However, the saga of the cartridge adapters is a separate and evolving situation. The selling point of the Pocket was its native compatibility with original Game Boy cartridges, including Color and Advance titles, as well as Atari Lynx and Game Gear cartridges via an adapter. Later, TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine and NeoGeo Pocket adapters were confirmed to be in development. At launch, the Game Gear accessory was ready, but the others faced delays.
Initially, Analogue communicated that the adapters would be available in Q3 of this year. Taber clarified that they are still on track to ship by the end of the year, although some online sources had previously mentioned a Q3 release. Furthermore, the Pocket now supports games from a broader range of systems than at launch, including some for which adapters were planned.
The Pocket’s uniqueness lies in its approach to gaming. It doesn’t emulate games in the traditional software sense. Instead, it reprograms itself to become the system you want to play, using Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) and “cores” that mimic each system. This sets the Pocket apart from most other retro handhelds that rely on software emulation.
