Who Needs A Game Boy Classic Edition When You've Got The Analogue Pocket?

This looks rather amazing. Given the price for modded GB consoles, having one that plays all those formats and could be extended to more is a good option.

Yeah I'm going to need this........possibly 2 of them !

Damn that is one seriously sexy piece of plastic

Dope. Analogue makes quality products. I look forward to their version of the Switch in a decade or so. If they're still in business for that long anyway.

This is everything I was hoping for and the some. NGPC and Atari Lynx games as well? Wow. I'm in!

Holy fetch, this is dang hot.

Hope I can get one at launch! Very, very pleased with their Super Nt. It is quality hardware!

This is quite beautiful. I don’t think I wanna pay $200 for it, but that sleek design is tempting.

Instabuy!!! I can’t wait

Despite owning a nice GBA AGS 101 which plays is BC to GB&GBC I might still get this for the balance of the system. The docking sold me though. However, I am curious if any filters will be added for this function.

Does it offer the ability to Link and Trade?

I feel Like I heard that fraze before..

This is really sleek looking. I'd be interested in this, I still play my GBA games regularly, and was wondering if there was going to be a handheld that took the original cartridges.

Love the dock idea, I may pick one of these up if the reviews are good. But for now my RG300 fills the gap nicely.

$200US for the system.

Likely another $70 or so for the dock.

$50US for shipping (if you live outside NA, more)

I'll pass.

This sounds great. N64 next please Analogue!

@GravyThief

Not happening. The guy who designs the FPGAs for Analogue (Kevin Horton) has stated numerous times that the N64 is too difficult to replicate at this time, and it may never be possible.

Not sure why you'd want a screen 10x sharper than the original but okay.
Hope there's an option to recreate the blur and LCD lag, considering some games actually depended on them to look correct.

Nintendo needs to realize that there is still a market for this kind of pocket hardware. They need to make an ultra-small clamshell Switch!

That is sleek and sexy. Me gusta.

Especially when you consider the possibilities the inevitable firmware jailbreak will bring, this is gonna be one hell of a handheld for $200.

Instabuy. Having an FPGA dedicated for development is going to lead to some awesome stuff with this device - and all previous Analogue products have been top notch. I can't wait for this.

It looks great.
How legal are these?
What stops a Chinese company to release a cheaper Switch alternative that can play Switch games legally? I guess is about patents expiring?

While I don't think I'd ever use this personally, this is a very cool gadget! Looks terrific and that's a lot of gaming for a couple hundred bucks! Really hope it turns out fantastic for those who get them!

Includes Nanoloop! I used to have that for my original Gameboy. Fun times making chip tunes.

One thing notably absent is any sort of Wifi communication. Not a deal breaker for me by any means, but it would be really nice for multiplayer. I see it includes an original style link port, presumably for local multiplayer, but would be nice if a wireless option were there. Perhaps Bluetooth could be used?

@Zequio

Nothing can stop a Chinese company sadly, not even LeBron James.

The screen resolution is odd. I assume it is to make it difficult to see individual pixels, which I know from phone reviews is a thing that seems to bother certain people for some reason. Analogue seems to do good work and this looks well designed in many ways. I would want to know more about the battery. I haven't seen estimates for how long it can last, what size it is. Most importantly, is it easily replaceable? That may not be important to some these days, but it matters to me in something like this. I wouldn't buy this if it's designed to be disposable due to the battery.

@sdelfin I think the resolution is a compromise of having the device run so many different games of varying resolutions. For example, if this only played GB/GBC, having a native resolution screen would be ideal. But with a much higher resolution screen, they were likely able to get all of the systems looking much better. And since the screen is exactly 10x the resolution of the original GBC (160x144), those games should still look pixel perfect. Horizontally, it's also exactly 9x the resolution of the GBA, so my guess is the scalers will work very well there to make it look natural. Not sure on the other systems though, will be interesting to see how they look, but I expect they will be great coming from Analogue.

I'm in. I have a few of their systems and the quality doesn't disappoint. The dock is a must

Sold
throwing money at the screen
Where to preorder?

I'm not sure those hard edges will be super comfortable to hold for long periods of time tho.

I have the GBA SP AGS-101 and a Gamecube with a Gameboy Player so I'll pass but this looks awesome for anybody who doesn't own those two pieces of hardware (which would likely cost around the same).

Yes please! Take my money!

Really cool piece of kit, but a little too expensive for my tastes.

if this works with my EZ Flash IV im 100% sold on this incredibly beautiful handheld

I wonder if it will work with game genie and such peripherals

CURRENTLY SMASHING THE PRE-ORDER

Wow! I still own all my various game boys from over the years, but my game gear died a horrible death several years ago. I'd love a system that could play my old game gear games.

