【Anne Marie Gonzales Archives】

Welcome to 2017,Anne Marie Gonzales Archives where people are excited to spend hundreds of dollars on decades-old gaming hardware.

No, I'm not talking about Nintendo's Super NES Classic -- but this is real close. Analogue's Super Nt is a console that's built to play all your original Super NES/Super Famicom cartridges, and output them to your TV in 1080p HD.

Here's the thing, though: It's notan emulator.

The market is already filled with options if you want to go the emulator route, and many of them aren't bad. But game emulation is an imperfect science. The experience is often fiddly, and varies from game to game.

For the Super Nt, Analogue essentially built a modern-day Super NES. The reality is a little more technical than that, but from the perspective of someone sitting down to play a video game: It runs the exact same cartridges as the original hardware, but it sends a signal out to your screen via HDMI.

Some emulators do that as well, but Super Nt is built to deliver a lag-free experience that still gives you control over things like aspect ratio and output resolution. It's also got two ports on the front that let you plug in most original SNES peripherals, including assorted controllers and the Mario Paintmouse.

You do lose a big advantage that emulators offer, however: save states. Most modern-day console emulators -- including Nintendo's own NES/SNES Classic -- let you save your spot in any game, at any time with the press of a button. That's not possible with the Super Nt, so you're forced to rely on whatever save features each game incorporated, if any.

The price is definitely going to be an obstacle for some. A Super Nt will cost you $190, and while that's definitely a big step forward for Analogue -- its previous product, an NES remake called Nt Mini, goes for $449 -- it's still pricier than a lot of competing options out there.

That's the thing, though: the Super Nt isn't meant to be an impulse buy. It's definitely something to consider if you've been hanging on to SNES cartridges for years and years, or if you're interested in amassing a fresh pile of them now.

It's meant to be a purer and more true-to-the-original experience. If SNES Classic, with its preloaded games library and user-friendly save states, is a crowd-pleaser, Super Nt is aimed more at the authenticity-means-everything hipster gamer. It's a gorgeous little thing that's available in four different, eye-catching designs, but there's lot of additional investment required if you want to get the most out of one.

That's how it looks, anyway. I haven't tried the thing. But I remember coveting the Nt Mini and I sure am tempted to pre-order one of these (far cheaper) suckers and dig up all of my old SNES carts.