FPGA Based Videogame System

[Great Hierophant]

Just curious as the nt mini has nes controller inputs but has anyone tried using a nes zapper to play any master system lightgun games? Wondering if the technology is compatible.

 

Almost certainly not : http://atariage.com/forums/topic/242970-fpga-based-videogame-system/page-57?do=findComment&comment=3702394

[Andromeda Stardust]

I am glad I got the chance to make the hardware as spiffy and complete as I could without any cost cutting. If it cost less, it would've had a lot of features removed. As it stands, it has literally everything I wanted the project to have. If it had cost less, features and things would've had to have been removed to make the cost.

 

As others pointed out, the FPGA alone was around $50 and there's not really any quantity discounts. The FPGA makers aren't interested in giving discounts until you buy 100K pieces or something huge like that. They see their products as kind of a niche and charge accordingly.

Because I am curious, what is the bill of materials on the NT Mini when you subtract the milled aluminum billet? AVS is $185 and severely cost reduced component wise, but the $450 base price NT Mini might as well be housed in an engine block.

 

So perhaps $300 would be a conservative estimate (allowing retail markup for the raw BOM) without the case? Forgive me and I understand if you're under an NDA with Analogue.

[Great Hierophant]

Because I am curious, what is the bill of materials on the NT Mini when you subtract the milled aluminum billet? AVS is $185 and severely cost reduced component wise, but the $450 base price NT Mini might as well be housed in an engine block.

 

So perhaps $300 would be a conservative estimate (allowing retail markup for the raw BOM) without the case? Forgive me and I understand if you're under an NDA with Analogue.

 

I also came up with the $300 figure shipped to the US. I preordered my Nt Mini yesterday, my order # was 4,071. If that number represents that Analogue has had at least 4,070 Nt Minis manufactured over the past year or so, that is a huge amount of cash being spent in China. I believe that the number likely includes the original Nt and they were probably were ordering them in batches of around 1,000, since this is the fourth batch of Nt/Nt Minis produced.

[hyrulebr]

 

I also came up with the $300 figure shipped to the US. I preordered my Nt Mini yesterday, my order # was 4,071. If that number represents that Analogue has had at least 4,070 Nt Minis manufactured over the past year or so, that is a huge amount of cash being spent in China. I believe that the number likely includes the original Nt and they were probably were ordering them in batches of around 1,000, since this is the fourth batch of Nt/Nt Minis produced.

 

 

I pre-ordered mine 09/11/16 (almost six months before release) and my order was # 3,041. So the number i guess is like 1000 nt mini per year.

Also maybe this helps to understand the high price. Beyond the "no compromise" Kevtris talked about, they had to put larger profit margin because it's a small market. I confess that I was expecting more units for a such well talked and loved device...

Of course we can discuss here if the price was half ($ 225) the sales would be 3X more. But do they "CAN" do it? Do they "WANT" to do it? Analogue always have this high end feel in retrogaming comunity and I'm glad that nothing was cut off.

[cacophony]

 

I also came up with the $300 figure shipped to the US. I preordered my Nt Mini yesterday, my order # was 4,071. If that number represents that Analogue has had at least 4,070 Nt Minis manufactured over the past year or so, that is a huge amount of cash being spent in China. I believe that the number likely includes the original Nt and they were probably were ordering them in batches of around 1,000, since this is the fourth batch of Nt/Nt Minis produced.

 

I placed a preorder within a few hours of it being announced on 8/22/16 and had order number 28XX, so I'm guessing they've sold ~1400 units total.

 

I really like the no compromises approach of Analogue and was happy to pay the ~$470 for the ultimate NES (and to support Kevtris!). And of course with the added cores the value equation has changed substantially.

Edited September 7, 2017 by cacophony

[hyrulebr]

 

I placed a preorder within a few hours of it being announced on 8/22 and had order number 28XX, so I'm guessing they've sold ~1400 units total

 

So they moved 400 units in just one month of announcement.

 

Even so, Don't you have the feeling that Nt mini should sold more? I know that price tag is high but almost everything in retrogaming is.

[Gandor]

I wonder how much sales increased after the CFW was announced?

 

 

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[cacophony]

 

So they moved 400 units in just one month of announcement.

 

Even so, Don't you have the feeling that Nt mini should sold more? I know that price tag is high but almost everything in retrogaming is.

 

Absolutely, but I also find it understandable given how few people fully understand the advantages over software emulation, using an original console hooked to an HDTV, or the AVS.

[Skins4thewin]

 

 

 

I pre-ordered mine 09/11/16 (almost six months before release) and my order was # 3,041. So the number i guess is like 1000 nt mini per year.

Also maybe this helps to understand the high price. Beyond the "no compromise" Kevtris talked about, they had to put larger profit margin because it's a small market. I confess that I was expecting more units for a such well talked and loved device...

Of course we can discuss here if the price was half ($ 225) the sales would be 3X more. But do they "CAN" do it? Do they "WANT" to do it? Analogue always have this high end feel in retrogaming comunity and I'm glad that nothing was cut off.

 

 

Wait a sec... are you trying to say that you preordered in 2016 and still havent gotten yours yet? 1000 a year doesnt really make sense, would have to be a whole lot more than that, or noone would be getting their orders for years to come.

[atmn]

Have some questions about the NES core.

It seems like the roms in the SD card are listed double. Both work.

 

Looks like its only the NES core listings that is showing double roms. Dont know why, any ideas?

