Ben Heckendorn's new, improved nPod

Never one to rest on his laurels,the great Ben Heckendorn has taken his already-stylin' nPod portable 8-bit Nintendo console and reworked it around a smaller "NES on a chip" to come up with a unit  that's even more polished and compact than the original. Like the nPod 1.0, this new version is only slightly bigger than those bulky plastic cartridges it plays, yet still manages to include a headphone jack and convenient sliding battery pack powered by four regular AAs. As usual, the talented Mr. Heckendorn is happy to part with the prototype (for the right price), but this time around he's also seeking feedback to gauge the market for a potential limited production run of these devices. If the NES emulator on your smartphone just isn't doing it for you anymore, then head over to Ben's site and let him know how much you'd be willing to throw down for one of these -- he may even equip them with such niceties as a system link and TV out if that's what his adoring public demands. Keep reading if you want to catch a tantalizing glimpse of the nPod 2.0 from behind...

[Via Make]

[jc @ Jun 29th 2006 3:19PM]

very cool... but do you have to blow into the cartridge to make it work??

[LittleJoe @ Jun 29th 2006 3:23PM]

brilliant

[Sukato @ Jun 29th 2006 4:24PM]

Seriously, this guy's a freaking hardware master. Just the sweet exterior alone shows his quality, but being able to take a whole system and shrink it down? Amazing. Simply amazing.

[kris aubuchon @ Jun 29th 2006 4:53PM]

Wow, that man in genius! I'm hoping he has some high paying product design job because that thing is the nicest looking homebrew anything ever! (too bad his website isn't as pretty!)

[KNIGEL CAESAR @ Jun 29th 2006 4:57PM]

HOW COME THIS GUY ISNT MARKETING THESE THINGS ON A LARGER SCALE I CAN ONLY THINK OF ONE REASON GREED, DAMN
YOU GREED DAMN YOU...

[Nic @ Jun 30th 2006 2:59AM]

Great thing to say, Gpie -- with an extensive collection of original NES games, any fool worth his two cents would definitely get a DS instead of the nPod.

Oh, wait.

This is a great feat of engineering, yes, because its vast improvements upon earlier mobile NES systems makes it nearly ready for primetime. I'm not sure about the backing, I think I'd prefer less of the cart exposed, but it's still very impressive.

Fact is that you're not going to find every NES game ported straight to the DS. It's just not going to happen. Never will for some games that individuals consider classics, but the execs know will never become great sellers. I'm pretty sure nobody's going to ever port Rollerball to the DS or GBA. And it's one of my favorites from the system (even if it's probably really obscure). Plus, some people aren't stupid enough to buy the content that's just been crammed into a different form factor so that they can buy it all over again (see: Tetris DS, Tetris DX).

I'd personally prefer the original hardware to a crummy emulation. Everybody knows that emulation can never really compare to the original. Now where's a cheaper and smaller version of the Nomad?

[Guse @ Jun 30th 2006 9:12AM]

It's a nice product. But let's see...250$ for this or 250$ for a PSP?

[kemikos @ Jun 30th 2006 11:57AM]

>"It's a nice product. But let's see...250$ for this or 250$ for a PSP?"

Hmm, let's see... One has a whole mess of high-quality games available for it, the other one has a few games with pretty pictures...

Seems obvious to me... ;)

[NOFALSEHERO @ Jun 30th 2006 7:14PM]

This is pretty f'n kitschy, I'd buy one just for that purpose. Of course, you can dive face first into emulator-land and play a soulless rendition of the original, or use a cartridge which I think has great aesthetic value. Of course, I use an emulator on my Ipaq 5555 and it's fun... but I'd love to see people's faces when this comes out on the bus.

[Bryan @ Jul 4th 2006 8:47PM]

I had trouble recently finding the ROM's for the games I have on both NES and Genesis. I guess the Wii is the answer for me if it looks good on an HDTV...better than N64 does. I'd prefer a bigger screen on the nPod and although cartridges don't weigh too much they are now so old that indeed you will have ones that you have "blow into" Let's move on to ROM's (Wii style).

[DS-flash @ Jul 19th 2006 8:31AM]

If only this design could be mass-produced I would sure get one for my console collection.

[Cade @ Jul 19th 2006 2:54PM]

I saw this and freaked out. I would love to have one of these if they went into production. I adore my NES, but it's next to impossible to get to work anymore.

[edwin @ Feb 11th 2007 7:26PM]

how do you make that????