The Story Of NEO GEO | Featuring Modern Vintage Gamer, RetroRGB, Jenovi, & Neo-Alec

when the Neo Geo AES home console was released to the public in 1991 it could be described in two words impressive and expensive other home console spent the 90s promising to bring the arcade to consumers homes and while there were some impressive home ports many of the best conversions those systems could deliver we're still just close approximation a lot of other companies talked about a cave quality conversions or arcade perfect conversions of games but this was the real deal I mean you were literally bringing the arcade experience harmed that's in case Neo Geo on the other hand brought truly perfect Neo Geo MVS arcade games to the home but this level of quality came at a steep steep cost on release the Neo Geo gold system bundle which included two arcade quality joysticks and a game would set you back six hundred dollars or more and after that you can look forward to paying around $200 or more per Neo Geo game cartridge it was a premium home gaming experience at a premium price but Neo Geo's home console legacy is much more than its high-end cost the Neo Geo AES shipped with high quality arcade joysticks it was the first console to feature memory cards for game saves which could even be used to continue a save game at either the arcade or from the comfort of your own home Neo Geo enjoyed 14 years of officially licensed games a cd-rom variant and delivered an uncompromised arcade experience to the home that its contemporaries couldn't touch from its origins as an arcade system its transition from a Japan exclusive rental unit to a home console modern iterations and the hyper Neo Geo 64-bit follow-up this is Neo Geo story the Neo Geo Hardware was a product of shin Nihon keikaku or as it's better known SNK a Japanese company founded by former arcade operator akicha Kawasaki in 1978 at the time the Japanese coin op industry was booming and Kawasaki saw an opportunity to get his own piece of the gaming pie with a high demand for new games already in place all that the Osaka based SNK needed to do was supply product as was evidenced by their first foray into arcades 1978 my con kit which was essentially not much more than a clone of Ataris hit game breakout over the next two years SNK released seven more arcade titles including what many consider their first true hit 1981's Vanguard a side-scrolling shooter that's often cited as influencing other shoot-'em-up classics such as Gradius vanguard was licensed to Centauri from North American distribution where it outperformed SNK x' projections bolstered by its financial success SNK began to distribute Vanguard in North America for themselves and a few years later officially established SNK Corporation of America in California in 1986 with industry veteran paul jacobs at the helm as president as the number of SNK arcade titles rose so did their profits SNK spun off several of their arcade hits such as 1986's Ikari warriors to home consoles and computers SNK had become a player both at the arcade and in the living room as SNK approached the end of its first decade in the gaming industry if not itself healthier than ever both financially and creatively SNK was even one of the five original NES licensees and created unique titles for the NES such as 1989's baseball stars and 1990s Crystalis business was booming and SN K's most ambitious project was just around the corner on January 31st 1990s NK unveiled the Neo Geo MVS systems to Japanese arcade operators and distributors at the Tokyo in in Osaka Japan two months later SNK of America introduced the MVS to American arcade owners and distributors at the Acme coin-op convention that took place in Chicago from March 9th to March 11 the Neo Geo MVS which stands for multi video system was essentially Essen Kay's magnum opus an arcade cabinet that depending on the configuration was capable of holding up to six different games in its cartridge slots rather than buying multiple expensive cabinets for each SNK title arcade owners could buy one MVS cabinet then simply purchase individual mvsgame cartridges whenever SNK released new games the MVS cartridges were much cheaper than purchasing an entire standard arcade cabinet they took only minutes to change and since Neo Geo's mvs could house multiple cartridges at once the system also saved arcade operators on precious floor space but the benefits didn't end there for gamers Neo Geo MVS machines featured headphone jacks and memory card slots that would allow players to save their games and continue where they left off once they returned later these same memory cards could be used to continue a game at home on a Neo Geo AES our coin-operated machines use the pause system which calculates the earnings of each machine on its software in seconds for our K donors there were bookkeeping features that could store gameplay times earnings information settings and more with enough memory to store up to a year's worth of stats SNK also included four games with every MVS during a special introductory period for the iconic black and red cabinet it should