Portability is something I’m generally a sucker for since it’s always nifty to bring something on the go, like a laptop, your phone (since it can do everything), even earphones which wirelessly, they’re super portable, the idea of bringing a certain electronic on the go has always been a certain niche that a lot of people, myself included, has always loved. Especially portable gaming.

Now the irony in this article right off the bat is that I have a gaming laptop and I can bring PC games with me wherever I desire thanks to the compact design of a gaming laptop. And even though gaming laptops… or really portable computers has been a thing since as early as the late 70s to early 80s with the possibility to game on the go, like the Commodore SX-64, the Compaq II and the IBM 5155, the most portable way to bring games on the go, was obviously the advent of handheld consoles in the late 80s onwards. Yes, the handheld console boom that happened in the 90s and 2000s ended up revolutionizing gaming and portable gaming to a level that most never expected it to get to since it was so niche. But the legendaryness of handhelds grew so large that it got as far as people making portable SNES handhelds and even Nvidia trying to get a slice of the market back in 2013 with the Shield Portable. The current peak of handheld gaming now lies with Nintendo with their Nintendo Switch, and it’s only a matter of time until we know what’ll be next, but because of Nintendo’s influence, it spawned a highly anticipated project that has been confirmed for pre-orders recently and will have an official launch in May 2021.

The Analogue Pocket.

Analogue are known for being a well-respected company, who celebrates the consoles of the past in their own unique ways. But since October 2019, a lot of people have had their eyes on Analogue because of their product, the Analogue Pocket. It’s basically the modern-day GameBoy but on some major steroids. With the abilities of playing all GameBoy games and not only that, having adapters to play Game Gear, Atari Lynx and Neo Geo Pocket Color, it’s a very versatile handheld system that is an absolute unit. Not only that, but it can be used as an instrument. Yep, you heard that right, it can be an instrument. Now we just need mayonnaise to be an instrument. The Analogue Pocket has a digital audio workstation, or DAW for you electronic music makers, called Nanoloop. I’ve never heard of Nanoloop until I saw the announcement of pre-orders, so it’s already interesting to see how this will be used in the age where music genres such as lo-fi and Vaporwave are very prominent on the internet. And one more thing, you can hook it up to a TV via HDMI from the charging dock. I think the Switch has some competition now. But in all seriousness, it’s a handheld with four handheld console options, a sampler that is also a DAW, and you can treat it like a console with the charging dock and plug it into the TV. And for the price tag of 200 dollars and a few extra bucks for the other things, it’s probably the most versatile handheld console to be released in a long time.

Now I did plan on pre-ordering the Analogue Pocket, but unfortunately, it got sold out in 8 minutes. While it makes me pretty sad that I wasn’t able to get my hands on it, I’m hoping that there will be more pre-order windows to try and get the Pocket, as I have a feeling that if there will be a standard sale of these, they would sell out just as fast, and scalpers, are once again trying to capitalize on the hype of this system. I still wish that scalping was deemed illegal, because people are selling it for twice and three times more on eBay, and it’s getting ridiculous at this point. Other than that, pre-orders are shipping next year in May, for the obvious reason relating to everything going on in the world, so it’s gonna be a long wait for it to be released, and hopefully, another window for pre-orders will open. I’m excited for this system to succeed, and I hope I can get my hands on one so I can review it sometime in the future.