[cacophony]

 

Wait a sec... are you trying to say that you preordered in 2016 and still havent gotten yours yet? 1000 a year doesnt really make sense, would have to be a whole lot more than that, or noone would be getting their orders for years to come.

 

No.

On 9/11/16 (when hyrulebr preordered for the initial production run) the order number was 3041

On 9/6/17 (when Great Hierophant preorded for the 3rd production run) the order number was 4071

Therefore Analogue has sold about 1000 units over the last year. All the orders except for the ones that came after the second production run sold out have been fulfilled.

Edited September 8, 2017 by cacophony

[Laner]

Have some questions about the NES core.

It seems like the roms in the SD card are listed double. Both work.

 

Looks like its only the NES core listings that is showing double roms. Dont know why, any ideas?

Same. I need to try a different SD card and see if that makes a difference

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Andromeda Stardust]

No.

 

On 9/11/16 (when hyrulebr preordered for the initial production run) the order number was 3041

On 9/6/17 (when Great Hierophant preorded for the 3rd production run) the order number was 4071

 

Therefore Analogue has sold about 1000 units over the last year. All the orders except for the ones that came after the second production run sold out have been fulfilled.

Can we be sure that all orders contained NT Minis and not other merchandise, duplicate/cancelled/void orders, etc? Using this metric seems pretty vague as we do not know all the conditions that constitute genration of an order number using the checkout software. There may be a lot of invalid order IDs that do not exist. What if someone buys ten Minis? They still get generated a single order ID.

[cacophony]

Can we be sure that all orders contained NT Minis and not other merchandise, duplicate/cancelled/void orders, etc? Using this metric seems pretty vague as we do not know all the conditions that constitute genration of an order number using the checkout software. There may be a lot of invalid order IDs that do not exist. What if someone buys ten Minis? They still get generated a single order ID.

 

You're right it's just a rough estimate. I don't see any other products for sale on the Analogue site (the 8bitdo controllers just redirect to Play Asia), but some of those orders were undoubtedly for more than one unit, and some may have been invalid.

[cacophony]

Have some questions about the NES core.

It seems like the roms in the SD card are listed double. Both work.

 

Looks like its only the NES core listings that is showing double roms. Dont know why, any ideas?

 

 

Same. I need to try a different SD card and see if that makes a difference

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Check out Iano's post here:

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/242970-fpga-based-videogame-system/?p=3724807

Edited September 8, 2017 by cacophony

[atmn]

 

Absolutely, but I also find it understandable given how few people fully understand the advantages over software emulation, using an original console hooked to an HDTV, or the AVS.

 

I think this is very true. People do not understand how FPGA vs. emulation is two different things. Many just reply "raspberry pi" when they see the pricetag.

[atmn]

Can we be sure that all orders contained NT Minis and not other merchandise, duplicate/cancelled/void orders, etc? Using this metric seems pretty vague as we do not know all the conditions that constitute genration of an order number using the checkout software. There may be a lot of invalid order IDs that do not exist. What if someone buys ten Minis? They still get generated a single order ID.

 

I think there is a serialnumber in the Mini as well, dont remember mine but I think its n+1, like the Hi-Def kit.

 

 

 

 

Check out Iano's post here:

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/242970-fpga-based-videogame-system/?p=3724807

 

Thanks, I'' check that out.

[Keatah]

I think this is very true. People do not understand how FPGA vs. emulation is two different things. Many just reply "raspberry pi" when they see the pricetag.

 

Nor do they understand the difference between "get me by emulation" vs "flagship emulation" on a proper PC.

 

Yet, others may fully understand the difference and blurt out R-Pi because they don't have $500+ to spend on yet another console and accessories..

Edited September 8, 2017 by Keatah

[Andromeda Stardust]

Never underestimate the amount of work required to set up an emulation rig, be it Pi or PC based.

 

These FPGA consoles are plug and play just like the originals. The output is just more convenient to interface with modern displays. Retron5 and it's ilk despite the plug and play nature are like the worst of both worlds though.

 

Real hardware or bust. FYI, I consider FPGA consoles to be a form of real hardware; so are flash carts. Emulation boxes, not so much.

[Keatah]

Well..yeh.. they're so far in advance of real hardware we don't know what to call them!

[atmn]

I copied roms with totalcommander (my #1 file management program) and run into issues with double listed roms in the NES core.

 

Then I moved them away and back with the build in windows file manager and it worked. Could be a coincidence, but it worked.

[genfuyung]

Stopped following this topic ages ago when Kevtris said he was done updating this because he got new paid work but I'm curious, did an intellivision core ever get added?

[cacophony]

Stopped following this topic ages ago when Kevtris said he was done updating this because he got new paid work but I'm curious, did an intellivision core ever get added?

 

Nope, nothing has changed since Kevtris started the new paid project.

[Skins4thewin]

Oh wow.... that is horrible news, I had no idea. I just recently preordered the Analogue NT Mini due to the idea of future core updates. This really sucks...

 

What sort of paid project did he get hired for though? I thought he turned down Coleco?

[atmn]

Oh wow.... that is horrible news, I had no idea. I just recently preordered the Analogue NT Mini due to the idea of future core updates. This really sucks...

 

What sort of paid project did he get hired for though? I thought he turned down Coleco?

 

The intellivision core is coming. I think it's gonna be a while more tho.

 

With all the jailbreaked cores you have to do for a while.

 

 

No one knows what kind of work he is working on, dont even know if it something to do with retro gaming at all.