be noted that SNK didn't develop the Neo Geo platform on their own much of the Neo Geo hardware was designed by alpha density employee ihe fukatsu and is an upgrade of their alpha 68k arcade system from 1986 alpha den she's name can even be seen on the schematics of various Neo Geo boards alpha den she also known as a DK was a video game developer that had a close relationship with SNK and would go on to develop many Neo Geo games including the Neo Geo AES packin game magician Lord the first time I'd heard about Neo Geo was way back in 1990 when I was visiting the US for the first time I was staying with my cousin and he was a big video game fan as well and he had told me that there was a 7-eleven down the street from his house that had this brand-new four slot MVS SNK cabinet I was immediately drawn to this machine and this game system it was absolutely incredible to seeing these two the you know zooming and scaling graphics that were really just showing you what this hardware was capable of the Neo Geo MVS arcade cabinets were a hit but they weren't alone as kay had also created the Neo Geo AES originally in 1990 the Neo Geo AES was marketed as a home rental system which effectively ended up being almost like a test market for the system due to demand SNK began selling it directly to consumers on the home market soon after the Neo Geo AES didn't just bring a near arcade-like experience to the home it was the arcade experience I think the biggest thing that set the Neo Geo apart from all other consoles of that era was you weren't playing a home port of an arcade game if you were lucky enough to own an AE es you were playing the arcade game that ProGear spec that you see on the startup screen means that it's real arcade hardware in your home the AES was powered in part by a 16-bit 68,000 family's CPU a 68 kit was at heart of numerous computers and consoles such as the Sega Genesis Philips CDI sorry Jaguar and many more Neo Geo wasn't difficult to emulate in MAME because it used a motorola 68000 and there wasn't really much protection in their game some games were protected but most of them weren't which means you could just pretty much just dump the roms and then with something like MAME you could get the games to work without too much difficulty there was some work that needed to be done with mappers and some decryption later on in some games Neo Geo was pretty easy to emulate so a lot of my experiences with Neo Geo games was either playing them on emulators or even working on them when I was in a porting things like vinyl burn to the Xbox and to other systems even though Neo Geo's 68000 clockspeed only ran about 50 percent faster than that of the genesis its graphical and other hardware capabilities left consoles of the time in the dust Neo Geo Hardware has several other chips such as a Cylon z80 coprocessor for sound and a powerful custom chipset Neo Geo's combination of hardware allowed for large sprites scaling effects and a 65,536 color palette with a maximum of 4096 colors on screen at one Essen Ches dedication to bringing the arcade experience to the home wasn't limited to the consoles internals the joysticks bundled with the AES were large 11 inches long behemoths that match the MVS arcade cabinet joystick layout and quality the MVS headphone jack was carried over as well as the previously mentioned memory card slot the NeoGeo memory cards could store approximately 20 games worth of saves and score data Neo Geo's large ROM cartridge sizes something had boasted about in its start up screen and game packaging also allowed games to hold far more graphic and other game data than its competitors ironically NeoGeo underestimated the 330 megabit maximum card size it proudly displayed on stardom as later games like 2003's King of Fighters would weigh in in the 700 megabit range in short the NeoGeo was a 2d powerhouse who's aggressive hardware specs would receive an equally aggressive marketing campaign [Music] you wanted more house arcade-like four dimensional graphics and 15 channel stereo sound name gee no the AES was marketed towards the older more hardcore gamer gamers who are willing to pay whatever it took to bring a true arcade experience home I don't remember when I first heard about the Neo Geo by remember obsessing over it and magazines from a young age maybe you know I'm remembering things differently but for me the heart for the Neo Geo was massive I stopped by some kids house that I kind of knew and he was so proud that he had just gotten a Neo Geo it was a very expensive system to acquire I mean you had to be you had to be rich in order to afford one after he told me how much he paid for it all I could think about was I had spent all summer long just mowing lawns raking leaves doing everything I could to be able to buy both a Genesis and the Super Nintendo with a couple of games and as hard as I'd worked to make that happen I still spent less money that he'd spent on one console and one cartridge with one controller I like to refer to the Neo Geo as an aspirational system because a lot of nineties kids would have liked to own one back then