The SNES and Mega Drive / Genesis may have dominated the console landscape in the early '90s, but they were by no means the most powerful machines of their era. That distinction goes to SNK's Neo Geo AES, often described as the "Rolls-Royce" of game consoles. It's a good analogy to make, as the machine was insanely expensive while Nintendo and Sega's platforms were more affordable, but the gulf in price was valid; the Neo Geo offered arcade-quality visuals and audio, luxuries which SNES and Genesis owners could only dream of – just as the average early '90s Ford driver could only dream of lush leather interiors and a purring 6.75 litre, V8 engine.
Prior to the launch of the Neo Geo, SNK had a solid reputation for creating coin-op titles, with games such as Mad Crasher, Alpha Mission, Athena and Ikari Warriors – the latter of which was ported to the NES in 1987 to commercial acclaim, earning the company a new legion of global fans. However, while rival arcade manufacturers such as Capcom, Taito and Konami were content to focus on generating revenue via domestic conversions of their leading coin-op hits, SNK decided to forge its own path by creating a unique arcade hardware standard accompanied by a home console variant which would receive identical software.
Based on the SNK/Alpha Denshi M68000 arcade platform which powered 1987's Time Soldiers / Battlefield, the Neo Geo arrived in April 1990 in two forms: the arcade-based Multi Video System (MVS) and the domestic Advanced Entertainment System (AES). The hardware was the same across both formats, as were the games – the big difference was that the cartridges had pinouts that were unique to each standard, so MVS games could not be played on the AES, and vice versa. This was an intentional move by SNK to prevent unscrupulous arcade operators from using the cheaper AES cartridges in their cabinets. Even though MVS games were more expensive at the time, AES software was still prohibitively costly for the typical gamer, with the average title priced at around $200.
Powered by a Motorola 68000 CPU / Zilog Z80 coprocessor setup and boasting custom graphics hardware designed by SNK itself, the Neo Geo comprehensively outgunned its domestic rivals when it came to visual and audio excellence. Sprite scaling was commonplace in many games, while large and smoothly-animated sprites were the norm. Even when the marketplace began to shift towards 3D visuals – something the Neo Geo couldn't produce – it continued to lead the way in terms of pure 2D graphics, with cartridge sizes ballooning to accommodate the increasingly detailed animation and hand-drawn pixel visuals.
SNK's console also introduced some technical innovations which were adopted by its rivals. While the Sony PlayStation is often credited with the idea of removable memory cards for game save data, this was in fact a feature on the Neo Geo four years earlier. The idea was that you could play your favourite SNK game in the arcade, save your position on the card and insert it into your AES console when you got back home to continue where you left off. Given their arcade focus, Neo Geo games did not feature battery backup for data retention and therefore this memory card was the only means of preserving your progress, making it an essential item for serious fans.
The AES was initially exclusive to hotels and bars via a rental system, but demand for the product convinced SNK to release the console at retail. Even so, the machine's mainstream aspirations were somewhat limited due to its high cost; it therefore became seen as a luxury gaming platform rather than a serious challenger to the SNES and Genesis. In North America, the "Gold System" AES package was sold for $649.99 with two joysticks (themselves roughly the same size as a Genesis) and a game, while the cheaper "Silver System" bundle cost $399.99 with a single joystick and no game. By the standards of the time these prices bordered on the exorbitant, limiting the system's audience almost exclusively to adult buyers with large disposable incomes. Unless you had rich parents - if you were a young gamer at the time - the Neo Geo was out of bounds. Later in the decade, SNK attempted to make its system more mass-market by releasing several CD-ROM-based variants of the Neo Geo hardware which offered lower-priced games thanks to the massive storage potential of optical media, but these sold in small quantities and were plagued by reliability issues.
Despite the niche nature of the Neo Geo, the success of SNK's excellent arcade output – twinned with a long line of ports to consoles like the SNES, Genesis, PC Engine and even the humble Game Boy – generated interest in the console and gave it a massive mindshare in the gaming sector. Given that AES software was the same as the arcade variant, the cost of releasing a home version of any particular game was relatively low; SNK knew it had a small but dedicated fanbase which would happily lap up new releases, irrespective of their high retail cost. This modestly-sized yet dedicated demand lasted for over a decade – giving the AES a lifespan much longer than the SNES or Genesis – with the final official release being Samurai Shodown V Special, which arrived in 2004, although third-parties have continued to support the machine in the years since then.
