Analogue Pocket

[wakka]

Just so everyone has closure on my 14 month live blog:



Still waiting on my SD card to arrive at some point today so I haven't updated the firmware or anything yet.

I put Tetris in the slot for a quick play though and the way it uses the high DPI screen to render the original green DMG look is brilliant, though. Looking forward to digging into my stack of carts, plus deploying Pocket Sync on my computer to install some additional cores and ROMs.

First 'proper', sizeable playthrough on it might be the fan translation of Pokémon Trading Card Game 2, but not sure yet Mario Kart Super Circuit is also calling to me.

EDIT: Also I can finally stop appending posts in the retro folder with 'When my Pocket arrives', and start appending them with 'I should get round to playing this on the Pocket' (and then not actually ever do so, obviously).

[wakka]

It looks like we are close to the release of a PCE CD core:



I'm looking forward to this one, firstly because I've not explored the system before (and I know a lot of you nerds love it), and secondly because I've spotted some cool translations coming out for like this...



Which seems to be a lighthearted adventure game about an idol who solves crimes, with artwork from Atsuko Nishida, who would go on to design Pikachu and many other early Pokémon.

[wakka]

It's out - here's the PCE CD core for Pocket:

https://github.com/Mazamars312/openfpga-pcengine-cd

Any Pocket owners planning to install? And if so, what will you be playing?

Personally I'm still crunching through Pokémon TCG 2, so I'll be holding off till that's beaten, but then I'm going to - at a minimum - stick Rondo on there first of all.

[CMcK]

I’ll be heading straight to Spriggan and Rayxanber 2 and 3.

[Cepp]

I’ll give it a blast for sure, probably just to test at the moment though. I find myself holding off playing a lot of cores due to the lack of screen filters.

[wakka]

Yeah, I'm with you. It's why for stuff for which I don't have the cart, I've mostly stuck to GB/C so far - as you can put ROMs on there using the GB Studio workaround rather than the the separate GB/C core, and that way the screen filters still work. They do make a massive difference. When I was playing MGS Ghost Babel, when you flipped the screen filter off the colours didn't look right at all - they were far too bright.

I've only briefly tested SNES and Megadrive on there so far, but I did think that the higher resolutions of those games meant that a screen filter felt slightly less critical than GB/C. Still looking forward to seeing it though. Once the feature is added it'll be really cool to see what core developers will do with it.

[wakka]

The Analogue NT and SG are now 'sold out', for good according to Analogue - so they'll exist only on the aftermarket from here on out.

Good news in my opinion. They're outdated by the standards of the MiSTER and the Pocket in terms of the range of compatible consoles and feature set. I'm intrigued to see what Analogue do next in terms of a home console.

Honestly, I'd personally rather they parked the Duo and worked on a more sophisticated all-in-one, premium MiSTER than another machine that just plays games from one console. Although, with openFPGA, maybe Duo will serve that purpose. Unlikely that it'll have a beefy enough FPGA to support PS1 though.

[Nu-Eclipse]

The Analogue NT and SG are now 'sold out', for good according to Analogue - so they'll exist only on the aftermarket from here on out.

Good news in my opinion. They're outdated by the standards of the MiSTER and the Pocket in terms of the range of compatible consoles and feature set. I'm intrigued to see what Analogue do next in terms of a home console.

Honestly, I'd personally rather they parked the Duo and worked on a more sophisticated all-in-one, premium MiSTER than another machine that just plays games from one console. Although, with openFPGA, maybe Duo will serve that purpose. Unlikely that it'll have a beefy enough FPGA to support PS1 though.

Sad to see but not surprised. In the end, the increased prices and shipping charges for this last run made it unjustifiable for me personally.

