The Super NT is the latest, and most affordable, retro console from Analogue, the manufacturer of the luxe, but for many prohibitively expensive, NT and NT mini. While the NT and NT mini simulated a Nintendo Entertainment System, the Super NT simulates a Super Nintendo thanks to a “bigger, more powerful, more expensive FPGA” (field-programmable gate array) chip at the core of the console. Whereas the NT and NT mini were $499 and $449 respectively, the Super NT will be just $190 when it’s available for sale in February. Preorders for the Super NT open today.

Analogue’s Christopher Taber says they’ve been able to hit this new price point thanks to a combination of factors.

“The biggest difference is that it’s not in an aluminum enclosure,” Taber said in an interview with Polygon. “The second biggest difference is that it doesn’t have analog audio and video components. Both of those things add an enormous amount of cost to the system.

“The Super NT PCB is the exact same componentry and PCB as the original NT mini, except for analog AV components removed, obviously it’s been adapted to play Super Famicom/Super Nintendo games, and it actually has a bigger, more powerful, more expensive FPGA. The Super Nintendo is much more sophisticated, and requires more power to be able to implement via FPGA.”

Simulation not emulation

A huge part of the cost savings for the Super NT are thanks to the existing investment in R&D, specifically the programming expertise needed to create the FPGA-based cores, so despite the fact that the new FPGA is more expensive, Analogue can still lower the price by more than half.

The FPGA that Analogue has chosen is the Altera Cyclone V, which will simulate the original Super Nintendo hardware, as opposed to emulating it in software, so your cartridges won’t know they’re not being run on original hardware, but you enjoy benefits like 1080p HDMI output with no lag and 100 percent library compatibility, thanks to the programming work of Analogue’s Kevin Horton, aka Kevtris.

“The thing about the FPGA is, it replicates the hardware at a very low level,” Horton told Vice last year. “It's not emulating it per se; there's no code running. What it does is, it's like a chip that you can program to turn into another chip, which I program to act exactly like an old Nintendo. It's so close to a real Nintendo console that you can actually run the game right off the real cartridge.”

“I cannot overstate how wickedly good this guy is at what it is that he does,” Taber said. “There is no one who knows as much about across the board understanding of all retro video game and vintage computing hardware. He’s just wicked fucking sharp. And he’s been making things, remaking things, doing FPGA hardware for basically his whole life.”

Anyone who follows Horton’s exploits on video game forums or YouTube videos is familiar with his bona fides.

The Super NT also includes an SD card slot, ostensibly for firmware updates; however, shortly after releasing the NT mini, Horton released a jailbroken firmware unofficially, which supports ROM playback and, most notably, new “core” support. After 12 releases, culminating in the 2.0 firmware, the NT mini simulates everything from the Atari 7800, the Sega Master System, and the original Game Boy to lesser-known consoles like the Channel F and Adventurevision. Horton’s decades spent decoding the intricacies of video game hardware found a readily available home in the NT mini, and the Super NT should be similar.

When asked if the Super NT would get the same jailbreak treatment, Taber demurred but finally said, “We don’t really discourage anyone to do anything with our products. You can do whatever you want with it. It’s not up to us, that’s not what we’re in the business of doing.”

Just one word: Plastics

While Analogue may have opted for plastic over aluminum, it hasn’t avoided complexity in the console’s shell. The Super NT console itself comes in four variants: Black, Super NES, Super Famicom and clear, with each variant including multiple kinds of plastic and different textures of plastic.

Despite the move to plastic, Taber insists it won’t feel like the cheap, clone consoles you may be thinking of.

“We’re always leaning on the side of making sure this product is robust, reliable and is built like a tank,” he said. “We’re always landing on the side of it being, essentially, overengineered.

“When we’re manufacturing out of plastic, essentially the Super NT is in the 1 percent of products that are made out of this material. There’s just no question. When you hold it in your hands and feel this thing, you’re going to think, ‘Holy shit.’ The same initial impression you had from picking up the NT mini, the same thing is going to happen because we did all sorts of cool little things that you’ll see when you hold one in your hands.”

Another way to hit that $190 price point: The Super NT does not come with controllers. Instead, Analogue has once again partnered with 8Bitdo to create matching SN30 wireless gamepads, bundled with SNES Retro Receivers, for $40 each. The receivers will also support a host of modern wireless gamepads, including the Nintendo Switch Joy-Cons. Of course, you can use original Super Nintendo (or third-party) wired controllers.

What’s next?

What’s next for Analogue, after shipping what Taber calls their “magnum opus?”

For starters, it’s not looking back. As far as plans to return to the NES with some of these new cost-savings, Taber says probably not. “We’ve already done that system, we’ve got a lot of other things we’re interested in doing.

“The Super NT is our magnum opus because this is the true beginning of what we’ve always wanted to do and it represents a way in doing this that will allow us to continue doing this,” Taber says. “We want to do more systems, there’s no question. We’d like to go through video game history — especially a lot of the stuff that’s especially, or unlikely, to ever get any OEM treatment from the original company, like Nintendo is doing — and make systems that are made with respect and care and attention to detail and allow people to celebrate and explore those platforms.”

“So yeah, we definitely want to do more systems. And we plan to.”