While many of the Neo Geo's best games have been ported to other consoles either individually, in retro compilations or as part of efforts to keep the name alive with new hardware, the console's value has remained sky-high. Ironically, the AES system – which was supposed to be the more cost-effective option back in the '90s – is now generally more expensive to collect for due to the low production numbers of various key titles. Metal Slug is perhaps the most famous example; the MVS edition is common and relatively cheap, while the AES version is incredibly rare and worth over $3,000. Another example is the European version of Kizuna Encounter, which is reported to have sold for as much as $15,000 in the past – despite the fact that the MVS edition sells for less than $50 and the Japanese AES edition (identical aside from the packaging) is much cheaper.
The rising cost of AES ownership has led to a rise of MVS-based systems, ranging from messy DIY conversions to lavishly-produced custom consoles like the gorgeous Analogue CMVS, which takes the original MVS arcade hardware and places it in a fetching wooden case. While the MVS route is certainly the one which is easiest on the wallet, you miss out on the satisfying smugness which comes from owning the beautiful AES console, as well as the colourful game packaging and manuals. Thankfully, the advance of technology means there's now an acceptable middle ground these days. Adapters like the MVS Magic Key permit AES owners to run MVS carts on their systems, and even include support for (admittedly shady) multi-game carts which contain almost every Neo Geo game ever made. These options dramatically reduce the cost of being part of the super-exclusive Neo Geo Club, but they also remove the perverse thrill of blowing a month's salary on a mint AES game which – it should always be remembered – you could obtain and enjoy for significantly less money via a digital download service like the Virtual Console.
Indeed, being a Neo Geo collector is to fly in the face of common sense and commit yourself fully to the crippling cost of owning what surely has to rank as the most expensive games system of all time. However, the fact that its value on the second hand market has remained so high for so long is testament to one indisputable fact: the Neo Geo is home to some of the best 2D titles ever made. Long may its unique legacy endure.
Comments 47
I'd love a consolized MVS, but it's just too expensive to justify, despite having tons of games I'd want and would actually play on the regular. It'd be worth it, but I just don't have the money right now and when I do, I can't bring myself to do it. They also just released an MVS everdrive a week or so ago. Still runs expensive, but realistically it's the cost of 2-3 games to basically have them all for free after that. It's also worth noting that with all the consolized MVS systems and the (still expensive) MVS -> AES converters, MVS prices are climbing too, slowly but obviously will come nowhere near AES titles.
And this is coming from a guy who has spent several hundred euro on individual games and has more consoles than he needs/knows what to do with.....
If anything I've been contemplating TurboGrafx16, but that's very hard/expensive to do here in Europe....
Sigh, what am I doing with my life...
Mhh, When i saw this i was playing Samurai Shodown II, a Neo Geo game, on the Anthology for the Wii. Great game!, but really hard.
NeoGeo AES, the monster of all console. Not only is the console big and expensive, the games are just as equal in high quality as their arcade cabinet counterparts. Definitely worth their collector's price. Of course I could never afford one let alone collect games for it.
I have an AES and a consolized MVS. I love having them. If you love arcade games of yesteryears then you owe yourself these systems by saving up your cash. I lucked out and purchased mine nearly 15 years ago before the market for these things became crazy. Like back in the day when Nintendo items were dirt cheap.
@JohnBlackstar Yeah, sadly retro collecting has become a big hobby in the past 5 years or so. Not sadly because "It's my hobby, it has to be niche!" but because it means prices have exploded and rare items can be even harder to come by.
Ah... the Neo Geo...
The console that was and always will be out of reach of most gamers. Luckily, I've got NeoRAGEx on PC, GxGeo on the Wii, and NeoDS on my DSi XL, so I'm good...
Unfortunately this system consists of mostly fighting games, I don't know any games other than Metal Slug and Magician Lord that switch up the overload that is the fighting genre on this system.
I never knew anyone who actually owned a NEO-GEO. I just remember seeing ads in the game mags all the time back then,like GamePro.
@Furealz True, most of the games available are fighting games, but there's also a decent amount of side scrolling shooters, puzzle games, 2D platformers and sports games as well.
EDIT:
I forgot to mention that it also has a couple of good top-down racing games.
I want one. I will have one. One day.
One.
If it doesn't have Blast Processing, it isn't cool enough for me.
@Furealz yeah, it has a lot of fighters. But as mentioned, it has good games in other genres. There are six Metal Slug games(1-5 and X) which is nice. There are some nice shooters. I don't know what you like, but Shock Troopers is great if you like overhead run and guns. It's easily available now too.
When I was in 3rd grade, probably around 1993, I remember my friend at school telling me he had a a NeoGeo. His dad was very well off and owned an arcade in one of the Dallas malls.
I'm a collector but, more and more I'm just regretting spending so much money on stuff that doesn't really matter. I think I'm getting to the point now where I only want to collect games I love, and I really have no interest in paying exorbitant sums of money for something just because it's rare.