but it was always out of reach what I really remember about the Neo Geo though was naively filling out those sweepstake cards in gaming magazines thinking that it was a realistic way of obtaining one I also remember looking over the priceless in the back of those magazines and realizing that if I did on the system I would never be able to afford the games for it Neo Geo's ad campaign featured provocative ads double entendres cold hard spec comparisons and a healthy those of 90s attitude SM K's ads may have been over-the-top but it's hard to argue that their message wasn't true the system was marketed as a 24-bit console some people think maybe they just added together the 16 and 8 bits of the two processors though the system did have a 24-bit graphics bus measuring a consoles power in bits was kind of stupid but SNK was looking for a way to differentiate NeoGeo from the 16-bit consoles at the time it's worth noting that Neo Geo's Japanese advertisements were just as out there and memorable [Music] [Music] [Music] aside from stand-alone TV and magazine ads there were special several pages long advertisements from Neo Geo and it's games that appeared in gaming magazines such as eg M these inserts often featured Chad Okada aka the game Lord Okada became a Neo Geo mascot / spokesperson of sorts Okada was even one of the featured interviews on an SNK special that aired on the now-defunct g4 TV network although SNK never expected for the AES to move anywhere near the amount of units that Sega Nintendo did with their much cheaper systems that didn't mean that SNK didn't want to sell as many consoles as they possibly could Wallis and Kei had built a nice catalog of fairly popular home and arcade titles it lacked one major piece of the puzzle that its 16-bit rival seemingly had from the start a system identifying game and mascot something that was easily and readily identifiable with the Neo Geo Nintendo had Mario Sega had Sonic and even the turbo graphics 16 had its own iconic mascot and bonk [Music] luckily for SNK a revolutionary new game from a third-party developer would soon give them the opening they needed to fill their void and in typical SNK fashion it would be bigger and badder than just a game or a singular mascot Neo Geo was about to take an entire game genre as its own in April of 1991 the 90s arcade fighting game craze began with the release of Capcom seminal Street Fighter 2 unless you were alive to experience it at the time it's hard to truly grasp the massive impact that Street Fighter 2 had it was everywhere grocery stores had Street Fighter 2 arcade cabinets laundromats gas stations convenience stores rec centers and of course arcades Street Fighter 2 was the very definition of a smash hit and SNK responded with a fighting game of their own when fatal fury king of fighters was released seven months later in November of 1991 nearly simultaneously to both Neo Geo MVS arcade cabinets and the AES home console while Street Fighter 2 fans would have to wait until the following year for downgraded ports to the SNES and Genesis Neo Geo AES owners were able to play the exact same fatal fury they saw in arcades in the comfort of their own home fatal fury whose King of Fighters subtitle would go on to become the name of arguably SN K's most popular and well-known fighting franchise was spearheaded by Takashi nishiyama the creator of the original 1987 Street Fighter game Takashi's saw fatal fury as the spiritual successor to Street Fighter and while there are certainly some gameplay and visual similarities it wasn't just a clone of Street Fighter fatal fury offered several different game mechanics such as being able to move characters into the background plane a limited co-op fighting mode where when the second player joined the game in the midst of a one-player versi pu match both human players would team up to take out the cpu before their player-versus-player bout began fatal fury wasn't as big a hit or as well reviewed as street fighter ii but Neo Geo had found its calling card with the general public fighting games Neo Geo's fighting games never rose to the level of popularity of the street fighter franchise but they left an indelible mark on the genre with features such as impressive sprite scaling when opponents fight in closed quarters weapon based combat and more SNK and Capcom's fighting feud would continue throughout the 90s leading to dozens of fighting games being developed for the Neo Geo eventually Capcom and SNK swore culminated in the aptly named Capcom vs. SNK and SNK vs. Capcom series for critics that dismissed Neo Geo's fighting games as Street Fighter 2 clones there was Samurai Shodown a blood and weapon filled game that featured an improved version of the scaling graphics first scene and Neo Geo's art of fighting 1994 Samurai Shodown included numerous and varied attacks combos and a distinct almost anime like art style Samurai Shodown was also one of the few Neo Geo games not to receive an arcade perfect port on the AES North America's public hysteria over the blood and gore of mortal combat resulted in SNK of Japan removing samurais