The Analogue Nt is the best NES that (a lot of) money can buy

Back in 2014, we marveled at the announcement of the Analogue Nt, a heavily modified version of the original Nintendo Entertainment System with a solid aluminum case and an even more solid starting price: $500. We’ve been playing with our loaner unit for a few months now, and we’ve come away impressed with this sleek, modern love letter to classic gaming. While the price will put it beyond all but the most dedicated retro gaming hobbyists, we’re glad a product made with such obvious care and devotion exists for those who value authenticity and style above all else.

Before you go comparing apples to oranges, let’s be clear about what the Analogue Nt is not. It’s not one of those gray-market “Famiclone” systems that uses knock-off chips and provides “close enough” compatibility with most NES and Famicom cartridges (see our review of the Generation NEX for an example). It’s also not a system that uses an Android-based software emulator to run legitimate cartridges (like the Retron 5) or ROMs loaded onto an SD card. And it’s not one of those do-it-yourself kits that upgrades an existing NES with more modern features.

At its core, the Analogue Nt is actually a Famicom, the original Japanese version of the NES. Designer Christopher Taber tells Ars he sourced the system’s internals from “a large quantity of HVC-001 Famicom systems that were in cosmetically undesirable/unsellable condition.” That means the CPU and PPU that power the Analogue Nt were produced by Nintendo to run Famicom software about three decades ago. This means in turn that, unlike some other modern hardware that runs NES cartridges, the Analogue Nt should be compatible with any and all of the hundreds of NES/Famicom cartridges in existence with perfect accuracy (every game we’ve been able to test has run flawlessly). The Analogue’s authentic core also means it can take the Japan-only Famicom Disk System as an attachment. We haven’t tested that, but it’s an important feature for a certain subset of collectors.

“Able to run 30-year-old games accurately” may not seem like a killer feature for a $500+ console, but you might be surprised how hard it is to find perfect authenticity among the various other options out there. Systems based on knock-off chips or emulation can frequently run into problems with compatibility, graphical issues, or sound glitches. They’re good enough if you just want a quick nostalgia fix, but these imperfections are jarring for true retro gaming aficionados.

Of course, an actual used NES can also run old NES games with 100 percent accuracy and for a much cheaper price. But that blocky gray plastic box won’t look nearly as good in your entertainment center as the Analogue’s custom enclosure, built from “a 3lb solid block of aircraft grade, 6061 aluminum.” The heft of the Analogue’s metal exterior suggests it’s built to last, and it seems destined to maintain its good looks much longer than the notoriously yellowing plastic of early game consoles like the NES and Famicom.

The top-loading design means the Analogue is probably more reliable than an actual front-loading Nintendo Entertainment System you might pick up secondhand as well, since the spring-loaded contacts on those aging original systems corrode and fade if they’re not replaced. (Taber says the Analogue’s cartridge connections are “gold plated” for added durability... and added cost, surely). Plus, the Analogue mimics the top-loading NES-101 in letting you show off that nostalgic cartridge sticker art while the game is in the system. The only nitpick we have with the enclosure is that the sharp edges on the cartridge slots can scrape against the soft plastic of your game cartridges if you’re not careful when inserting and removing them.

Modernized graphics

Aside from cosmetics, the Nt comes with a few features you can’t get from an old NES straight out of the box. The Nt supports both NES cartridges and the smaller Famicom cartridges directly, without the need to mess with adapters. The Nt’s four controller ports also mean you don’t have to mess with a multi-tap for the rare four-player game.

The most important hardware upgrade on the Nt, though, is the internal hardware that lets it work seamlessly with modern displays. While the base system outputs in a number of analog formats (composite, component, S-Video, and even RGB for those with high-end CRT monitors), a $79 upgrade replaces those with a digital HDMI output built right into the unit (this is the version we tested).

There are other ways to get HDMI graphics out of an NES (or other retro consoles made for lo-def CRT screens). Probably the most popular is an external pass-through box like the XRGB-mini Framemeister, which can take any old muddy analog input and sharpen it up to high-quality 1080p signal. The Framemeister is an expensive solution, though—it sells for about $360 as of this writing—and has a small but noticeable input lag when used with games (about 20 ms or so).

The Analogue team says its solution is unique and superior to external upscaling boxes. “One of the reasons most upscalers are so terrible and result in delay/lag is because they are analog-to-digital converters with frame buffers,” Analogue lead video hardware engineer Kevin Horton tells Ars. The Nt, on the other hand, “upscales directly from the PPU (video chip) signals... by cajoling the PPU into outputting digital video via its normally unused ‘expansion’ pins.”

“On the original NES, these four [expansion] pins are grounded,” Horton continued. “Nintendo originally designed the PPU so that two of them could be connected together to perform multi-plane scrolling backgrounds.” By ungrounding the pins and sampling their output, the Nt’s HDMI adapter “directly up-converts the NES' video as it is being generated,” Horton said.

While Horton says this kind of direct HDMI output from an NES “has never been achieved before,” it looks like modders have gotten similar results through some heavy hardware hacking. Still, being able to get easy, lag-free, authentic digital HD output from old NES cartridges in a widely available consumer product is no small feat.