And it can plug into a TV with the dock? That's so cool!

Buy a Switch Lite for the price ?

these look cool, i have a moded gb, gbc and gba but they are purley just for collection and display now.

i might have to pick one of these is that price though not a bit steep ?

This sounds really cool!

Well dang......time to budget!!!

2020? Great, I’ll have time to save. Excellent!

That screen is all about pixels per inch – how sharp the screen is at its physical size.

So finally a handheld that understands if you are going to display multiple systems with the varying low resolutions of the originals you NEED a very high resolution screen to be able to display them well - otherwise you get horribly compressed pixels or whole lines of pixels missing like you do on Bittboys etc... All these 320×240 devices are not fit for purpose. I would say you need a bare minimum of 240ppi to represent all systems quite sharply - and preferably 300dpi.

When Apple released the iPhone 4, it called the screen a 'retina display'. It was a marketing term they still push that meant that for most people's eyes 300dpi was the sweet-spot resolution for a handheld device (which is typical held quite close to the face) such that you could not discern individual pixels. This meant that for a pixelated game displayed on such a display the hard lines between large pixels would remain very sharp.

So for those would love pixel art and don't wish to hide them behind a cheap filter – such a high-res screen is a dream come true.

If you do the maths this thing is over twice the ppi of the new Switch Lite at a crazy 615ppi! 10x the Gameboy/Color's resolution.

So to clarify:
Pocket Go (by Bittboy): 167ppi
Switch Lite: 267ppi
This device: 615ppi

An expensive gadget for sure but gameboy games will be stunning on this thing.

@Smash_kirby Yes, there's a link cable port, but it's on the bottom of the system next to the USB-C and Headphone jack.

@derty you've had it it states no emulation just carts.

Wow, this is tempting. Add in HuCard support to replace my TurboExpress, and I'm there.

@roadrunner343 I think the high DPI is part of it, to make this fit in among modern devices, but it doesn't surprise me to hear the resolution they chose is a perfect integer scale for multiple systems, as you pointed out. Most importantly, it is a perfect integer scale of 320x240, so there's a lot of versatility.

@RazumikhinPG that's a real concern. The back of it has rounded edges. The sharp edges in the front may not be as big of an issue the way it is held, but that remains to be seen, of course. Reviews for this will be important to read and hear.

@GamerGuy82 It mean's no inbuilt emulation is used or direct OS level support for any emulators to run roms. I honestly can't see how it wouldn't work with flash carts - since they ape carts to play the games natively.

I'm considering this for my legally purchased digital games.

Very nice looking kit. If I had cash to burn, I’d pick this up, as a nice tetris machine it would be lovely

@Paperboy You'll need adapters for Lynx and NGPC games, but it will be possible with the system's dual FPGA system.

Compatibility with the GC-GBA adaptor? Let’s get the important questions answered NL!

I can play and record (b/c hdmi is likely) my Lynx and NGPC games? Sweet! And this could be a nice alternative to the GC GameBoy Player! Think, I wouldn't need those GC HDMI output devices, plus I get the bonus of playing my other handheld systems! It's a no brainer! And a handheld with that resolution could even display, or not display technically, the lines in between the pixels on a GB game!

This looks FANTASTIC! It's like all the best parts of the gba sp + micro+ gba player combined. And for less than $200!? Sign me up!

Oh my.......WOW! I’ve been deliberating over getting a refurbished game gear for some time , this has game gear compatibility! I will keep my eyes on how much these adapters cost but wow ! This looks incredible!

For those who don't know, it will also play 8 and 16-bit console games, and likely some arcade ports once the second FPGA on board is programmed.

@bstoppel Oh boy, I don't know why that never crossed my mind - I would LOVE hucard support. I own a TurboExpress, but never actually play it due to the awful screen/battery life - so it would be amazing if this device could fill that role.

This is actually exactly what I've wanted. I casually collect Gameboy games (and color/advance) and I have a fairly nice GbaSp with the 101 screen, but this is perfect. I've been eyeballing modded Gamegears for years now too, so this is the best of both worlds. Not to mention it's actually cheaper than most modded Gamegears that I've seen.

Oh my god!!!! This is a dream come true! I’m usually very picky and love to play on original hardware but i can’t deny, a console that can play all those carts is a instant sell for me!!!

looks neat.

playing lynx games is a plus. wish i still had mine.

If it were ever hacked and roms were able to be played and it played tg16/duo/cd games it would be incredible. The vita kinda works but is too slow for some stuff like neo geo games.