showdowns fatal blows as well as the blood which much like the SNES version of MK 1 was replaced with mists of sweat in 1994 SNK also released King of Fighters for its Neo Geo systems King of Fighters allowed the player to choose a team of three fighters when one of the team's fighters was knocked out the next in line would take their place this team play mechanic was unique and addictive King of Fighters was a major critical and financial hit for Neo Geo and SNK wisely took a page out of Capcom's book and released new king of fighter games as quickly as they could the history depth and variety of Neo Geo's fighting games could easily be its own long-form video but Neo Geo was more than just a fighting game machine [Music] Metal Slug amongst Neo Geo's other famous titles were Metal Slug king of the monsters magician Lord Aero fighters 2 and more and SNK weren't the only ones making Neo Geo games third-party titles of famous IPs such as Double Dragon and Bomberman were also brought over to Neo Geo the criticism Neo Geo gets I guess is that there's too much fighting games there's too much filler but for me you know my favorite Neo Geo games I would say that Metal Slug X is one of my favorites viewpoint is definitely another one the viewpoint is a excellent isometric shooter that is just kind of underrated but it's such a classic game to play my favorite Neo Geo games tend to be the really obvious heavy hitters the King of Fighters series the first four samurai shodown titles the real bout fatal fury games people may laugh but I really like ghosts lob it's not an obvious choice because the game wasn't even officially released but I'm not very good at puzzle games and ghost lab just seems to get me some of Neo Geo's titles particularly the fighting games were ported over to other systems like the Super Nintendo these ports were noticeably downgraded and weren't received nearly as well as Capcom's own 16-bit Street Fighter titles for gamers that wanted a true SNK arcade experience at home the Neo Geo AES was still the only option however as the general quality of 16-bit games improved the high cost of Neo Geo's cartridges was becoming more and more difficult for some consumers to justify even 16-bit ports of coin-op games were inching closer and closer to their arcade counterparts and games like Donkey Kong Country and gun star heroes showed that there were plenty of impressive graphics to be found on the Genesis and Super Nintendo unfortunately for SNK gamers were spending more and more of their dollars on 16-bit games and said about arcades between the dwindling arcade market upcoming next-gen consoles like the PlayStation consumer trends rapidly shifting towards 3d gaming and Neo Geo's small niche home console market share as the mid-90s approached us in case feature didn't look quite as bright as it used to S&K knew that they wouldn't be able to be competitive by continuing to sell new games for $200 they also understood that Neo Geo though still a powerful 2d workhorse would soon be perceived as outdated hardware by the public due to its inability to keep up in the bargaining world of 3d gaming but just like the characters had featured in many of its games SNK wasn't going to go down without a fight and made plans to address both the cost of its cartridges and its future in an industry that would soon be ruled by polygons the only question was would it be enough Neo Geo CD was developed the two years after the AES system had been brought home AES system was wonderful even though it was expensive the cartridges which were basically two hundred and then $250 costs was just restricted SNK released a Neo Geo CD in Japan in September of 1994 and later in the u.s. in January of 1996 in Japan the Neo Geo CD was initially quite successful selling out its first production run in just one day the Neo Geo CD would chip with more traditional game pads as opposed to the massive arcade level joysticks that were bundled with the original AES console despite the long load times the Neo Geo CD was basically identical hardware to the cartridge systems and due to the lower cost of the games the system was within reach for a wider market of gamers in Japan the Neo Geo CD shipped with a slow single speed cd-rom drive wasn't unusual for gamers to encounter numerous loading screens sometimes lasting 30 to 60 seconds or more during their gameplay sessions while I really loved the MVS I become a diehard collector of the games for the Neo Geo CD what I really love about the Neo Geo CD is that every disc contains a full Redbook audio sound track meaning that I can put it in samurai shodown RPG into my discman and enjoy the music even if the language barrier keeps me from enjoying the game even the Neo Geo CD which you know admittedly does have some limitations particularly around loading speeds and things like that but when the games are loaded they play exactly the same way as they do on the arcade experience or on the AES in December of 1995 SNK released the Neo Geo CD Z which had reduced load times thanks to its use of a double speed cd-rom drive this model however was only