The console won’t play original game discs natively, but Retro Remake offers an optional tray-loading CD drive in a separate “SuperDock” accessory; it also includes an internal M.2 drive for an SSD and four additional USB-A ports. Buyers will have to put $5 down on the SuperDock now and pay whatever the final cost ends up being when the console ships (Retro Remake claims to be targeting a price of roughly $40).
Like most Analogue consoles, the SuperStation uses an FPGA chip to emulate the original PlayStation’s hardware rather than trying to emulate the console in software as most PC-based or Raspberry Pi-based retro consoles do. This has the benefit of reproducing all the quirks and oddities of the old hardware, making games run more accurately (and with lower input latency) than they do in software-based emulators.
But unlike most of Analogue’s consoles, the SuperStation supports installing and running other FPGA “cores” to re-create other consoles (think of FPGA cores like you’d think of software emulators—generally, you’re going to need a separate one for every console you want to emulate). The SuperStation is based on the established MiSTer platform, which already has a huge library of console and PC cores available, including but not limited to the Nintendo 64 and Sega Saturn. Retro Remake also says that being based on the MiSTer platform makes the console “open source from day 1.”
Analogue has its own competing open source library of FPGA cores, called OpenFPGA. But so far, the handheld Analogue Pocket is the only one of the company’s consoles to support the initiative.