Analogue's $220 Retro Consoles Are Worth It, and I Will Still Be Playing With a Cable

Analogue is bringing back both of its 16 bit machines. The Mega Sg+ runs original Sega Genesis and Mega Drive cartridges, the Super Nt+ runs original Super Nintendo cartridges, and both put them on a modern TV over HDMI without emulation. They are $219.99 each. Preorders open on 19 October at 8am Pacific and they ship in December. New this time: Bluetooth and low latency 2.4GHz for wireless pads, USB-C power, an SD card slot, and you can swap cartridges without powering the thing off. Controllers are sold separately, and I could not confirm the price of the retro pads for this generation, so check that before you add it up.

Does $220 pass the three C’s for a machine that plays games you already own? For me, yes, and I know how that sounds next to an emulator that costs nothing.

The difference is what you are buying. An emulator is software pretending to be a console, and when it gets something wrong you spend your evening in a settings menu instead of playing. This is hardware that reads the cartridge in your hand. If you have a box of carts in a cupboard, the alternative is not “emulator or this”, it is “that box stays in the cupboard or it does not”. At $220 for a thing that will still work in eight years, with no account, no store and nothing to subscribe to, I would buy it. Cheap is not the same as the lowest number on the page. Cheap is what it costs you over the years you keep it.

The wireless pad is the headline improvement and it is the part I care least about. I prefer a cable. A cable does not need charging, does not drift, does not pick a worse moment than any other to run out of battery, and on a machine built to play games exactly as they played in 1992 the cable is also the honest option. I am not going to pretend I know what wireless changes about playing Super Metroid, because I think the answer is nothing.

So, do I buy it? If the cartridges are in the house, yes. If you would be buying the carts as well, do that maths first, because the console is the cheap half of that project.