The N64 Prototypes Nintendo Built But Never Released Are Finally Getting Made

Nintendo built these colors in the ’90s, tested them with real consumers, then buried them. Not concept sketches or Photoshop mockups: actual injection-molded consoles with matching controllers, fully functional, sitting in storage until former employees started selling them to collectors years later. Extreme Green, Ocean, Ghost, Glacier, Atomic Purple. They all worked. They all tested well. None of them made it to retail.

Price: $299.99
Where to Buy: Analogue

Analogue spent the last year reverse-engineering those exact plastic formulations for the 3D, its FPGA-based N64 console that sold out instantly when it launched in black and white shells. The Prototype Limited Editions drop February 9 at 8am PT for $299.99 in what Analogue calls “highly limited quantities,” which historically means seconds, not minutes.

What Makes These Different From the Funtastic Editions

The Funtastic series eventually made it to stores with six translucent colors, but those weren’t the original batch. Nintendo of Europe’s early-’90s market testing produced a separate set of prototypes in different hues that never saw production. The new Analogue editions match those shelved prototypes, not the retail Funtastics. It’s a subtle distinction that matters to anyone who remembers walking past those candy-colored N64s in a Toys “R” Us and wishing for something weirder.

Extreme Green sits somewhere between Mountain Dew and a 1996 website background. Ocean leans teal without committing. Ghost reads as smoke-tinted clear. Glacier handles the ice-blue slot. Atomic Purple lands in that specific mid-’90s grape territory that defined iMacs, Game Boy Colors, and every piece of consumer electronics trying to signal “fun” without using primary colors.

The 3D isn’t nostalgia hardware running software emulation. It’s a chip-level recreation of the N64’s architecture using field-programmable gate arrays, which means zero emulation lag, zero compatibility issues, and none of the timing glitches that plague software-based solutions. Nintendo’s own Switch Online N64 library can’t match it. You’re getting original hardware behavior at a component level, just rendered at 4K instead of the blurry 240p the actual console maxed out at in 1996.

Every cartridge works. All four original controller ports stay functional. The system outputs over HDMI but includes authentic CRT display modes if you want the scan lines and color bloom that defined how these games actually looked on a TV instead of through the revisionist lens of raw pixels on an LCD.

Why Analogue Keeps Doing This

The 3D already launched. It already sold out. Analogue could have moved on. Instead, it’s color-matching prototypes that very few people have ever touched in person, using them as the basis for another production run. That’s either confidence in sustained demand or an expensive commitment to completionism.

The company’s track record suggests both. Its previous FPGA consoles for Game Boy, Super Nintendo, and Sega Genesis all followed similar patterns: initial run, immediate sellout, periodic restocks in new colors or special editions. The strategy works because the hardware isn’t disposable. You’re not replacing this when Analogue announces the next thing. You’re keeping it because it’s the best way to play a specific library, and the color options let people treat it like furniture instead of retro-tech clutter.

8BitDo’s matching wireless controllers drop the same day for $45 each but won’t ship until April, which means you’ll be using your original N64 controllers or third-party options for the first few months. The 8BitDo units add Bluetooth, USB-C charging, and modern wireless convenience, but they don’t include the original’s analog stick, which means you’re trading authenticity for function. That’s probably the right call, given how many original N64 sticks are worn to mush by now, but it’s worth knowing before you plan your setup.

Pre-Launch Details

$299.99 is $30 more than the black and white versions, which positions these as collector-tier instead of functionally-better hardware. You’re paying for the color, the rarity, and the story behind why these specific hues exist in the first place. The hardware underneath is identical across all 3D editions. If that’s not worth the premium, the standard versions restock periodically and play games identically.

Analogue’s “highly limited” phrasing historically means these will be gone in seconds. The company doesn’t do pre-orders. It doesn’t hold units. When the storefront opens at 8am Pacific on February 9, you’re competing with everyone else refreshing the page. If you’re on the fence, you’ll miss it.

The system is region-free, works with all cartridges regardless of where they were sold, and includes a 16GB SD card for save data and firmware. It ships with a USB-C power supply, HDMI cable, and USB cable, all color-matched to the console. That’s a nice touch Analogue didn’t have to include, and it matters if you’re the kind of person who cares about a lime-green HDMI cable sitting on your entertainment center.

Price: $299.99
Where to Buy: Analogue

These aren’t going to make Nintendo happy. Analogue’s legal position is that FPGA recreation isn’t emulation and doesn’t infringe on anything. Nintendo’s position is that anything playing its games without a license is a problem. The 3D has been on sale since late 2024 without incident, but that doesn’t mean it’s safe forever. If you want this, get it now.