Not sure I totally agree with everything you've said. The Super Nt and Mega Sg served their purposes to showcase how good FPGA can be in the sense of focusing on one individual format at a time and Analogue did them exceedingly well. MiSTer is deffo the way to go for now but I do still think that individual formats can be viable - there's clearly still appetite for them, as we can clearly see. I can't wait for the Duo to drop, whenever that might be as I assume that Analogue will look to now turn their attention fully to Pocket for the time being and that makes sense.

Where I do agree with you is that it won't be a massive surprise/shock if the Duo is the last individual machine that Analogue look to do if they do go all in on openFPGA.

[fuse]

Honestly, I'd personally rather they parked the Duo

I'm happy for them to do whatever they want as long as it is AFTER the Duo. I appreciate it's probably now a minority of users, but the appeal of using original carts/CDs/controllers is a huge deal with these, and I can't see how they'd make this work in an all-in-one platform without becoming some great big modular beast like the Polymega.

[wakka]

[MENTION=2970]Nu-Eclipse[/MENTION] They def served their purpose, but the products are only going to get better from here. I think you made the right move not buying a Super NT now, personally.

I'm happy for them to do whatever they want as long as it is AFTER the Duo. I appreciate it's probably now a minority of users, but the appeal of using original carts/CDs/controllers is a huge deal with these, and I can't see how they'd make this work in an all-in-one platform without becoming some great big modular beast like the Polymega.

I honestly don't think the ability to use original carts/CDs/controllers is actually going to be going anywhere. I don't think it's a minority thing at all, I think it's a massive part of the appeal of Analogue products. If you read the Pocket subreddit, you can see that it appeals to a much broader audience than the average retro gaming product, and I think original cart compatibility is a big part of that.

No idea how they'll implement it going forward - a Polymega-style modular approach, individual systems where you pick which one you want (a Mega SG2, Super NT2 with openFPGA for example), etc, but I do think they'll definitely retain that physical aspect. They have always maintained that their products 'aren't for ROMs', and I think that'll continue.

[Nu-Eclipse]

They def served their purpose, but the products are only going to get better from here. I think you made the right move not buying a Super NT now, personally.

I hear that. Resell prices are now looking ridiculous. More fool me for not getting involved earlier on but oh well!

I'm with [MENTION=3822]fuse[/MENTION] on this one - as long as we eventually get the Duo, then I'm cool with Analogue changing course and striving for a MiSTer-esque general platform/format afterwards.

[wakka]

The more I think about it, the more I think they'll offer a range of machines with some cart converters, like the ones on Pocket.

Perhaps one per manufacturer - as FPGA tech advances, a Nintendo machine that offers cart and controller compatibility across N64, SNES, and NES. Then a Sega one that does Saturn, MD and MS.

And of course each with openFPGA and the other AnalogueOS features like Memories and Library.

Lots of possibilities in how they could approach it!

[cutmymilk]

All this talk of MISTer leaves me wanting one. But...what is one? It's a little confusing to start research. Is there a plug and play solution? One where I just plug an SD card of ROMs and I'm away? They look like Raspberry Pis with multiple boards to me.are these modular? Thanks in advance.

https://ultimatemister.com/product-category/ultimate-mister/

To answer my own question. Time to research!

[dataDave]

All this talk of MISTer leaves me wanting one. But...what is one? It's a little confusing to start research. Is there a plug and play solution? One where I just plug an SD card of ROMs and I'm away? They look like Raspberry Pis with multiple boards to me.are these modular? Thanks in advance.

https://ultimatemister.com/product-category/ultimate-mister/

To answer my own question. Time to research!

It’s a simple build, followed by writing the project to an SD card. I pre-loaded my card with EverDrive packs, so I’ve not had to remove it since first building two years ago. Additional hacks or new stuff is copied over wirelessly via. FTP.

There’s a thread here in retro buried about 13 pages back. >_<

[speedlolita]

Did I mention I sold my Analogue Pocket? Irony there considering how hype I was for the thing.

MiSTer is super simple to set up, the most difficult bit is gathering all the hardware. Isn't like a Pi at all.