Last year, the $500+ Analogue Nt sold itself as a high-end, no-compromise alternative to the hordes of "famiclones" and emulator-based aftermarket systems that can play classic NES cartridges. Among Nt's selling points (for a certain class of accuracy-obsessed NES fan): it uses Nintendo's actual CPU and PPU chips, sourced from original Japanese Famicom systems. These chips ensure complete fidelity and compatibility with all existing NES games.

For the follow-up Analogue Nt Mini, announced this morning, the company has done away with those Famicom insides. The new system will instead use a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) to directly simulate the workings of those NES chips. This decision comes with its own pros on cons.

In the pro column, the Nt Mini will cost less than the $579 asking price for the original Nt (including the HDMI upgrade). The new smaller unit costs just $449, a price that includes a wireless bluetooth NES controller (and receiver) from partner 8bitdo. The Mini will also be able to output in HDMI as well as the older composite, component, and S-Video standards used by most old tube TVs. This should be welcome news to fans of scanlines and the Zapper alike (on the original Nt, upgrading to HDMI meant doing away with other outputs). The Nt Mini also weighs in about 20 percent smaller and 34 percent lighter than its predecessor.

In the con column, the Nt Mini can no longer boast that it's running on actual hardware produced by Nintendo. Original Famicom chips haven't been produced for decades now. It was only through "a unique set of circumstances" that Analogue had enough on hand to stock the initial run of Nt systems, according to Analogue's Christopher Taber. Even then, the first Analogue Nt batches sold out quickly and have been going for high prices on the secondary market. By using an FPGA to drive things, Taber says the Nt Mini "won't be limited by components."

The idea of running artificial NES hardware running off of a "cloned" system-on-a-chip doesn't exactly have a sterling reputation. Most such "famiclone" systems are made as cheaply as possible, and they can have significant problems with both compatibility and authenticity. But Taber ensured that the Nt Mini would have the same "100% compatibility" with NES software and peripherals as the original Nt. "We couldn't be more serious about perfection," he said. "We guarantee it."

To simulate all the functionality of an NES on an Alterna Cyclone V FPGA, Taber reached out to Kevin Horton, an electrical engineer who said he spent more than 5,000 hours re-engineering the system in Verilog (check out Horton's project page for much more info on the long-running effort). Unlike software-based emulation, which tries to recreate the output of the original Nintendo code through a modern operating system, an FPGA can directly simulate the actual logic gates used by the original NES chips (which have been mapped out in great detail over the years).

To get completely accurate, low-level emulation of the chips themselves completely in software requires a significant amount of processing overhead , thanks to vagaries of timing and component interactions. Yet even a $50 FPGA doesn't have these same issues. "The primary advantage an FPGA has over any other aftermarket retro gaming system (any system not utilizing the original components and hardware) is the fact that it can directly simulate the actual hardware," Horton told Ars. "Additionally, the FPGA has zero lag, so this will easily beat any kind of software emulator." And after "a substantial amount of testing," including low-level logic analyzing, Horton says he's confident his solution offers full and flawless compatibility with all NES software.

Running on an FPGA also means the Nt Mini will be able to take downloadable updates through an SD card slot. "We plan on developing new features and working with Nt Mini owners to bring new features to the system," Taber said. "We are going to continue to develop for it after release."

The Analogue Nt Mini announcement comes during a resurgence of interest in NEW hardware remakes. Besides Nintendo's own NES Mini (which won't actually work with real NES cartridges), RetroUSB's $185 AVS hardware uses a similar FPGA architecture to run actual NES software in HD.

Analogue is currently taking pre-orders for the Nt Mini ahead of planned January shipments.