I am throwing money at the screen and nothing is happening!!!!

@construx How well does that combo play pocket neo geo or gamegear games?

Why would you want a high definition screen for something like this? The only thing it can possibly do is make things look worse if you don't have exact integer scaling of the pixels... Not to mention it would use up more battery.
Surely if you want to deliver the best possible experience you'll use a display which has the exact same resolution as the original - pixel for pixel.

I might have to get this... now I just gotta find some classic GBA games and I’ll be set. 🦇❤️

@GravyThief imagine playing Goldeneye and Perfect Dark on the go... 🎃❤️🦇

Other than being skeptical of their promise of adapters (Mega SG fans are still waiting for the variety of cartridge adapters promised before release to be made available), it all sounds great.

I wish the dock had a SNES controller port on it though, but USB and Bluetooth will get the job done.

Hopefully the jailbreak firmware fairy will visit shortly after release.

I'll be picking this up, for sure. I have the Analogue Super NT, and it's awesome.

It's cool but it looks a bit like an unfinished product with the completely plain d-pad and buttons imo. Also, I understand why it is the way it is but I wish it were the same thickness all the way up the back. The rest is pretty solid and impressive from what I can see/tell.

Wow I'm loving this and still the Polymega is not here yet.

What unreleased/unfinished game is it gonna have this time?

Who needs any of them when you have a gba sp?

@smithpa01 Yeah, in all honesty the GBA SP is just a totally slick bit of kit, and you can probably buy one for like £50 now. It plays all the classic GB/GBC/GBA games, has a more than solid back-lit screen (I seriously never had any issue with it at all), and it's even more portable too. If I were going to buy a new portable to play my old physical Nintendo handheld games then I'd seriously consider getting one again over spending £200 on the Analogue Pocket. And I know it's cool that you can optionally play games from those other old handheld systems too but I know I'd just never do that. Similarly, I wouldn't bother playing it docked to my TV either (especially since it means getting additional controllers and stuff). Also, since it supports all those other alternative handhelds already, I wonder why it skipped what I consider to the best of them all (at least in terms of the amazing games library), theTurboExpress. Still, for what it is, and if you've got the money and it's the kind of thing that tickles your fancy, it's pretty cool.

Edit: Man, I forget how slick this thing is (especially this particular modded version with the red buttons):

@smithpa01 because it can play Lynx, GameGear and NeoGeo Pocket Color carts (with adapters) too.

Not to mention that it's a technical marvel with two FPGA chips, an insanely high pixel density display, and that there's a TV dock coming out for it too.

Very cool but not worth the price tag when you can get a similar experience with a PsP, Vita or Vita TV. I was thinking 50-70$ would have been a killer deal, 100$ with dock.

@Zorox88 Two FPGA chips and a 1600*1440 pixel display isn't going to cost $70.

@N64-ROX But then gba, game-gear etc would look terrible. For Gameboy/Colour this thing has a screen exactly 10x the original resolutions – so it will be 100% accurate and super sharp and clear. But at over 600dpi the screen will be able to display any other system it supports razor sharp too - it'll be like having a better than native display for each system. In fact the only complaint I can think people may have is some may feel the image to be too clean and perfect – but filters could fix that if some want the feel of the less than perfect original displays. I'll be interesting to see if they do that.

Retro handheld absolutely need these very high res screen but this is the first company that's realized it.

Imagine how a gameboy game would look on a 1080p monitor - shrink that down to 3.5 inches and this device will be sharper than that.

Looks really small.

@Tempestryke It's about the same size as a GameBoy Pocket.

@impurekind But for another £150 you get a headphone jack!

Anyway, only kidding and you are right the SP rocks. However your model looks to have something similar to the original AGS-101screen – as far as I know you can't get that for £50, but I hope I'm wrong.

So who understands what's so special about FPGA chips? I just googled it but don't understand.

This looks very appealing to me, but I think it's an interesting choice going with a portrait design (vis-à-vis the original GameBoy) rather than a landscape design (i.e. the GBA). I think I would prefer the latter.

@brunojenso An FPGA, a field-programmable gate array, is a means to turn emulation software into an actual hardware piece of kit, and act as a system on a chip, like what the XBoxOne X uses.

The Super NT, and the Mega SG, the SNES and MegaDrive consoles that Analogue make as well, use FPGAs to make the system work like a SNES/MegaDrive at a hardware level rather than just using emulators, which can be not as accurate as the real hardware. To make things aware, a single FPGA chip are not cheap compared to other chips and ICs, sure, they're not Intel i9 prices, but from a manufacturing point of view, they're going to be the priciest thing in this system, and there's TWO of them in the Analogue Pocket.

