Analogue

There have been a few changes to the Pocket since its original launch. Externally, the start, select and home buttons have been moved from the edge of the console to the low-center. Internally, the main new feature is “Original Display Modes.” This takes the Pocket’s high-quality LCD display, and has it mimic “quirks and all,” the screens of various handhelds. Analogue has announced three of these display profiles so far: Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance. 

As a reminder, the Pocket’s display is a 3.5-inch, 615-PPI LTPS panel with a variable refresh rate, and software rotation will be available to support “tate mode” (vertical) games — tate mode games are rare, but this is a vital inclusion that will allow Lynx games like Klax and Raiden to run. It’ll also mean Game Boy Advance titles that had tate mode as an option, such as Panel de Pon, finally make sense (holding the original Nintendo hardware vertically is truly bizarre).

We also have confirmation of a few details left unclear after the original announcement: The Pocket has a 4,300 mAh battery, which is good for “6-10 hours” of play time. The screen is covered with Gorilla Glass at “three times the typical thickness” found in smartphones. Finally, the optional TV dock, which now has a $99 price tag, has a recessed USB-C port for greater stability, and supports up to four controllers over its integrated Bluetooth and 2.4GHz wireless hardware, or via USB.

Out of the box, the Pocket will support cartridges for the three Nintendo consoles (Game Boy, GB Color and GB Advance). Adapters will be sold for Game Gear, Neo Geo Pocket Color and Atari Lynx, with pricing to be announced at a later date. For context, Analogue sold a pack of three adapters for its Mega SG console at $50. While up to four Pockets can be linked for multiplayer, this will require additional, yet-to-be-priced, cables. The console will come with a free copy of Nanoloop, though, which is an electronic music program popular among chiptune creators.

Analogue

The last major update from Analogue is a partnership with GB Studio. GB Studio is a “drag-and-drop” game creation tool for Windows, Mac and Linux. The main outcome of the partnership is that you’ll be able to export GB Studio creations as “.pocket” files, which will then run natively from a microSD card on the Pocket.

The Analogue Pocket and Dock will be available to pre-order on August 3rd at 8AM PT/11AM ET from Analogue’s store, priced at $199 and $99, respectively.

If you’re kicking yourself for missing out on Analogue’s metallic NES on steroids, the Nt Mini, you’re in luck — provided you have the cash. Analogue has opened pre-orders for the Nt Mini Noir Edition, a final run of the console that comes in a gunmetal finish with gold-hued ports, a refined NES cartridge slot, an updated 8BitDo wireless controller and a refreshed user interface. Throw in existing Nt Mini touches like HDMI out and this might be the ultimate way to play NES (and Famicom) games without resorting to emulators.

Vintage game enthusiasts have driven the second-hand prices of Sony’s PVM and BVM monitors (which were originally used for security, broadcast and medical purposes) through the roof over the past several years. These high-end monitors are super sharp, color-accurate and RGB-compatible. In other words, they provide the best picture you can get out of a vintage console.

But Analogue doesn’t make vintage consoles; they make modernized, hardware-emulated, HDMI versions of the Nintendo NES and SNES and the Sega Genesis. Analogue’s DAC converts an HDMI feed to RGB, component, S-video and composite (as well as analog audio) signals that are compatible with PVMs and BVMs.

Like the Analogue Super Nt and Mega Sg before it, the DAC uses an FPGA chip, which can be programmed to emulate vintage hardware. The converter works with both PAL and NTSC signals and is compatible with various flavors of RGB, such as composite sync and sync on green.

Analogue’s offering is a little out there: Many gamers who bought the brand’s consoles did so because they simply don’t own bulky CRT TVs or monitors anymore, but are frustrated by the lag and poor signal conversion that occur when playing an older system on a modern TV. Meanwhile, others are perfectly content to rock their 8- and 16-bit consoles on CRTs and never needed an Analogue system to begin with. So the DAC may be a hard sell for Analogue’s existing user base, but the fact that the demand for old monitors is so high does indicate that there’s a market for such a device. You can pre-order the Analogue DAC for $79 and ships in February 2020.