Analogue Pocket is a gorgeous, modern handheld for playing your old Game Boy games
0Reported today in The Verge.
Analogue Pocket is a gorgeous, modern handheld for playing your old Game Boy games
Analogue is known for creating sleek and modern takes on classic video game consoles, and now it’s moving into the world of portables. Today, the company announced the Analogue Pocket, which is essentially the most advanced Game Boy ever made. The gorgeous device has the form factor of the original Game Boy and can play cartridges from the GB, GBC, and GBA — that’s more than 2,700 games — with a display that has 10 times the resolution of Nintendo’s classic device, according to Analogue.
“We’ve wanted to do a tribute to portable gaming since the beginning,” Analogue’s Christopher Taber tells The Verge.
The Pocket features a 3.5-inch, 665ppi, LCD display, with a 1600 x 1440 resolution and built-in backlight. It’s powered by a rechargeable lithium-ion battery, charged via USB-C, and also includes an SD card slot, 3.5 mm headphone jack, and remappable buttons. There’s even a built-in synthesizer called Nanoloop, which should come in handy given the Game Boy’s history in the chiptune scene.
Support for the device will also extend beyond Nintendo’s line of handhelds. Analogue says that it’s creating adapters so the device can also play titles from the Game Gear, Neo Geo Pocket Color, and more. (There’s no word yet on how much the adapters will cost.) “Pocket is a tribute to all of portable gaming,” Taber says. “Our goal is to bring support to all handheld game systems to Pocket. The adapters will be rolling out with launch, some coming later and plans to continue to develop and release more system supports.”
Perhaps even more surprising, Analogue is also making a dock that connects directly to an HDTV, so you can play the original Link’s Awakening on a big screen. The dock will be sold separately (again, no word on pricing), and it will support both Bluetooth controllers and wired USB ones.
Of course, this is far from the first release from Analogue, which has designed modern takes on consoles like the NES, SNES, and Sega Genesis. But Taber says the company had always wanted to tackle a portable device, despite it being a much more complicated machine to design and produce.
“Handheld game systems are another category of video game history that are riddled with issues,” he explains. “Extremely low quality displays, no backlights, limited to one platform, etc. Pocket solves all these issues elegantly. Really it came down to the display. We’ve been working with suppliers for years to try and find the perfect display — one with the right aspect ratio, resolution, pixel density, color accuracy, pixel refresh, and brightness. We finally were able to get the display of our dreams for retro aspect ratios.”
Between the Analogue Pocket and the similarly gorgeous Playdate, 2020 is shaping up to be something of a banner year for retro handhelds. Analogue’s portable device will be launching at some point next year for $199.