The idea behind the Analogue Pocket's two FPGA chips is that it can run more than one system on a single piece of kit. Because this system can run GameBoy (Color/Advance), GameGear, Lynx, and NeoGeo Pocket games, through adapters. The second FPGA can be used to run those games at hardware level too rather than emulation, meaning they too can be run as accurately as possible without the needs of another single FPGA system. Simply put, the first FPGA will have the GameBoy system loaded onto it, whilst the second can be loaded with pretty much any other system to it, meaning that we could get crazy adapters for this thing that could run SNES/MegaDrive games and treat it like a modern Sega Nomad!

@StevenG There will be separate adapters for the Analogue Pocket for the other non-GameBoy carts. Then the second FPGA will get that system and load the game up.

@SepticLemon Wow, thank you – that's super clear and helpful. This machine is sounding more and more awesome!

@Sgt-Jack-V They're putting Nanoloop onto it, a ChipTune music production software.

@brunojenso Not to mention the screen on this thing is nearly twice the pixel density of the iPhone 11. A little OOT for a system to run Portable games, but the reason behind it is that it can run both GameBoy (Color) and GameBoy Advance games on the same screen without having to stretch the screen and cause Nearest-neighbor interpolation, which makes the game look blurry than the real hardware. For GameBoy games, it'll use 10*10 pixels to make one pixel in a game, whilst GBA games will have 6*6 pixels per in-game pixel so that it looks razor sharp, that's calle Integer scaling. I don't know the resolution of the other systems, but by having that huge resolution display, the other formats will look sharp too by using integer scaling rather than NN-interpolation. @KingMike @N64-ROX

@InAnotherCastle If it works with the GameBoy, it'll work with this. Granted the GameGenie is pretty big, and it'll hulk over this piece of kit! lmao!

Plus, from what I remember, GameBoy Color game act very weird when you use a GameGenie, so I don't think it'll be worth it. But the idea is that as this uses FPGA rather than emulation, whatever the GameBoy does, this works exactly like it too.

I've been waiting for this. The fact that it can play GBA games seals the deal for me.

@SepticLemon Hmm. Never seen a GB Pocket in person before?

@Tempestryke Here's a Pocket next to a Advance. https://photos.app.goo.gl/1XnUHdJzdooeeSs88

I would prefer it if it looked like a standard gba. Where would the shoulder buttons be on this thing?

@infernogott They're next to the cartridge connector.

They're similar to the shoulder buttons on the GBA SP.

FINALLY!! My dream came true! 😍 I've had an original GB, GB Pocket, and GBASP so this was a natural expectancy. I'm first and foremost a handheld gamer so when i recently went over my Game Boy games collection (when i was back home in the UK this summer) i was actually seriously considering getting a GB Micro (here in Japan) for better portability for my GBA games (also because there aren't any on the 3DS eShop😭) but this Analogue Pocket is a wish come true!! To play on the TV is the clincher for me👍🏾👍🏾👍🏾👍🏾

Well it's about time, I'll take it. I've been wanting a decent portable to play old Game Boy games on that isn't some cheap Chinese emulation machine.

@Rudy_Manchego I think modes gameboys appeal to different people. Part of the coolness is the hardware and nostalgia. This is for something else (but I don't know who exactly it is for).

The screen looks amazing.

A GBA version would be the one I want, especially since it should play all the games the GB one does.

@HalBailman You know this plays GBA games right?

Not to mention it plays other formats like Lynx and NeoGeo Pocket games with adapters.

I made a forum post about this a few months ago! I am thrilled to see it actually happen, and the end result supports even more games than I expected with the adapter! It even has a dock! I am more than happy to pay the price because Analogue has proven itself several times over, delivering high quality products to nearly universal praise.

@brunojenso to add to what Septic Lemon said, if you think of past consoles like the Mega Drive as an example, as they revised the console they would consolidate several separate chips into a single chip, an ASIC(application specific integrated circuit), which is basically a custom chip. These FPGAs are basically reconfigurable ASICs.

I just put a backlight in a GBA...

GBA version + hamtaro at olymics and im in

@SepticLemon Yeah, I figured as much. I'm interested in this device because of its precision and potential for accurate portrayal of the games themselves. Devices like the Game Genie are inherently finicky, also on the original Gameboy. Especially now after 25 years or more and some wear and tear. But they are great fun in experiencing nostalgia. Perhaps the unreliable nature of the device is even part of that.

