. Supply and demand is a helluva thing.
 

Issac

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Why are everdrive products so overpriced (not counting shipment to my country etc...)?

Also are there any cheaper but equally good alternatives or similar?

Are they overpriced though? Or do they just have a high price?
What are the costs of making a custom PCB of the quality these products have?
What are the costs of the custom cases? And the stickers?
How many are there? 10,000 PCBs and cases are cheaper each, than 100.

Add to this, the development time, the manufacturing time, shipping and handling from factories and from he himself.

And, of course, I am sure he doesn't want to just break even, but want to make some extra money for himself.

Take all of this into consideration, and ask yourself again: is this "overpriced"?
 

Tafty

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people say there overpriced...but you get what you pay for, and most other flashcards cant compete with the everdrives in terms of features and usability and even support. the only flashcard i can think of that is better then an everdrive is the Mega SG for genesis/mega drive but that has only just released. the mega everdrive x7 was king up until this came out..

there is plenty of cheaper alternatives to everdrives...most are clones, some arent....but again like my initial point you get what you pay for.
 

ClickCLK

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Why are everdrive products so overpriced (not counting shipment to my country etc...)?

Main reason is that the aren't made in huge quantities, which makes a big difference in production price. It's a niche product with premium quality, so price is high. Also, for comparison, sd2snes or Terraonion's flash solutions have much higher price tag.
 

Another World

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The issue of cost always arises in regards to Everdrive kits. Regardless of manufacturing reasons or other ideas I can speculate for the cost... I just don't see it as an issue. The cost for most of the kits is what I would make in a basic part-time job in the US, working for just 1 week. Pretty much find a job, work 25 hours, quit... play GG/SMS/SG-1000 games (at 99.9% compatibility too).

How much is this thing?

The original (without in-game menu (soft-reset/save-states), 512 files per-folder, and similar compatibility) can still be found for around $77 (without a GG shell -- https://everdrive.me/cartridges/edgg.html). The X7 *upgrade* is $129 -- https://everdrive.me/cartridges/everdrive-gg-x7.html.

Having used both, the differences were that the original had an issue on the GG. Often you might have to power-cycle more than once to get it to initialize. This was reported by other users as well, so I never attributed it to my aging GG hardware. It could be a little annoying, however, if you aren't testing for a review, how often are you really power-cycling during a gaming session?

-Another World
 
Last edited by Another World,

MetoMeto

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Main reason is that the aren't made in huge quantities, which makes a big difference in production price. It's a niche product with premium quality, so price is high. Also, for comparison, sd2snes or Terraonion's flash solutions have much higher price tag.
I was asking for lower not higher priced similar products.
As for premium quality, it's not use if i can't afford it.

But thanks for reply anyway.

You can answer both of these questions by simply re-reading your questions. It's priced like it is because people pay that price. They pay that price because it's the best product in class depending on your use case. Supply and demand is a helluva thing.
That would make sense for greedy companies though. Just saying.

Now premium quality and small quantities, as ClickCLK said, makes much more sense to me for high pricing.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Are they overpriced though? Or do they just have a high price?
What are the costs of making a custom PCB of the quality these products have?
What are the costs of the custom cases? And the stickers?
How many are there? 10,000 PCBs and cases are cheaper each, than 100.

Add to this, the development time, the manufacturing time, shipping and handling from factories and from he himself.

And, of course, I am sure he doesn't want to just break even, but want to make some extra money for himself.

Take all of this into consideration, and ask yourself again: is this "overpriced"?
Relative to what?
It is, if this is 1/4 to 1/3 or even a half in some cases of average paycheck in my country, not counting living cost and bills.
Also not counting paying shipping fee and tax (everything over 50 euro we need to pay extra).
Relative to that, It's way overpriced, yes.

Not for Americans though i guess or other similar countries.

it makes me sad though that i will probably never use it.

By the way, thanks for explanation on why they charge so much. but that doesn't do me justice, i still need cheaper alternative to that.


Artisanal flashcarts are a pretty nice commodity. With free range pcb being picked out each morning and stickers made with adhesive from refined ostrich fat you get what you pay for.