released in Japan meaning that other parts of the world were stuck with single speed load times unless they imported a Japanese model the Neo Geo CD received a few exclusive titles such as the samurai spirits RPG which was also only released in Japan unfortunately the Neo Geo CDs load times and lack of 3d capabilities saw it receive unfavorable reviews in western publications by the time the Neo Geo CD was released in North America the home console gaming landscape had changed significantly no longer was Neo Geo only competing against the Genesis turbo graphics 16 in Super Nintendo the 3do had been available since 1993 the Sega Saturn had already been on store shelves for six months before the Neo Geo CDs release and the Sony Playstation had been available since September have you experienced there was a power of the panasonic 3do system with their cutting-edge 3d graphic capabilities the 3do Saturn and PlayStation were seen as more capable than the aging Neo Geo hardware as if new consoles weren't enough to contend with the Genesis and Super Nintendo were still going strong with new titles being released each month heading into 1996 for Neo Geo home consoles the writing was on the wall by this point King of Fighters was an established and successful franchise that had become an important component of SN K's bottom line 1996 was also the year that the wildly successful running gun Metal Slug series was introduced King of Fighters and Metal Slug who were helping to keep SNK afloat and relevant but while s in case arcade business was still doing well it was a different story on the home console front due in large part to the decline of Neo Geo's home console business SNK had little choice but to put less resources into it and instead focus more on its still profitable arcade division AES and seedy Neo Geo consoles all but disappeared from retail stores customers could still order a AES games directly from SNK but it took longer and longer for those orders to be filled SNK of Japan scaled back their American operations and though there was still in office in California SNK of Japan was practically running the American branch's operations by the end of the year the Neo Geo brand had taken some major hits and looked to be on its last legs but SNK had one last Hail Mary left in its playbook towards the end of 1995 SNK announced a follow-up to their Neo Geo Hardware the hyper Neo Geo 64 initially slated for a late 1996 release the long-awaited system wasn't seen in action until February of 1997 at the AO you show but instead of dazzling attendees with an arcade cabinet worthy of carrying Neo Geo's name to the realm of 3d gaming all SNK had to show was a videotape with less than a minute of footage from Samurai Shodown 64 the hyper Neo Geo 64 was finally released September of 1997 but by then the hardware already looked outdated when compared to the more robust cabinets from Namco and others in total only seven games were released for the Neo Geo 64 platform and none were considered breakout hits or particularly well received as you can imagine no home console based on the hyper Neo Geo 64 hardware was ever produced in spite of the hyper Neo Geo 64's lack of success SNK decided to once again re expand its offices in the US towards the end of 1990 seven thanks to this renewed attention to the North American market a EES cartridges became easier to purchase and several SNK titles were released on other consoles such as the PlayStation unfortunately for SNK this wouldn't lead to a full resurrection of the brand as the 90s came to a close business at arcades continue to dwindle and while there was still a market for fighting games their popularity was nowhere near the heights it had reached earlier in the decade this was bad news for SNK a company who was primarily associated by many with fighting games SNK stopped producing Neo Geo hardware in 1997 and their next big move was an entry into the portable market with 1998 Neo Geo pocket which was first only released in Japan and Europe and then replaced with the backwards-compatible Neo Geo pocket color in 1999 which did see a US release though it carried the Neo Geo name as well as series made famous on the MVS AAS hardware this was its own separate product the Neo Geo pocket achieved a 2% market share in North America and while the device itself turned a small profit it wouldn't be enough to keep the company afloat in 2000 SNK was bought out by a ruzic a company that specialized in pachinko games although SNK continued to release arcade and home console games in 2000 and 2001 SNK x' legendary intellectual properties were now mostly serving as fodder for roses pachinko machines aru's a gave little support to SNK x' video game development division and the Neo Geo pocket color was discontinued in the US and Europe in mid 2000 with Japan following suit in 2001 through all of this s in case financial situation continued to degrade prior to a ruse a purchase SNK had signed a deal with Capcom that would allow the two companies to make games using each other's characters Capcom vs. SNK and the sequel was released to the Dreamcast