Good lord. This is what I've dreamed of for years. Really, REALLY need one of these. Analogue do such amazing stuff but I've never felt the need to buy one of their products as much as this.

@sdelfin An ASIC is practically a system on a chip that's pre-configured. But a FPGA is programmable, meaning you get put an details of how a system works onto it, then change it on the fly. Granted there's a loading time for that, but the beauty of this piece of kit is that there's two of them. One designed for the GameBoy hardware, and another for either the Lynx, NeoGeo Pocket, GameGear and possibly any other 8 and 16 bit system after a custom firmware update.

If I had any GameBoy games I wouldn't think twice. Unfortunately I don't and I bet those can be costly now.

@SepticLemon How does that change what was said about a gameboy and a cube adapter replacing this device. This is a different device with far more functionality.

@RetiredR I looked at this image carefully, and used Photoshop and GIMP to change the exposure and contrast. We might be in luck as I can tell there's a screen edge in this photo, which confirms that GBA game will use letterboxing in order to keep the aspect ratio correct.

@SepticLemon One thing to note on FPGAs, is they're not inherently more accurate than software emulation or ASICs. They simply emulate the target system in hardware, but FPGAs are still prone to inaccuracies (Depending on the developer) inherent to software emulation. Unlike ASICs, however, FPGAs have the benefit of being tweaked/updated after release, so bugs & inaccuracies can be easily fixed, in addition to brand new functionality being added. I've been following Kevin's work for a long time, even before his Analogue days, so I am quite confident this will be a remarkably accurate device - but that's not inherently due to using an FPGA. It's because Kevtris is a wizard.

@SepticLemon @RetiredR It's Analogue - based on their previous devices, and Kevin Horton's projects in general, accuracy is going to be extremely important to them. This will almost definitely have various visual settings to choose from - so if you're one of those monsters that enjoys stretching your video, I'd be willing to be that's possible too =P

GBA games on TV? I'm in!

@SepticLemon Yeah. That's what I was trying to communicate, though I don't know if I succeeded fully. If he was familiar with ASICs, it's easy to think of those as fixed chips, with FPGAs being reconfigurable, but similar in what they do once configured. When I first was told about these things, someone wrote that an FPGA might typically be used during development of a product with the ASIC being in the production version once sorted as it would be cheaper. Of course, what Analogue is offering is different from that. To address another post of yours, I think one of the reasons they went with such a high-resolution screen was so that doing integer scale of the systems that don't perfectly scale to the screen's resolution will not have too large of a black border around. We'll have to wait and see, though I wouldn't be surprised if they provide the option for filling the screen as well. These guys seem pretty thorough about things.

@DinnerAndWine And he also said he wasn't working on anything GBA related & knew little about the system, yet here we are.

@SepticLemon thanks

@Dreamcaster-X

Lol @ comparing the GBA to an N64.

An N64 FPGA ain't happening anytime soon.

@SepticLemon You've misunderstood.

The main virtue of FPGA tech is that it's reconfigurable on the fly, as seen in past Analogue products like the NT Mini where it can reproduce the NES at one minute and the Atari 2600 the next (And 16 other game systems on top of those two, all with a single FPGA). They're not including a 2nd FPGA here just to enable homebrew for additional aftermarket cores.

Further clarification has been made thanks to Kevtris participating on Discord, and the 2nd much less powerful FPGA is there purely for things they want locked down like the operating system (Such as the menu), video scalers, etc. Homebrewers can't touch this one and Analogue doesn't have to hand over any of their proprietary source code now to enable homebrew, or risk homebrew programmers causing issues with the primary functionality of the Analogue Pocket. It's locked down and can't be touched.

The system cores themselves all use the main FPGA though that has been carried forward from the Mega SG and Super NT, and homebrewers will be able to access this one to run their homebrew cores on.

@SepticLemon they are GBs on a small screen. I'm sure you have a iPhone too, ripoff is a ripoff.

@StevenG : I have a lot of GB/GBC/GBA carts.
NeoGeo was never sold in my country and GameGear was never big. I don't have any games for the former (I don't even know any games for that system) and I only have a couple of GG games which are, in my opinion, terrible to play and aren't worth a new system to play on anyway.

Those who want a system to play those non- Nintendo games on, will now have a very good chance, too, yes.

@construx I actually want it for my little brother, in his thirties. He is an avid GameGear collector and while he has a recapped GameGear he was looking at a display upgrade. This is an even better solution.

The only upside I see of this thingy is that maybe Nintendo will wake up and provide a GBA emulator for the Switch with their useless online service.

This looks very nice, but with that much money you can buy a Switch Lite and wait till you can mod it.