Californian retro gaming specialists Analogue have announced their latest, most ambitious product to date, the Analogue3D. Whereas the company’s previous console reboot, the Analogue Pocket evoked and emulated Nintendo’s classic Gameboy, the Analogue3D ramps up the processing power to tackle that powerful icon of 90s gaming, the Nintendo N64.
The original N64 was launched in June 1996 after much anticipation and many delays. Although it wasn’t the of the 64-bit games consoles (an honour that goes to the failed and now cultish Atari Jaguar from 1993), it had the might of Japan’s biggest video games company behind it, along with some of the most iconic IP in gaming history and a ready-made audience of eager gamers brought up on its predecessor, the 49-million-selling NES.
Analogue’s re-boot bills itself as ‘100% compatible with every original N64 game ever made’ (although there were only 388 of them, compared to around 1,700 for the NES). The console has a cartridge slot, just like the original (which was one of the last major consoles to use cartridges not CDs) and meaning that only official, legacy games can be played. All of them are accurately rendered by the Analogue3D’s custom silicon, which not only faithfully displays every pixel but upscales the games into pristine 4K resolution, outputted via HDMI.
As the company points out, that’s 10x the resolution of Nintendo’s original resolution of 320x240 pixels (the display maxed out at 640×480). On top of that, the hardware also emulates the N64’s original display modes, bringing back the glow and fuzz of cathode ray television screens to the most modern OLED television.
Perhaps most importantly of all, the Analogue3D also duplicates the N64’s hitherto unsurpassed multiplayer abilities - some 70% of N64 titles supported two or more players and split screen gaming allowed four people to race, battle and explore at once. In addition to having four N64 controller-compatible ports, the Analogue3D also includes Bluetooth. Together with 8BitDo, the company has developed a wireless Bluetooth version of the original controller (sold separately), updated, enhanced and tougher.
All this is powered by 3DOS, a bespoke version of Analogue’s proprietary operating system. Four years in development, the system set out to conquer the intricacies and eccentricities of Nintendo’s original system, the complexity of which has confounded emulators for decades. Now contemporary gamers will have no excuse not to revisit some timeless classics.
Analogue3D, available in black or white, $249.99, 8BitDo 64 Controller sold separately $39.99, shipping Q1 2025, Analogue.co, 8BitDo.com