ps2 and arcade but since they were developed by Capcom they earned most of the revenue not SNK SNK did release two of its own SNK vs. Capcom games for the Neo Geo pocket color but their sales did little to improve SNK s-- financial outlook unhappy with what had become of the company that he created a kiichi Kawasaki left us and Kei and along with five former SNK executives formed Rezo soft aru's they proceeded to close all SNK businesses outside of japan which only further exacerbated SN k's financial woes summer is a shareholders filed a lawsuit that alleged the company's willful mismanagement was responsible for sm k's losses which at this point had reached somewhere in the neighborhood of 258 million dollars this lawsuit compounded with s and k's debt led to a ruse a placing the company into bankruptcy in 2001 but instead of being the end of SNK its bankruptcy would be its rebirth on the heels of their bankruptcy proceedings being finalized in October of 2001 SNK announced on their website that the company would be closing its doors this should have been the end of SNK but just two months prior SN case founder akicha Kawasaki started up another new company named Playboy [Music] play more successfully purchased the rights to most of us in Kay's intellectual property then purchase bread soft rehired many former S&K employees and to jumpstart game development bought noise Factory with part of Essen Kay's old team haven't been reassembled play more produce new products for NeoGeo home and arcade systems as well as for other consoles such as the PlayStation and Dreamcast and at 2003's III declare its plans to reintroduce MVS distribution in the US on July 7 2003 Playmore announced that they had acquired the rights to SM Kay's name from ur Jose and was changing its name to SNK Playmore corporation against all odds as in case rebirth was complete but even so the Neo Geo Hardware would no longer be a part of the company's future although neo geo hardware production had ended sometime in 1997 SNK Playmore last official game for the Neo Geo would be released in 2004 in the form of Samurai Shodown 5 special released for the Neo Geo MVS bringing an impressive 14-year run of officially licensed games to attend SNK Playmore continued to publish arcade games on Sami corporation's atomiswave board which was based on Sega's Naomi arcade board which itself shared some of the same architecture as a Sega Dreamcast SNK Playmore titles for the atomiswave board do feature characters associated with the Neo Geo brand but these are not Neo Geo Hardware games in January of 2004 SNK Playmore announced that a company would shift a core business to ironically pachinko slot machines in 2012 SNK Playmore licensed amo to manufacture the Neo Geo X $200 portable device that came bundled with 20 built-in Neo Geo games with additional titles available for purchase on game cards a Neo Geo X gold limited edition with a joystick similar to the one that came with the original AES as well as a docking station to charge and connect the device to a TV was also available it's important to note that the Neo Geo X was not a miniaturized Neo Geo instead it used the FBI alpha emulator to play Neo Geo roms the emulator and system both run on top of Linux the gold bundle was only produced for a short of time and S&K seem to have a rather messy breakup with tama though the NeoGeo ex website is still online in august of 2015 chinese tech company purchased Kawasaki's controlling stake in SNK Playmore with its new ownership and management SNK Playmore announced that it would leave the pachinko market and concentrate on console and mobile games in April of 2016 SNK Playmore change its name back to simply SNK corporation and also readapted their old slogan the future is now further cementing a return to their roots SNK released a king of fighters 14 in August of 2016 to the PlayStation 4 PC and arcade it was Essen case first King of Fighters title in nearly six years now this is all well and good for SNK but what about the Neo Geo brand in 2018 SNK released the Neo Geo Mini 2 somewhat mixed reviews the Neo Geo mini comes with 40 classic Neo Geo games preloaded into the system it originally retailed for around $110 but they can easily be found at half the price now in September of 2019 one of Neo Geo's best-known characters Terry Bogard from the fatal fury series was announced as a downloadable character for Nintendo's Super Smash Brothers ultimate [Applause] as well as a stage based on the King of Fighters and music from other SNK series as of the time of this video early 2020 this is arguably one of the s and K's most prolific NeoGeo related contributions to gaming and recent memory in 2007 SNK announced that it would no longer provide support such as maintenance and repairs for Neo Geo's hardware but like many other consoles from the 80s and 90s the Neo Geo continues to enjoy support from a loyal community of fans or keeping both the MVS and AES very much alive [Music] since 2004's final officially-licensed NeoGeo game there have been a handful of homebrew titles developed the NeoGeo community has produced