The mClassic is Available on Indiegogo Now and Here Are My Thoughts After Playing with It
The mClassic is a special device that will upscale your video game console’s output to provide a better picture on your television. The device is made by Marseille and is now available on Indiegogo. The first 250 orders will be discounted to $59 as well! That’s an incredible deal. Others who purchase the mClassic through Indiegogo will get it for $79 with the price jumping to $99 after the campaign is over.
I was able to talk to the founder of Marseille, Amine Chabane, and the chief designer Arabian Prince and they cleared some things up for me. First, this will not change the framerate of your games. The mClassic will upscale the resolution up to near-4K, but it will not make a 30fps game run at 60fps. Also, the computer in the mClassic goes through and redraws every pixel. In addition, while it has a Retro Mode for use with classic games and consoles that run at 4:3, users will need to have/purchase a separate adapter to go from the console’s output to HDMI to use with the mClassic. The idea is that most retrogamers who would care about this already have these adapters handy and so it won’t be as much clutter.
I’ve been lucky enough to play around with the mClassic for a couple of weeks and while I didn’t have any adapters for my retro consoles, I was able to use it with my PS3. I plugged in the mClassic, popped Diablo 3 in, and played around with the toggle switch. Diablo 3 runs at 720p and my TV supports 1080p so I was interested to see the difference. There is one, although it is pretty minor. However, my wife who isn’t a big graphics person was even able to see a difference on certain screens. That being said, I think the overall picture quality and color quality on the PS3 has been enhanced in general, even when streaming from Hulu or Netflix. Of course, this could be psychosomatic (it’s harder for me to tell in videos than in games).
One problem I had with the mClassic is that I could not plug it in to my Nintendo Switch’s dock. I wanted to try it on the Switch, but it’s too bulky to be able to plug in. Thankfully, they included a short (I think it’s 3 inches) HDMI extension cable. This allowed me to plug it in for some quick tests and the results depended on the game. On all the games I tried, there was a slight improvement with the exact amount varying per title, but where I saw the most difference was actually on the home page for the Switch.
I wish I had a 4K TV to test this out on and really see if it gets even better, but the mClassic does work. I know a lot of people will say don’t waste your time or money because of emulators but remember that emulation is very gray from a legal perspective while the mClassic is 100% legal. If you’re wanting to improve the picture of your games and have the money, the mClassic is one way to do that.