Indeed sir...
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Issac

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Relative to what?
It is, if this is 1/4 to 1/3 of average paycheck in my country, not counting living cost and bills.
Also not counting paying shipping fee and tax (everything over 50 euro we need to pay extra).
Relative to that, It's way overpriced, yes.

Not for Americans though i guess or other similar countries.

Relative to what? Relative to the production cost. I think you might miss the point with "overpriced".
Selling something that costs $1 to produce, with minimal research time involved (idk, a wooden butter knife for example), and charging $200 just because it says Design by HurrDurr... that's overpriced.

If something costs $100 to produce and sells for $129... that's not overpriced.
He can't make something for $100 and then sell it to someone for $20 just because they don't make money in their country.
(It might not be $100 of course, I just pulled that number out of the air. I have no idea what it actually cost him to produce these. The point is that they are small batches and high quality, so they can't go much cheaper than they are).

If I remember correctly, krikzz is based in Europe so depending on EU status I don't know if you'll have to pay extra taxes. Anyway. Gaming is a luxury product, and this is a money saving device compared with buying every game. Sure it might be expensive, sure it might be 1/4 or 1/3 of the paycheck after living costs and bills ($500 after living and bills? that's not too bad IMO), but if this is something you're interested in then just save up the money a few months.

The cheaper alternative is emulation.
 

Gunstorm

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So expense to here in Brazil dolar actual cost here is 6 dolars x 1 real... With that difference the n64 version is same price as a xiaomi redmi note 8 or 10 original n64 cartridges or a wii u (then unlock give n64 games, gc, wii, wiiu, nes, snes and others)...
I really love one for my n64 but... Maybe in next 5 years i can buy it from Second-hand goods
Actually it cost ±$200 USD = ±$1200 BRL (more then base monthly salary in Brazil)
But the product is really great, congratulations to all research and development to the team
 
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ClickCLK

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I was asking for lower not higher priced similar products.
As for premium quality, it's not use if i can't afford it.

Well, you can get clones. They are popping up on aliexpress, but became harder to find (but not too much) than two to three years ago. They are working (at least the one that I have for snes), but usually don't have all the features (depending on the platform) and can't be updated (the one that I got for snes runs some old version of super everdrive firmware and will brick if I'll try to update it). Maybe some of them are slowly damaging the console you use them on (there were some debates on voltage levels of current memory ICs vs ones used in original carts), but don't quote me on that.

Flashcarts for some platforms are way easier to create than for the others and price is reflecting on this fact. For example, mega everdrive x3 can play nearly every game released for genesis, with exception of some homebrew (like Pier Solar, Titan's Overdrive 2 demo or some romhacks with exceptionaly large file size, 7mb is the limit for this cart) and Virtua Racing (because of custom hardware in the original cart), and mega everdrive x7 can run all of them (plus have some other features). But the x3 is still nearly perfect and cost four times less, with a price tag of only $39! The clones for this cart are even cheaper and still work ok.

But on the snes side things are much harder. There are some cheap clones (for something like $30), but they can't play any games that have mappers (and many great games on the snes have them).The same applies to original everdrives - you can't play games that used mappers on it either (but you can solder one original mapper of your chosing right on Super Everdive PCB and the games that used that mapper will be supported). But there is another flashcart - fxpak (previously known as sd2snes) It supports nearly every mapper available with some very rare exceptions, directly supports SuperCIC mod and even can run custom mappers like msu-1 (with this snes games can be more than 4gb in size, can play full motion video with good results and play nearly cd-audio quality music). But the price of this cart is nearly $200. There are clones of this cart (which can even be updated afaik), but even they are priced at nearly $150.

It's sad, but this carts aren't overpriced, they just aren't cheap to produce, mostly because of the price of FPGAs used in them and because of low quantities in which they are produced. Maybe sometime in the future FPGA prices will drop and this flashcarts will be more affordable, but who knows.
 

raxadian

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Anyone knows much the Game Gear to Sega Genesis adapter is going for?

The Game Gear was amazing for it's time but ate batteries like crazy.

I could have bought it used but my wallet would have cried to me.
 

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