mods ranging from console izing to MVS custom system bios and improving the audio and video quality of AES consoles nothing about the NeoGeo was cheap Yeti is without a question the king of all home consoles when it comes to visual presentation eventually I would have some disposable income and when analogue announces NeoGeo CMBS i knew it was time to make the purchase I had dreamt about for nearly three decades Robo Army Shock Troopers and of course the iconic Metal Slug have become some of my favorites in addition to the many incredible SNK sports tieless yes ports the Neo Geo is available in two variants the MVS arcade system and the AES home system despite the two systems being incompatible with each other's cartridges they're both functionally the same AES home cartridges tend to be much more expensive on the used market today some games weren't even released in AES format collecting for the Neo Geo can still be quite expensive AES cartridges are generally more expensive than their MVS counterpart due to how common MVS cards are compared to the more rare AES cartridges it's not uncommon to see a es games go for hundreds or even thousands of dollars while MVS carts tend to stay in the more manageable sub 100 dollar range thankfully the Neo Geo community has stepped in with adaptors and modifications to allow you to play Neo Geo MVS games at home as well as everdrive like options such as Terra onions Neo SD Pro AES if you want a good do Gio experience you don't have to spend a million bucks on it even now these cartridges are very expensive but if you just want to play the games my first suggestion is always emulation even if you're into original hardware and playing in RGB on CRTs and stuff like that you still don't have to spend a ton of money if you want you can get the arcade boards the MVS versions MV 1 B then MV 1 C and you can put together a kit that allows you to use that on a CRT television or through a scaler on a flat screen and there's tons of different options available from just mounting the board to a piece of wood and then getting a very cheap board designed to give video output video and audio out of it safely or you could go as far as making it look like an official Neo Geo console but it's actually an arcade board inside SNK may no longer support Neo Geo hardware that doesn't mean that they've forgotten about it new games using IPS that are synonymous with the Neo Geo platform continue to be developed and ports of Neo Geo classic seem to find their way onto new hardware and modern platforms each year even to this day 30 years after it was introduced the name Neo Geo evokes a certain amount of reverence and respect from gamers where others promise an arcade experience at home but came up short Neo Geo actually delivered without any compromises I think that Neo Geo just has that aura of - hugeness about it that really just brings that out even to this day when we talk about Neo Geo new games being developed there's always this excitement around it that it's something special that's coming out the Neo Geo is one of the few pieces of hardware from the 90s era that still has a sense of mystique and mystery about it I've yet to see a Neo Geo for sale at a gaming convention that didn't elicit boos and ahhs from people as they passed by it like they just stumbled upon a mythical creature or maybe more accurately a dream from their childhood because while Sega and Nintendo may have ruled the gaming scene in the 90s we all knew that the holy grail of console gaming was the Neo Geo everyone I just want to give it a few quick thank-yous first of all - Ethan Johnson from the history of how we play he was very helpful in providing some source material for this video an extra special thanks to neo Alok who not only provided an interview and gameplay footage but also lent some of his expertise throughout the making of the video you want to learn more about Neo Geo games I recommend checking out his Neo Geo review playlist which I will leave a link to in the description below as well as to his channel basement brothers I want to also thank Janome for providing footage of his cdz as well as his woodgrain CMDs and controller I can't recommend jenovi's documentaries definitive analysis series and unreleased game series enough finally we have Bob and MVG these guys are practically legends in the retro gaming community at this point so I'm sure you know who they are but just in case I'll leave a link below to retro RGB comm as well as the retro RGB youtube channel and modern vintage gamers own YouTube channel highly recommend checking those out if you're not already finally I want to thank all of my patreon you guys have been great about supporting the channel and thanks to that support I've been able to start implementing some of the 3d modelling and animation you saw in this video if you want to support the channel monetarily you can do that at patreon.com forward slash wrestling with gaming if you just want to keep up on what's going on with the channel give me a follow on Twitter at Russell's gaming but most of all thank you for watching [Music]

