2021 could be a great year for ‘alternative’ consoles

Despite the pandemic, it’s been a pretty great year for video game hardware. Microsoft launched the Xbox Series X, a powerful obelisk packing a 12-teraflop GPU, and the smaller Series S, which can run games natively at 1440p resolution. Sony, meanwhi...

The Analogue Pocket is a Game Boy from an alternate universe that plays games and creates music

It looks like a Game Boy. It plays Game Boy titles, along with Game Boy Color, GBA, Sega’s Game Gear, SNK’s Neo Geo Pocket Color, and Atari’s Lynx, giving you an absolute buffet of nostalgia. It also has its own DAW or Digital Audio Workstation called Nanoloop that lets you create your own electro 8-bit soundtracks. It’s called the Analogue Pocket and it is everything a retro gamer dreams about.

With a shape, size, and form that gamers have fallen love with for decades, the Analogue Pocket could be called a Game Boy clone, but that would take away from exactly how much better the Pocket is. Built on Analogue’s FPGA hardware, the Pocket can run practically every 90’s handheld console game on its own, without an emulator. When you’re tired of playing the thousands of games you previously owned (but couldn’t play because of obsolete hardware), Pocket has a digital audio workstation built in called Nanoloop. It’s a synthesizer and a sequencer that’s designed for music creation and live performance, letting you create those wonderfully glitchy 8-bit electronic tracks to take you back to the old days. It also has a 3.5″ LCD screen with a resolution of 1600×1440, mappable buttons, a MicroSD card slot, USB-C charging, an HDMI output, 2 USB inputs for wired controllers, Bluetooth for wireless controllers, and the best feature yet… the ability to save progress in your games. Hallelujah, it’s the glorious 1990s again, but slightly better! The Analogue Pocket will launch in 2020.

Designer: Analogue

Analogue’s DAC lets gamers play their throwback consoles on CRT TVs

When you hear the term "DAC," you probably think of the gadgets that audiophiles use to convert digital audio data to headphone-compatible signals. Analogue's DAC, though, converts digital video data to analog signals, allowing gamers to play retro H...

The Analogue Mega SG wins the retro gaming console war

There's never been a better time to be a retro video game enthusiast. Playing old video games on modern screens used to require elaborate cabling and detailed electronics knowledge, or you would have to wade into dodgy ROM sites and tinker with confu...