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Analogue NT ($500 HDMI NES) gets 4th delay to April 2015, more shady broken promises

Chittagong

Chittagong

Gold Member
To nobody's surprise, Analogue has broken yet another shipping promise, so I thought a brief history to those new to Analogue NT would be an apt warning to GAF members not to support their shady operation.

After almost a year, we have no proof that this product exists:

analoguent.jpg


Here's what's happened so far:

May 2014. Analogue announced the product claiming they would ship during summer 2014. They charged preorders in full from credit cards immediately. It's now obvious that their shipping date was never within the realm of possibilities and they lied about it to get preorder funds for their R&D of the product.

August 2014. As summer came to an end and customers grew anxious, Analogue was forced to announce a delay until Christmas 2014. This was not a feasible goal either as they hadn't posted any further proof of the device.

December 2014. In December it became obvious to customers that they wouldn't be able to ship, so they announced a delay to Feburary 2015. They also notoriously claimed their HDMI would be better than XRGB, and they would post a video of it on 17 December 2014. Obviously, no video has been posted so far.

Analogue said:
The HDMI adapter is significantly superior to all of the pre-existing upscaling units available on the market - including the XRGB / Framemeister units. The HDMI Adapter has a slew of incredible features and a video showcasing all of them will be out on December 17th. We cannot wait for you to see it.
Click to expand...

February 2015. As February rolled in Analogue was forced to announce they wouldn't be able to ship now either, again pushing it back two months, now claiming to ship in April 2015. This time the reason is 'US port congestion'.

Analogue said:
The west coast ports are currently experiencing dramatic congestion. It is being called the "worst-ever case of U.S. port congestion on record". Due to this unpredictable and unprecedented congestion we have adjusted the Analogue Nt's shipping date to April 2015.Our final overseas shipment will be sent out in Feb - but due to the west cost congestion, we are anticipating significantly late delivery, up to 45 days late, nearly tripling the expected timeline
Click to expand...

They also backpedaled from their promise to produce video evidence of the product, flat out saying we shouldn't expect any content before "the product is officially released":

Analogue said:
We know everyone is excited to see more hands on content of the Nt. Right now we are one hundred percent focused on production. Please keep in mind the Nt is only in its pre-order phase -- by the time it is officially released, all launch content will be available.
Click to expand...

Some takeaways from this.

ANALOGUE DID NOT SAY THEY ARE DOING A KICKSTARTER OR CROWDFUNDING CAMPAIGN

- Analogue simply said they have developed a new product that would ship in Summer 2014
- They gave no indication that the product didn't exist and that pre-order money would be used to develop it
- Because Analogue had previously shipped Neo-Geo units there was little reason to suspect they wouldn't have had the product when they announced it
- Thus, most people ended unwillingly participating in a stealth crowdfunding campaign

DO NOT PREORDER AN ANALOGUE NT.
- Analogue will charge your card immediately and have shown zero proof of a working unit so far. I have one on preorder myself.
- Analogue are essentially operating a dishonest Kickstarter, using the preorder money to attempt develop the product.
- Analogue has not been able to produce any video evidence of the product working. Some suspect they are massively struggling with the RGB and HDMI parts of the product.
- Analogue will always claim a shipping date just within the reach, in the next two months, so that they'll get you order and wait. See the evidence above on why not to trust their dates!

I think some responsible journalist should write a critical article about it, given how many publications have non-critically promoted Analogue NT.

Hope this serves as a helpful warning for fellow GAFfers at least.
 
This pretty much falls in line with every kickstarter I've done and followed. Don't do kickstarter if you expect anything different.
 
This is why everyone should just get an RGB NES and a Framemeister instead.

Get a decent quality toploader nes with an RGB mod and you are fucking sorted. For far cheaper too.
 
th4tguy said:
This pretty much falls in line with every kickstarter I've done and followed. Don't do kickstarter.
Click to expand...

Excetpt, it wasn't a Kickstarter. They announced the product in May 2014, saying it will ship in the summer. So customers didn't know they in fact had no product and paid in full expecting to see their product shortly. Looking back at their wording then, it's very close to fraud in my opinion.
 