Channel: Wrestling With Gaming

Views: 820,922

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Id: SjCivnt5t50

Length: 39min 23sec (2363 seconds)

Published: Sat May 16 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/the_light_of_dawn]

Funnily enough I've been itching to get back into Metal Slug Anthology on my Wii (/r/metalslug), and it's a damn shame that there's really no basic, definitive way to play the entire series:

• On the PS4, you're emulating the PS2 version of the anthology, and the input lag is notoriously awful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxWEEy-vEDg

• On the Xbox One or Switch or PS4, you could also use the ACA ports, which are purportedly quite excellent, albeit extremely barebones and $8 a pop. Unfortunately, the sixth installment hasn't been released and I doubt it ever will be. Then again, on the Xbox, Metal Slug XX (a remastered version of Metal Slug 7, a Nintendo DS exclusive) is backwards compatible on the Xbox One.

• On the Wii, the anthology is presumably better than the PS2 version, but there's no hit-flash and the controller options are absolutely atrocious—your only bet is to use a GameCube controller on a Wii that has backwards compatibility. Unless I'm mistaken this option isn't even advertised anywhere on the game box or manual. Luckily, this route shouldn't pose much of an issue for anyone who really wants to get into it. (This is what I do).

• Finally, there's the Neo Geo Arcade Stick Pro, which is currently on sale for $100 and includes 40 emulated games, Metal Slug 1–5 being some of them. https://www.snk-corp.co.jp/us/neogeoarcadestickpro/

And the Neo Geo ASP is a whole other kettle of fish in itself. While the controller seems solid and clicky AF for authenticity (lol), in order to connect it to a PS4 or Switch, you need an adapter called a Gamelinq, which runs about $50 and can only be purchased on one worldwide distributor website from the EU. And this is on top of the $100-$130 you'd be paying for the stick to begin with. Moreover, the stick released with 20 emulated Neo Geo fighting games, but the remaining 20 games are officially "unlocked" and released each month, two at a time. There's a hack out there to unlock all 40 games immediately, which is what most people in the know seem to be doing with it. There's 5GB of storage on the damn thing, and it seems like a no-brainer to sell game packs of other Neo Geo titles for it, but who knows what the future holds for it...

And a Christmas special edition was recently announced that includes an MVS option rather than the AES option that the stick ships with, along with some extra goodies. Will the MVS option be given to the ASP in the future, or will it be stuck on the Christmas special edition that releases later this year?

I'm curious what SNK will be announcing in a couple of days at the upcoming event that they're featured in. Fingers crossed there will be some news for the future of the ASP, as well as for Metal Slug 8. Maybe an actual definitive edition of the anthology for modern systems?! A man can dream.

/rant

Will watch this video later this week! Bookmarked.

[u/SwissQueso]

The $650 price tag might only seem a little steep, but you have to remember minimum wage in 1990, was under 4 bucks an hour.

I used an online inflation calculator, and that 650 price in 1990, would be equivalent of 1275 in today dollars.

Pretty much only rich kids had these.

Edit, as a kid, I really wanted one too! I thought that save feature from the arcade to taking it home looked cool, granted in retrospect why would I pay money to play a game at the arcade I had at home?

[u/GrammerPants]

Friend had it. What a cool system. Big cartridges, big controller, big price. I just remember it sounding amazing.