Seven months after its planned release was delayed, the upcoming multi-format gaming handheld Analogue Pocket will begin reaching players in December.
- READ MORE: The lost art of the video game manual
Manufacturer Analogue updated its shipping plans today, November 22 (as spotted by Eurogamer), simply saying, “Analogue Pocket pre-orders will begin shipping on December 13” and that “an email has been sent to everyone who has pre-ordered”.
Analogue also notes that “due to unprecedented shipping congestion”, customers may receive their consoles in a two-week window between December 14 and December 30. Anyone wishing to have their delivery held until the new year – to avoid missed parcels due to travelling over the holiday season – will be able to do so, with shipments resuming on January 3, 2022.
The Analogue Pocket was announced in 2020 and was initially due for release in May 2021. The latest in a range of retro consoles from Analogue, the Pocket is designed to play original Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance cartridges – a combined library of more than 2,780 titles – all on the same portable device. Adaptors will also enable Sega Game Gear, Neo Geo Pocket Color, and Atari Lynx carts to be played on the handheld.
Games will be playable on a “first-in-class” 3.5inch Gorilla Glass LCD screen, with a 1600×1440 resolution and 615 ppi pixel density. Analogue says that it is ten times the resolution of Nintendo’s original Game Boy and further boasts “pro-level colour accuracy, dynamic range, and brightness” and that “there has never been a display this advanced in a video game system”.
In October 2021, Analogue also unveiled its custom software for the Pocket, AnalogueOS. Described as a “definitive, scholarly operating system”, it’s claimed that it will allow users to “explore, discover, and play through all of video game history.”
In practice, this means owners being able to pull through box art and title screens for the specific version of the game they are playing from an expansive database built by Analogue “system by system, game by game, region by region, developer by developer, publisher by publisher, revision by revision”. It will also allow save states to be created and loaded, which should be particularly useful for older games that lack any real save function.
While the Analogue Pocket delays – which appear to have been mainly down to COVID-induced supply and distribution problems – will no doubt have been frustrating for anyone who has pre-ordered the hardware, their imminent arrival should allow for some fun retro gaming over the holidays.
In other news, a neuroengineer has trained rats to play Doom in a rodent-sized VR rig. The rats are named after original Doom creators John Romero, John Carmack, and Tom Hall and “should be thirsty for some kills”.
The post Retro handheld Analogue Pocket begins shipping in December appeared first on NME.
