Analogue Duo Thoughts

I've never owned a Turbografx-16. Along with Sega CD, it's one of the few systems I would want to get my hands on. Unfortunately, high prices for it and games make it undesirable for anyone to casually want it. We're also looking at the hardware not working as well. The focal point being the CD add-on and Turbo Duo, the latter having capacitor leaks and needing new caps immediately. Analogue is filling a need with the Analogue Duo.

I think this is cool. Having all the ways to play Turbografx, Turbo CD, Supergrafx (an obscure Japan system meant to beef up the hardware), and PC Engine I believe, is a fantastic way to get people in. The price point is rather cheap at 200 dollars. That says something considering the various versions of it, including the CD stuff. It is Analogue's first attempt at doing anything CD related. This will be in limited quantities as mentioned on their website. How much in quantity in terms of production, I don't know.

With putting an effort to do a CD one, the question lies in what the company could do next. You look at the early 90s and then new medium for gaming. There's Sega CD, Philips CD-i, 3DO, and Atari Jaguar CD. The next batch is Sega Saturn, PlayStation, and Dreamcast. I would assume they would target the Sega's CD and Saturn systems next. Those are two that aren't easy to get. With CD, it's not cheap and the hardware is prone to issues, including blown fuses. More of a reason to try to do an Analogue version. Saturn is very pricey right now that there is no starting method to get into it.

The next closest would be Dreamcast and then 3DO. There will be no effort to do CD-i and Jaguar CD (though 12 titles for Jag CD is doable). PlayStation doesn't need one though the early versions of the first model aren't the best in reliability. It opens a lot more possibilities for Analogue. They are setting themselves up to be the big hero for the retro gaming community. More to gaming than Nintendo and Sega. As long as quality is their priority, they will make it feasible for people to invest in systems that they wouldn't have gotten into.