There's a wide range of companies out there that focus on developing retro gaming hardware, be it accessories or actual consoles, and they've seen so much success that even major gaming companies have started producing their own retro gaming devices. One of the firms that's been doing retro-inspired consoles for some time is Analogue, which has released devices including the Super Nt and Mega Sg - tributes to the Nintendo and Sega consoles, respectively.
Today, Analogue announced the Pocket, its modern-day take on the GameBoy hardware, and it's a pretty interesting piece of hardware. The Analogue Pocket has a 3.5-inch display at a 1600x1440 resolution, which makes for a whopping 615ppi. Considering the hardware is meant to play GameBoy games, it's hard to imagine such a high resolution is necessary, but it's there nonetheless. Analogue touts "pro level color accuracy, dynamic range, and brightness", going as far as to say it's the best display ever put in a video game system.
In terms of compatibility, the Analogue Pocket will natively support GameBoy, GameBoy Color, and GameBoy Advance cartridges, and it is not meant to be used with ROMs. It also does not use emulation to play the games, relying on an FPGA chip instead. You can also play Sega Game Gear, Neo Geo Pocket Color, and Atari Lynx games on the hardware, but these require a cartridge adapter, which is sold separately.
The Analogue Pocket also comes with a feature called Nanoloop, which lets users create retro-style video game music. With options to capture music or start from scratch and a variety of tools, it seems like a fairly interesting option for enthusiasts.
The rest of the Pocket hardware is fairly standard, with a D-pad, a traditional four-button array, two shoulder buttons, and some menu buttons toward the bottom. It has a set of stereo speakers, a rechargeable battery that charges via USB Type-C, a 3.5mm headphone jack, a microSD card slot, and an "original-style link plug".
But that's not all, as Analogue also announced the Dock, which is meant to be used in tandem with the Pocket. Similarly to something like the Switch, the Analogue Dock lets users slot the Pocket into place and play their games on a TV through the HDMI cable. The Dock has two USB ports for wired controllers, but it also supports Bluetooth controllers, such as those from 8BitDo.
The Analogue Pocket and Dock are coming next year, and the former will cost $199. Pricing for the Dock will be announced later on, and it's also not known how much the aforementioned cartridge adapters will cost. If you're interested in getting one, you can sign up to be notified as soon as it is available.
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