It’s been 30 years since the release of the original Nintendo Entertainment System, and many of the ageing units may have lost the battle against time – but Analogue Nt offers a new way to play the original cartridges, albeit at a steep price.

The standard, unofficial Analogue Nt was a brand new console built with the same chips used in the original NES, allowing it to play those original cartridges natively. Add in optional HDMI support, sleek aluminium casing, and universal support for carts from all regions, and the original $499 (about R7,450) price almost seemed reasonable for die-hards.

But what about at 10 times the price? Now you can grab an insanely luxurious, 24-karat gold-plated Analogue Nt that’s being made to celebrate the 30th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda. It even comes with a copy of the original gold-coloured Legend of Zelda cartridge, although the colouring doesn’t quite match up with the console.

It’s priced at $4,999 (about R75,000), but at least you don’t have to pay extra for the optional HDMI upgrade (if you want it), and it comes in a limited edition box too. It’s limited to just 10 units, however, and they taking reservations via email, so it’s not clear how much demand there is or whether you’ll have to make a deposit to secure your place in the queue.

At the moment, it’s actually the only way to get the Analogue Nt, as the common units have sold out in all colour options. It’s not clear whether Analogue plans to do another run of the standard consoles, but they just had additional units available last week that will ship in May – so maybe there’s still hope that you can still get one firsthand for less than $5k down the line.

Source: Analogue Nt