Analogue Nt Starts Shipping To Buyers, Pitched As "The Leica Of Home Consoles"

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah, not for $500.

They're $500?!

Nah man, for that price I'll just repair my NES and deal with a less-than-stellar picture quality. And greatly increase my NES library

It is $500 + 80 if yoy want hdmi port for hd graphics so If you want hd graphics buy the retro 5 it is onoy $169.99 and plays many different consoles including the Japanese versions I'd them

The article doesn't do a very good job of explaining what I'm actually buying. It's an NES that runs Famicom games, great. Is it running it on native hardware? I see more output ports, graphics chip is handling that? Or is it all custom chips?

Those borders on Super Mario Bros. 3 I don't remember ever seeing them. When I played the game on my NES?

@OneBagTravel If you go to their website they explain that it is made with the original NES/Famicom CPU and PPU. their focus was to make the most authentic HD NES experience.

On a side note i love that it is compatible with the Famicom Disk System. And price wise, a RGBNES modded AV Famicom would run you 350. So you are paying $200 for a fancy aluminum body and newer more reliable parts i guess?

...500 dollars?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztVMib1T4T4

There's an interesting thread on NeoGAF about this console and its difficulties in getting to market. Apparently a lot of missed release windows, and even failures to provide marketing that had been promised: things as simple as "video of these things actually existing and functioning". They also made the allegation that this was essentially stealth-crowdfunding: early orders were used to fund production, though they were presented as sales rather than crowd-funding investments.

I don't know the veracity of any of this, but it's potentially worth mentioning for anyone who's interested in ordering that many other buyers have significant problems with the way the company has comported itself in the years since the console's announcement. Regardless, good luck to anyone who picks one of these up and I hope it's everything it's cracked up to be.

EDIT: Latest thread title is "Analogue NT ($500 HDMI NES) gets 4th delay to April 2015, more shady broken promises". Not sure if linking is OK, but any search engine worth a damn should find it for you.

...And that $500 doesn't even include the HDMI HD output "upgrade." That's gonna run you an additional $79. I guess considering a Framemeister is around $300, that's not a HORRIBLE price, but I feel like retro gamers would rather have the full retro experience with an original console and would really find it hard to justify the price of this, even though it is a beautiful system for sure.

Looks neat. Price point kills it for me though.

But I do really like the way the console looks.

Not for $500

If it were more moderately priced, this thing would be a Godsend - provided that it runs the carts straight-up, rather than just playing a .rom file when it recognizes a game (which is what the Retron 5 does).

For the $500 price point, one could buy an NES, mod it to output RGB, and then run it through the Framemeister for a Godly crisp image with pixels that will cut your face if you get to close to the screen.

500$ to just play 'HD' NES games?

I don't see the appeal.We can already do that with many NES emulators out there, except that this is 'legal'

$500....no.

$500 for a famiclone!? Nu-uh, sister. HDMI output is no excuse.

It's funny that no one seems to remember the original press about this game. Fair enough, I suppose it has been a while.
It's not a Famiclone, it's just an old NES/Famicom upcycled into a fancy new case, with adapters to different, modern video outputs.
It's expensive because it's a custom scrounge job in a fancy case.
It's not any more or less prone to breakdown than any other vintage hardware, but if you splash out for this, I would think you'd be out in the cold if it stops working. Just like if you found a flea market NES.
I know some people prefer original hardware to emulation, but this is neither, it's just a way for a fool and his or her money to say goodbye to each other. It's about as far from a Leica camera as anything could be.

@flojomojo "it's just an old NES/Famicom upcycled into a fancy new case"
No, it actually isn't. It's a brand new custom PCB with dual slots and all the extras fitted needed for the additional audio and video options, so its a PCB made from scratch, yet it contains a chip set designed to be as close to the original as possible: https://cdn2.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/syt04rAMARbQQMFFVhEwAUra2ys=/0x29:687x415/960x540/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/45211424/unnamed.0.0.jpg
Here's the article I took that picture from, for those of you that are interested and want to know more: http://www.polygon.com/2015/1/13/7541447/analogue-nt-nes-motherboard
You could of course also take a look on the Analogue NT site, but that's obviously not an objective site...
http://www.analogueinteractive.com/products/analogue-nt-information

Forgive me, I forgot about some of the details. It appears that this is indeed a Famiclone, but with CPU and PPU scrounged from old yellow Famicom hardware sitting on a shelf. Only the controllers are fully scrounged from old stock.

From the fine site:
"We were able to procure a large quantity of HVC-001 Famicom systems that were in cosmetically undesirable unsellable condition. The plastic enclosure of the HVC-001 systems are notoriously yellowed, brittle and damaged. While the poor enclosure quality left these systems undesirable and sitting on a shelf, fortunately the CPU and PPU inside remain untouched and fully functional.

Not only were we able to give new life to these systems but a large portion of the controllers have been refurbished and are available for sale too."

I'm still not buying one!

For $500 I would rather get a xrgb mini and buy some more games for my nes to play on my hd tv

Nice, maybe someday providing this does not have any issues.

If those pics are anything to go by, I'm not sure they got the picture aspect ratio right...

The reaction to this shows why this is a harder sell than a Neo Geo unit.

This is not meant to be a mass-market device. It has a lot of enhancements using original parts, has a premium shell and will be very limited. It's as much a show piece as it is a game console. But getting a proper RGB and upscaling setup on a normal NES is not inexpensive anyway.

I bought one the day it was announced & I'm trying it out this weekend, as I received it yesterday. I've played it just a tad thus far, but from the little I saw it looks very good. As far as price, this is a luxury item intended for those with disposable income. I know it's expensive, but I have worked hard all my life to be able to afford whatever I want & it is a small reward, for a lifetime of hard work. I work in Private Equity. Some people buy cars...I buy video games.

It uses all original parts, the shell is well made & quiet heavy, and overall, it feels like a really good product...super luxury! I currently use an NES-2, prior to this, and the picture quality is much better than that, due to the RF only output of that particular model. However, it plays Famicom games, which the NES-1 doesn't. This console plays it all, Famicom or NES, and gives you a ton of video output options.

I'll give my thoughts on it after this weekend. What I am most excited about is the ability to plug in the original Famicom disc system to it & play the original Zelda, as it was intended. Can Nintendo Life test this function? I do not have the famicom disc system, yet, but plan on getting one.

For a lifelong Nintendo fanatic, this feels like the Rolls Royce of NES. Sometimes, you just need to treat yourself, price be damned.

@vaguerant

I ordered one of these the day they announced it. They kept delaying it, over and over again, but never missed a deadline to let us know what was up.

They're also very friendly via customer service. The wait was too long, but much like a game rushed out to meet a sales date, that ends up sucking, I am glad they took the time to do it right. I prefer a delay that serves to deliver a high quality product, then a mediocre product that doesn't meet it's aspirations.