500 dollar HDMI NES!?!?!

whats wrong with you people out there???
it doesnt even look good.

shit, this is baffling.

also wondering lately why so many kickstarter projects are failing to deliver. the whole stuff started with ouya. i was a bit hyped, when i saw that you definitely need to input cc-details to initially start this device, it turned me literally off (no pun intended)
 
richisawesome said:
This is why everyone should just get an RGB NES and a Framemeister instead.

Get a decent quality toploader nes with an RGB mod and you are fucking sorted. For far cheaper too.
Click to expand...

This has disc system support too. Although good luck finding a working Disc System and games.

Thanks for the updates. Chittagong. I want one, but can this company ship anything for once?
 
nateeasy said:
I'm making a $1000 HDMI NES. Send payments via PayPal gift.
Click to expand...

I'm making a £50 NES that has an HDMI port attached to it. Once I get ten of them paid for, I can ship them out.

The actual console will be made of a mixture of cardboard and playdoh, but what do you expect for £50? It still has HDMI!
 
This looks more like a case of failure to estimate project lifetime rather than outright shady practices.

It sucks that they're charging credit cards immediately, but I think the takeaway from this is (as usual) to never preorder. Just wait 'till they're done then make an order. It might take a bit longer to get it this way but it's always worth just waiting.
 
Well for what its worth, the US port congestions are real and unbelievably bad. I own a home furnishing store and (back in Dec) had container/shipping delays of about 5-8 weeks roughly for our product. Lots of pissed of customers lol.

Having said that, they appear to be way behind schedule in the first place with the product and i see this as a means to piggy back on a real problem to fuck more with backers/original buyers.
 
Im not even up to date on this, does at least use original hardware or is this just some emulation thing? I can't see how it would be $500 to start with
 
Timeless said:
And yet I still have no problems running NES games at 1080p through RetroArch.
Click to expand...

Speaking as a huge supporter of retroarch as my official GAF thread for it shows, nothing beats real hardware when it comes to retro games.

The day I had to sell my framemeister and collection of RGB ready retro consoles was the saddest day ever. Well, saddest gaming related day ever. I still have my games, but goddamnit emulation is NOT the same

Nothing replicates that megadrive 1 synth as well as the real thing, for example. Nothing. Also, N64 emulation is a goddamn joke.
 
GiantEnemyCrab said:
Considering a $500 PC can easily do cycle-perfect emulation of the NES, what niche does this product fill?
Click to expand...

The audience for this system tends to eschew emulation.

You could perfectly emulate NeoGeo for over 14 years, yet people spends thousands of dollars for real carts.
 
Kambing said:
Well for what its worth, the US port congestions are real and unbelievably bad. I own a home furnishing store and (back in Dec) had container/shipping delays of about 5-8 weeks roughly for our product. Lots of pissed of customers lol.

Having said that, they appear to be way behind schedule in the first place with the product and i see this as a means to piggy back on a real problem to fuck more with backers/original buyers.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the insight - they have picked a good reason to blame.

In my opinion, the most damning aspect currently is their inability to show a video of a working unit. Even if their mass production units are stuck in a container they surely could hand assemble a single unit and take a video of it. That's literally all that it would put me to ease, to see proof that the product now exists.

Saying they won't release any content until 'official release' (now April) indicates that they are in fact unable to get a unit working until then at least.

At this point I would expect them to release a video in April, and having bought time with it they can announce a delay to Summer 2015.
 
They're not breaking any promises. They've been upfront about their schedule from the beginning, but when design and manufacturing delays happen, they happen. And this latest delay from February to April is due to shipping delays.

I'm still very excited to receive my Analogue Nt, and I'll wait as long as I need to for it to be perfected before it's released.
 
Josh7289 said:
They're not breaking any promises. They've been upfront about their schedule from the beginning, but when design and manufacturing delays happen, they happen. And this latest delay from February to April is due to shipping delays.

I'm still very excited to receive my Analogue Nt, and I'll wait as long as I need to for it to be perfected before it's released.
Click to expand...

Look, I am excited to get mine too and hope it will turn out as amazing as I imagine it would be. But saying they haven't broken any promises, I mean, really? For example, In their online store it said 'Shipping Christmas 2014' on the top where it now says 'Shipping April 2015', how is that not a broken promise?

Or, how they said "the HDMI Adapter has a slew of incredible features and a video showcasing all of them will be out on December 17th" - is that not a broken promise either?

