Analogue Pocket’s Major Beta Update Is Live, Here’s What’s New

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Analogue Pocket
Image: Nintendo Life / Damien McFerran

Analogue’s major beta update to its handheld console, the Analogue Pocket, is finally live for users to download, and introduces much anticipated additions to the experience including Memories, Libraries, and openFPGA, Analogue’s developer program.

Detailed in an announcement post from Analogue itself, the biggest inclusion to the v1.1 update is undoubtedly openFPGA, which Analogue cites as a major way for developers to preserve video game hardware. Several third-party developers have been provided with early access to openFPGA, but users will be able to sample the feature right now with a playable version of SpaceWar!, one of the earliest video games in existence.

With the Memories feature, the Analogue Pocket will now hold 128 memory slots usable by the Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, & Game Gear. Effectively, they’re save states that link with the system’s time and date system, allowing you to capture the title, platform and date/time directly from a game cartridge. When in gameplay, you’ll be able to load or delete save states by simply navigating to the option in the menu.

Finally, the Libraries feature will allow the system to capture specific details from a game cartridge, including the game title, system, developer, publisher, region and game revision, allowing users to accumulate a database from their collections. Any assets uploaded by the user can also be applied to the library. As noted by Analogue, this feature will only be applicable with authenticated game cartridges, so no bootleg knock-offs here!

Analogue isn’t stopping there, either. Here’s a look at the development roadmap for the months ahead:

Ongoing openFPGA Features: August
DAC support: September
Full Button Mapping: September
Library: September
Memories: September
Screenshots: September
GB Camera Image Saving: September
New Original Display Modes: October
Tracking Tools: October

Do you own an Analogue Pocket? Will you be trying out the new features? Let us know in the comments below!