My collection will be my gaming library that I accumulate over time with the titles that I love enough to purchase. Which admittedly is a lot, but my days of just buying any and every game for the sake of collecting is pretty much over. When Switch arrives, I won't be buying all the Mario Party's and WarioWares and stuff. I'm sticking to games I actually deem worth buying and my collection will be only top rated gems. Nothing else.
I've got a four slot MVS in my JAMMA cabinet, it's a great system. My favourite games are Metal Slug and Puzzle Bobble, although I'm quite fond of Neo Turf Masters too.
Oh man I always wanted one of these. To this day I wish I had several grand to buy one and a bunch of games.
I always wanted a Neo Geo, and would probably have bought one if I had been a grown adult at the time.
I'm pretty sure that new, downloadable games for the eShop with Neo geo-quality pixel art would be popular nowadays. There are lots of 2D games, but they all tend to use the hand drawn style, which is not quite as satisfying.
I remember reading about neo geo games in a dutch magazine. It was such a mysterious system to me. Never saw one in real life, never heard anybody talk about it. Being a kid I could only afford SNES games on sale, the prices of neo geo games were literally unbelievable to me. They still are to be honest.
I never owned a Neo Geo, but SNK is one of my favorite game companies. I've bought and downloaded many of their games on different consoles over the years.
The Neo is my favourite console. I have an AES with 32 games and a frontloading CD system with around 50 titles.
Thankfully, most of the system's best games can now be bought via the Wii's Virtual Console and/or through compilations for less than $10 a game.
Blazing Star, played that at a convention. It plays well but man the animation and sprites is just pure eye candy of the sweetest variety.
Meh, mostly fighters and junk on Neo-Geo. TG-16/PCe is a SHMUP fan's dream.
My best friends parents had one when I was in elementary school. I never got to play it cause the were afraid we would break it or something. I did get to see it though.
I do now have a consolized MVS and I love it. Worth every penny.
I managed to get mine with a combination of a decent week's paycheck w/OT, my first tax refund, and store credit at my favorite game shop back in '94. I bought it because I wasn't satisfied with console ports of arcade games and I loved the "arcade hardware at home" quality of the Neo Geo. (and of course, it took a few more years before the PCs and emulators became good enough to run those games at full speed) I still have 2 games left for it but I've been considering moving to MVS for a while, or even an actual NeoGeo arcade cabinet! For me, there's nothing like the feel of original hardware.
Metal Slug is hands down THE BEST run'n gun platformer series!
I'd never heard of the Neo Geo until the Internet. Did it get sold in U.K. stores?
I have one and cherrish it. it is a thing of beauty.
The Neo Geo AES or MVS was never officially released here in the Uk, it was like some sort of mythical beast that you heard about, but never actually saw.
You could get them from imported from specialist gaming shops, but the games were so expensive.
I could never afford one in my 20s but it taunted me for a decade. I finally bought an AES about 12 years ago. My lord those carts are enormous! It's one of those things where desire trumps common sense. It was almost impossible to collect on the system as the prices for the majority of the carts were still and are still ridiculous. After two years of owning it and the few carts below 50 quid I bit the bullet and sold it. I mmore than made my money back so my advice is to go for it if you feel the need. I now have the cd system where the games are far easier to come by and it still a beautiful system. Yes the load times are long but who really cares. I love the Cd system so would recommend that to fans too.
@Furealz Fighting games were the most popular genre in that era and Street Fighter was as popular at Mario. When I see the state of the genre now, something went really wrong.
@Fandabidozi A few specialist retailers stocked it, like ACE and Telegames. Magazines likes CVG and Mean Machines gave it a lot of coverage too.
@JaxonH
Yeah I can definitely relate on that. As time goes by one's priorities swift and I tell myself the same thing! Lol 😂
I got mine in '94 for around $400 with Magician Lord. That was most of my summer job money at the time. Didn't get another game until around 2000 when I started looking around eBay.
The Neo Geo really is [still] a gorgeous system imo.
Great review! Makes me want to get one of those bad boys so bad... but alas, no more day dreaming for me.
@JaxonH I completely share your pain, though in my case it's just wasted potential on all the consoles I've collected over the past 30 years.
I love video games, and I love the fact that I have access to nearly every retail console on the market. My issue is that I never actually use them, and looking at my collection I just can't help but feel empty.
I've been considering donating off these old systems so that others can play the games I loved way back. And like you I think I'll just stick to collecting games (that I'll possibly never actually play). My 3DS and Xbox One take up too much time for that at the moment.
@biscuitsandtea
Wow, surprised to see so many feel the same way.
