There’s long been a love-in between the retro videogame and electronic music communities, and so it continues with the announcement of the Analogue Pocket (not to be confused with the Playdate, which was announced earlier this year and is being co-created by Teenage Engineering).
This is a new ‘next-gen Game Boy’ that not only plays classic game carts from Nintendo’s back catalogue, but also has the Nanoloop synth/sequencer built into it.
Nanoloop, of course, began life as a cart for the original Game Boy, and enabled you to make chiptune music using that machine’s internal sound system. It’s since been released as an iOS and Android app and, earlier this year, a hardware handheld version was successfully funded on Kickstarter.
It seems entirely fitting that Nanoloop should be on the Analogue Pocket, then. The device has a lovely 3.5-inch, 615 ppi, LCD screen that offers 1600x1440 resolution, which is ten times that of the original Game Boy. It can play Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance games (original carts rather than ROMs) and also works with cartridge adapters for other systems such as the Game Gear, Neo Geo Pocket Color and Atari Lynx.
There’s also a companion dock for Analogue Pocket, which enables you to play its games on an HDTV. You can sync 8BitDo Bluetooth controllers for wireless play, or connect cabled ones via USB.
Analogue Pocket will be shipping in 2020 priced at $199. Numbers will be limited; you can sign up for availability updates on the Analogue website.
