The Analogue 3D, an upcoming gaming console that can play Nintendo 64 cartridges in 4K, is expected to launch in the first quarter of 2025 for $250, Analogue said in a press release on Wednesday. Pre-orders go live on October 21st at 8am PT.

The Analogue 3D, like the well-tested Analogue pocket handheld, uses a field-programmable gate array, or FPGA, chip that can emulate hardware down to the transistor level. In contrast to software emulation, Analogue's approach achieves 100 percent game compatibility.

Given that modern hardware is significantly more powerful than what Nintendo was able to bring to market in 1996, the Analogue 3D can run games at 4K resolution, which is ten times the resolution of most of the N64 catalog. The Analogue 3D supports Bluetooth LE, Wi-Fi and has four controller ports for multiplayer fun. It is also compatible with modern controllers like the 8BitDo 64 controller.

According to Analogue, many games from this era look best on an old-school CRT TV because of the way the N64 graphics were presented. This is because CRTs had an analog signal output and created an image using scan lines instead of fixed grids of pixels. Because images were rendered line by line on a CRT, the pixels were smoothed, making the square pixels output from an N64 appear softer. Because modern displays can display every pixel sharper and clearer, old-school systems running at lower resolutions tend to look blocky.

To fix this, Analogue essentially creates filters that mimic the original CRT look. Analogue says that “the original display modes are meticulously reproduced” and are “virtually indistinguishable replicas of CRT displays, designed to capture the warmth, depth and texture in every image” while emulating the “soft glow of phosphor.”

Analogue is an American gaming hardware company that specializes in bringing retro consoles into the modern era. It gained widespread recognition with the release of the Analogue NT, a system for playing Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and Famicon cartridges on a modern HDTV via HDMI. However, it was 2021's $220 Analogue Pocket that gave the company mainstream appeal.

The Pocket is a gaming handheld that displays Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Sega Game Gear, Atari Lynx, TurboGrafx-16, Neo Geo Pocket and Pocket Color cartridges on a modern LCD -Display can play with a sharp resolution of 1,600 x 1,440 -pixel resolution. Like a Nintendo Switch, there is also a docking station that can output these games to a television via HDMI. The Analogue Pocket is constantly sold out and its limited color variants sometimes end up on eBay at wildly inflated prices. Some online fans have criticized the company for its strategy of offering limited editions to attract repeat purchases.

The Analogue 3D is the only third-party N64 console on the market that works with real game cartridges. Analogue says that creating 3D was particularly challenging due to the development of N64 games at the time. The company states that no emulation has yet achieved 100 percent compatibility. Even when Nintendo re-released N64 games on the Switch, there were graphical errors and other problems.

While the Nintendo 64 included a controller, this is not the case with the Analogue 3D. Fans will either have to dig out their original N64 controllers or buy the 8BitDo 64, which retails for $40.