Manufacturing delays and shipping delays happen, but I think they have purposefully given dates they knew they would not be able to hit, in order to encourage more orders. Do you really think they honestly thought last May that they would be able to ship by August and have been hit with 8 months of unforeseen delays on their 3 months schedule?

Or rather, did they set that date close to encourage more orders, always having the plan to delay later?
 
Josh7289 said:
They're not breaking any promises. They've been upfront about their schedule from the beginning, but when design and manufacturing delays happen, they happen. And this latest delay from February to April is due to shipping delays.

I'm still very excited to receive my Analogue Nt, and I'll wait as long as I need to for it to be perfected before it's released.
Click to expand...

So why won't they show a video of a working unit?
 
Chittagong said:
Thanks for the insight - they have picked a good reason to blame.

In my opinion, the most damning aspect currently is their inability to show a video of a working unit. Even if their mass production units are stuck in a container they surely could hand assemble a single unit and take a video of it. That's literally all that it would put me to ease, to see proof that the product now exists.

Saying they won't release any content until 'official release' (now April) indicates that they are in fact unable to get a unit working until then at least.

At this point I would expect them to release a video in April, and having bought time with it they can announce a delay to Summer 2015.
Click to expand...

I've got a CMVS from them that works great. I wouldn't worry about getting a product from them that doesn't work. These port delays aren't imaginary either. Some believe it's why amiibo are in such short supply in the US.
 
El Pescado said:
I've got a CMVS from them that works great. I wouldn't worry about getting a product from them that doesn't work. These port delays aren't imaginary either. Some believe it's why amiibo are in such short supply in the US.
Click to expand...

Having seen how their Neo-Geos are built, getting a non working product sounds extremely possible.
 
El Pescado said:
I've got a CMVS from them that works great. I wouldn't worry about getting a product from them that doesn't work. These port delays aren't imaginary either. Some believe it's why amiibo are in such short supply in the US.
Click to expand...

I don't think the worry is that people will get a product that doesn't work. Rather, the fact they havent shown a working video which they promised is leading people to think they don't have it finished yet and are stalling.
 
baphomet said:
Having seen how their Neo-Geos are built, getting a non working product sounds extremely possible.
Click to expand...

Zing!

I mean, they're sloppy inside, and I believe Analogue has claimed that that wasn't their work, but they work great.

They've certainly designed a beautiful circuit board at the very least.

And if they do end up failing I can always ask you to whip me up an RGB NES, right? Please?
 
El Pescado said:
Zing!

I mean, they're sloppy inside, and I believe Analogue has claimed that that wasn't their work, but they work great.

They've certainly designed a beautiful circuit board at the very least.

And if they do end up failing I can always ask you to whip me up an RGB NES, right? Please?
Click to expand...

For significantly less than this ;)
 
I have been following the Analogue Nt press releases and Chittagong's posts for a while, and I certainly feel bad for you guys. I do believe eventually Analogue will deliver, but I can't say I approve of such business practices.

One thing that Analogue has been doing that's rather irritating (at least for me) is saying in their advertising "Unlike the knock off and emulation systems that riddle the market today, the Analogue Nt is the only NES on the market that is built with original hardware."

I know this is not true because I've been working on my own NES console that works on the same principle, the Super 8 bit, for 2 1/2 years. Maybe he didn't know, whatever.

One thing I've noticed upon careful examination of the motherboard pics is it's missing the NESRGB or whatever will provide the improved video output. The Nt motherboard cannot work with better video than a stock NES without a NESRGB board or similar installed between the PPU chip and the socket. It doesn't look like they've incorporated this onto the motherboard, as there's no FPGA.

While waiting for Analogue to release further information, I thought I'd share this video of a working system: https://www.tindie.com/products/low_budget/super-8-bit-console-with-new-v30-pcb/

On a side note, I just got a Famicom Disk System and I'm loving it. The belts break maybe once every 3 years, but it's a cheap fix (not exactly easy though.) Playing classic games like Zelda and Mario Japanese versions is fun noticing the differences.
 
low_budget said:
I have been following the Analogue Nt press releases and Chittagong's posts for a while, and I certainly feel bad for you guys. I do believe eventually Analogue will deliver, but I can't say I approve of such business practices.