It's been a slow, hard lesson to learn, but I finally see how I just lust for more and more and more and nomatter how much I get, I feel no different after getting it than I did before.
I let it get out of control for a bit too with figures and merchandise and all other manner of collectibles, until I had so much I started boxing them up so as to not have too many figures on display (a few is nice but a crap load can just look weird).
I got that Zelda Nenderoid in the mail a few weeks ago- I'd completely forgotten I'd ordered it, and right away I regretted it. I didnt even open it cause I just don't care. That's how bad it was. Every day getting 2-6 items in the mail, half the time not even knowing what it is until I see it.
All that money could have been donated to the poor or something actually useful. I just can't reconcile spending all this money on collectibles just because- stuff which I immediately forget about as soon as I buy it. Somethings gotta give. I could have paid my new car off with all the money I spend on extra collectibles (games included) above and beyond the core games I'm actually really drawn to
@JaxonH It's a lesson I feel I've learned too late in my life span 😄 but still a good lesson nonetheless. I have a few Nendoroids left on preorder that I plan on paying off and never going into that category again. A good hundred or so pounds that could have gone into an earlier Switch preorder if I do say so myself, not to mention that there are simply too many of them to be satisfied.
Don't be too hard on yourself, you were in a position to purchase collectibles and you did, and for a time I'm sure it made you happy. They're still nice collectibles, but I personally think you ought to put a complete hold on purchasing every figure on amiami. Look at your collection, consider what you want on display, and put the rest away/sell them/donate them/all up to you.
That's what I've been doing anyway It keeps a clean home while keeping it not as plain as it once was. Just don't have too much out, materialism for company is a bad idea.
Well, a V4 or V6 engine pollutes less than a V8 engine, and isn't so obnoxiously noisy, so sometimes it's better to have something that's just powerful enough. It's not like anyone can take advantage of souped up machines with all the bottlenecks and traffic on the more populated roads and highways anyways. (Or in this case, information highways.)
Here's to not needing a big, clunky internal combustion engine anymore for a good vehicle! You can emulate Neo Geo games just fine on the Wii! (Or Wii U in Wii mode.) Using MAME on PC is no slouch, either! It's a lot easier to play Garou: Mark of the Wolves, Sengoku 3, Samurai Shodown 2, Magician Lord, The Last Blade 1 & 2, Metal Slug 3, Windjammers, and King of Fighters 2002 that way. Good luck finding carts for any of those without going bankrupt, unless you have thousands of dollars to burn...
@Rontanamo_Bay Well, the 3DO had the improved version of Star Control 2, which is one of the best games of all time. (Available as freeware by the title "The Ur-Quan Masters" on PC now, with developer approval) It was almost worth the cost of the system by itself back then, like Super Mario 64 for the N64, Nights for the Saturn, and Crash Bandicoot for the PS1.
@JaxonH You've had a very good revelation- the only collection worth having is that which really matters to you.
@PlywoodStick
Or even the 3DS! Preferably New 3DS, but still. I play Garou Mark of the Wolves, Samurai Showdown II and Sengoku 3 on my modded 3DS and they're very playable, which is extraordinary given the power of the 3DS and the fact it's actually having to emulate the Neo Geo to run it.
Also... indeed. A lesson well learned.
@JaxonH Is that modded 3DS the New or Old model? Probably New, but just curious. It would be amazing if the Old model could pull it off.
@PlywoodStick
New, but I'm pretty sure they can run on the old model too, maybe just not quite as good. There's occasional screen tear on the left-center side of the screen, which only happens for a split second during some action and can be minimized by over clocking and adjusting the settings. I can't say for sure but I know there was a NeoGeo emulator for the DS, and OG 3DS is more powerful than the DS was.
@JaxonH nicely put. It's something a lot of people come to realize, myself included. It's easy to get overwhelmed by "stuff", and that even goes for digital stuff(games, pictures, video, audio, etc). I do like digital stuff, though, since it doesn't take up physical space aside from any drives for it to reside. At the same time, it's quite human to enjoy such things and even to collect to some degree. I like to leave the serious collecting to serious collectors, which is not something I want to be. It helps to take time to actively appreciate what you already have. There's much more that can be said about something like this, but I'll leave it at that. Good luck to you.
The price of postage is dampening my collecting urges atm, which is a good thing as I've got boxes and boxes of comics, action figures, Lego etc.
Looking forward to selling a lot of it off next year and decluttering.
Another perfect time to show off my two Neo Geo 2 sticks for Wii! They did cost me a fortune, about $175 total for both in new condition. But it doesn't even come close to the cost of Neo Geo console and cartridges themselves. I feel like I can come pretty close this way.
Tap here to load 47 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...