I hear the Nintendo war drums…
I believe the FPGA modules are written with 100% unique, non-Nintendo code. Maybe the only issue could be the cartilage connector? I’ve had an Analogue Pocket for a while and that project hasn’t been taken down.
The cartridge connector is not proprietary. It’s just a commodity off the shelf card edge socket.
Fab, they’re probably fine then.
Apparently Ryujinx the switch emulator has been removed even though it used unique code and the speculation is the owner got paid off to delete it. Makes me wonder if they get you either one way or another
The speculation is wrong.
If your hobby is making Paper Maché Owls, and one day Hobby Lobby calls you and threatens to sue you in criminal court for millions, or you can silently stop your hobby?
Unless you have millions to burn, you give up your hobby, because it’s not worth ruining your life over.
They can’t do anything about this. Analogue already made similar products for the NES, SNES and Game Boy.
I don’t say this often, because big companies usually get what they want, but I think analogue is safe.
It would be the same as all of those cheap SNES/NES/Genesis 3inones you used to see everywhere, Analogue just provides something more “premium”
Has Nintendo sued Analogue before? I assume that Analogue makes sure they’ve got their legal bases covered.
Nintendo:
Yeah, just because they haven’t, doesn’t mean they can’t.
I doen’t think they have an angle, though. Reverse engineering is legal.
If there is any type of authentication between the cartridge and console that gets bypassed, that would technically be a violation of the circumvention portion DMCA. They have used this exact tactic before and that kind of authentication has been used as long ago as the og NES.
The console doesn’t officially support ROMs. It must run games off the original hardware carts.
However, there’s a fairly simple hack to get ROMs to play on the SD card slot of the Analogue Pocket that many suspect was unofficially developed by Analogue themselves.
OpenFPGA on the Analogue Pocket is official.
Yes, but you still need to install the cores developed by the community in order to play ROMs.
The necessary core for ROMs was released barely a day after OpenFPGA support was, but it wasn’t released by Analogue.
That’s why these things are always “so close” to being done. You hear the milestone is near, and then it disappears. I have a theory Nintendo waits for as long as they can so people invest a lot, then they send the papers. In a way it discourages people from even starting imo.
Edit: why is this being downvoted. Nintendo slowrolling developers is just like, my opinion man. It’s not controversial
They’re selling their Gameboy one at least :
I own several Analogue products. They’re solid AF.
I was just saying I find Nintendo are slowrolling devs by waiting till the last minute to sue them. I guess it’s to make sure it’s a slam dunk
I’m sure there are people out there that will leap at the opportunity to buy one of these, but between emulation with modern controller mapping, and og hardware on a CRT, I’ve never stopped playing N64 games since 1996 and the prospect of buying another $250+ piece of hardware just doesn’t appeal to me. I guess if you totally missed out on the 64 era, this is a great way to bypass the tinkering emulation requires to get to a playable state (N64 peeps already know), while getting the technically best image quality possible, and be a buy. The N64 has a fantastic (albeit sort of small) library of bangers. The issue now is finding carts that aren’t priced to the moon.
Yeah, with the need for the cartridges, I don’t know who this appeals to. I would think it appeals to people who already have a library of games, but they also probably have original hardware, and running on a CRT is probably ideal, not a modern display in 4k. The CRT hides the low detail from the time and has built-in AA, so it (subjectively) looks better.
So, if it’s not for those people, is it for new people? In which case they better be loaded because getting the games isn’t easy. In which case, getting an original console probably isn’t an issue.
All the analogue systems have official unofficial jailbreaks. I’ve never used cartridges on any of them.
Native 4k output instead of a crappy upscaler or a RetroTink which costs more alone than this Analogue product. N64’s native composite is laggy and hideous on a flatscreen TV, you need something like this or a retrotink or a CRT to make the games look good. Even if the Analogue couldn’t play ROMs off an SD card (it can, if Analogue’s previous products are any indication), you could just stick a Summercart in it.
I personally am a ride-or-die CRT player for my retro consoles, but big CRTs are getting rarer and living rooms less accommodating. And N64’s library has a ton of absolutely killer party games that are best experienced on a big TV with your friends, not a dark retro cave on a 20" CRT the way SNES RPGs are. If someone I knew wanted to go a “step past” emulation, I’d absolutely recommended this thing as the second shopping list priority. In order (imo):
Real N64, Real CRT, Summercart/ED64X7 (most authentic, and also cheapest if and only if you can source a CRT that fits your needs)
Analogue 3D, HDTV they already have
Real N64, RetroTink, Summercart/ED64X7 (more expensive than option 2 even if they already have the console and summercart lol)
Real N64, RetroTink or CRT, buying real copies of games at jacked-up collector prices
I know it’s more expensive, but I’d rather get a steam deck and just emulate the games
Meh, get a mister. It’s much more fun.
16 bit in 4k?
Lmfao get fucked.
The biggest issue with Analogue is they only make a small amount of these devices then they are gone.
I just want component to 720 or 1080 for cheap. Don’t want to do soldering or anything xd.
