For six years the Analogue Pocket has owned the "play your real cartridges on modern hardware" market, mostly by being impossible to buy. Now a tiny challenger just walked in — smaller, cheaper, and it takes your actual Game Boy carts. The nerve of this thing.
It's called the FPGB Mini, from FunnyPlaying — a name retro modders know very well, because they've been building with FunnyPlaying screens and shells for years. Inside is FPGA hardware: recreated original circuitry, not emulation. That means your Game Boy and Game Boy Color cartridges run the way Nintendo intended, without input-lag excuses, in a body that makes the Pocket look like a phablet.
Pocket-sized FPGA hardware. Your cartridges don't know the difference — and that's the point.
The whole pitch in one photo: real carts, real hardware, no emulation in sight.
It just went up for sale — and given the Pocket launched in 2020 and still can't stay in stock, expect this one to evaporate.
The real story here is the rivalry. The Analogue Pocket had six years with no real competition, and the response from the modding scene's favorite parts maker is "we'll just do it smaller and cheaper." If you ever blew into a cartridge as a kid, this is your moment — just don't blink, or you'll be refreshing a waitlist until 2029.
▶ Watch the full video below — then tell me in the comments: Pocket or Mini?
Source: theverge.com