One thing that Analogue has been doing that's rather irritating (at least for me) is saying in their advertising "Unlike the knock off and emulation systems that riddle the market today, the Analogue Nt is the only NES on the market that is built with original hardware."

I know this is not true because I've been working on my own NES console that works on the same principle, the Super 8 bit, for 2 1/2 years. Maybe he didn't know, whatever.

One thing I've noticed upon careful examination of the motherboard pics is it's missing the NESRGB or whatever will provide the improved video output. The Nt motherboard cannot work with better video than a stock NES without a NESRGB board or similar installed between the PPU chip and the socket. It doesn't look like they've incorporated this onto the motherboard, as there's no FPGA.

While waiting for Analogue to release further information, I thought I'd share this video of a working system: https://www.tindie.com/products/low_budget/super-8-bit-console-with-new-v30-pcb/

On a side note, I just got a Famicom Disk System and I'm loving it. The belts break maybe once every 3 years, but it's a cheap fix (not exactly easy though.) Playing classic games like Zelda and Mario Japanese versions is fun noticing the differences.
Click to expand...

Wow, youre absolutely correct. The motherboard they've shown definitely isn't able to output rgb. I wonder if they're going to just put Tims board in these. You think they would have taken the time to add it into the actual motherboard.
 
low_budget said:
One thing I've noticed upon careful examination of the motherboard pics is it's missing the NESRGB or whatever will provide the improved video output. The Nt motherboard cannot work with better video than a stock NES without a NESRGB board or similar installed between the PPU chip and the socket. It doesn't look like they've incorporated this onto the motherboard, as there's no FPGA.

While waiting for Analogue to release further information, I thought I'd share this video of a working system: https://www.tindie.com/products/low_budget/super-8-bit-console-with-new-v30-pcb/
Click to expand...

You have to be shitting me... What would be the point of an entire new PCB if they wouldn't incorporate the RGB circuitry on it?

Thanks for the video, interesting to see your project!
 
What weird, excessive hardware design. Why not go for a nice industrial angular look? This design is so random and doesn't gel with the NES at all.
 
Ingueferroque said:
What weird, excessive hardware design. Why not go for a nice industrial angular look? This design is so random and doesn't gel with the NES at all.
Click to expand...

These are the same guys who think wood furniture consoles are a good idea so it's pretty much expected that they can't even buy a clue.
 
Well, colour me surprised. I have been expecting an e-mail announcing another delay for Analogue NT now that it's April.

Instead they sent out today an e-mail announcing that they intend to assemble and ship between now and mid-April, and we will begin seeing the actual thing in press shortly.

Analogue said:
Manufacturing Update / Shipping Date

We’re happy to say that production for the Analogue Nt is complete. We are currently awaiting for freight delivery of a final piece: the aluminum enclosures.

As noted back in February, the West coast ports are currently experiencing dramatic congestion. It is being called the “worst-ever case of U.S. port congestion on record”. We are expecting our final shipment in Seattle before April 15th. Sources are still reporting there could still be more delays but we are confident we will accept delivery soon.

As soon as we accept delivery, we’ll begin assembling and shipping. In the meantime, this month you can expect an early look at the Analogue Nt from the gaming press.

We appreciate your continued patience and support.
Click to expand...

They are giving themselves just a few weeks, so maybe this is for real now.
 
Another update from Analogue. Inevitably the product now slips to May at least.

Analogue said:
Seattle Arrival

Our freight has finally arrived in the Port of Seattle. We are currently awaiting vessel docking, unloading and customs clearance. As soon as the freight is processed — we will be able to accept delivery. We will put out an email as soon as we have our shipment in hand, which should be by the end of the month. We know its been a long wait and we are excited to be so close. As soon as we accept delivery, we’ll begin assembling and shipping.
Click to expand...
 
I can't see why anyone would pay $500 for an NES... just use the Wii U VC! If you still have a bunch of carts laying around then sell them already.
 
Man, I really want this thing to ship to those who pre-ordered it soon, so we can start seeing some reviews. The constant delays have to be incredibly frustrating for those who have already paid for one.
 
For $500 I rather buy a real NES and a CRT.

I hope it works out for the people who paid but that price just seems insane for a product that won't even be 100% accurate.
 
That is a very shameful series of events for the release [or I guess non-release?] of a new product

What is Analogue's refund policy like?
 
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