SNK NEO-GEO AES (1990)

[Shaorin]

this is a classic video game system, SNK's very first,

directly based off of SNK's wildly successful MVS

cartridge-based arcade system.

it was first released back in 1990, with a street price of around $600.00.

games were running around $150/200 and up.

naturally, with prices like that, the system did not gain much

mainstream acceptance. as such, while just about everyone has

seen or played SNK games on an MVS cabinet at one point or another,

relatively few have seen or played them on an AES home system.

me and my little sixteen year old sister have become SNK fans overnight

on account of the SNK ARCADE CLASSICS collection for the PS2.

she likes the 1990 launch title "MAGICIAN LORD"

while i like the 1993 title "SAMURAI SPIRITS/SHODOWN"

(but only because of my little Nakoruru-Chan's♥ presence there. aside from that, i'm not really much of a fighting game fan)

so, as such, those are our first two AES titles, and the only ones we possess at present:

(YES, SAMURAI SPIRITS' cartridge case is ever so slightly shorter in height than MAGICIAN LORD's. don't ask me why...)

even today, the system and it's games aren't exactly cheap, though an excellent bargain compared to

their original prices;

i got my AES (the exact one in that pic up top)

for $300 total, shipped from japan.

those two games were about $30 each. one was domestic (MAGICIAN LORD, brand-new, unsold old stock)

and the other, used, is the JAPANESE-MARKET version of "SAMURAI SHODOWN"

and, of course, came from japan.

a plus about the NEO-GEO AES is that there are NO REGIONAL LOCKOUTS.

any NTSC game, U.S. or japanese, will work on any NTSC AES, U.S. or japanese.

i also happen to have GATCHAPON of my two favorite SNK Girls;

Miss Nakoruru♥ and Miss Akari Ichijou from "THE LAST BLADE"

[Shaorin]

****LIBRARY****

-WIKIPEDIA entries and FANSITES-

ON SNK CORPORATION

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNK_Playmore

ON THE SNK NEO GEO MVS/AES

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo_Geo_%28console%29

http://www.neo-geo.com/

ON SAMURAI SHODOWN/SPIRITS

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samurai_Shodown

ON MAGICIAN LORD

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magician_Lord

ON Miss Nakoruru♥

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Samur...acters#Nakoruru

http://nakorurufeather.wordpress.com/

ON Miss Akari Ichijou♥

http://snk.wikia.com/wiki/Akari_Ichijou

http://en.allexperts.com/e/a/ak/akari_ichijou.htm

http://www.creativeuncut.com/gallery-11/ng...ari-ichijo.html

[Shaorin]

while i will always be, first and foremost,

a SEGA GENESIS fan,

i have also wanted to own a NEO GEO for

sometime now.

when vintage electronics collecting bit me,

i started wanting a NEO even more...

i mean, after all, what other vintage video game system

has a media cartridge THAT BIG?!?!

then, there is also the fact that, as it just so happened,

the place where i had seen the SNK NEO GEO the first time,

was also the place where i had seen what

eventually became my favorite stereo receiver, the one

that those carts above are placed on,

the 1990 PIONEER VSX-D1S.

anyway, it all started with this contest ad here;

[nightmareB4macross]

"Magician's Lord", damn I was hooked on that game since it's release. I beat that game so many times. It was hard as hell getting through the final maze.

I always wanted an arcade version of the SNK/NEO GEO Arcade Style Booth, but priced at $6500.00, at CNA Robinson (arcade game retailer) it was nothing to sneeze at.

I would always walk in to CNA and see the latest in arcade style games, up until it shut down it's doors.

**What the difference between this and the NEO GEO GOLD version?

Edited December 4, 2009 by nightmareB4macross

[Shaorin]

**What the difference between this and the NEO GEO GOLD version?

i don't know.

i've seen the GOLDs on EBAY, where i got this console,

and they seem identical, at least outwardly.

perhaps this Japanese-Market edition of mine

is the same thing as the U.S. "GOLD SYSTEM" ?

i know i've also heard of a SILVER version,

but i know nothing about it...

oh, and perhaps you and my

sweet-sixteen year old little sister

should go out together.

she LOVES MAGICIAN LORD every bit

as much as you seem to, NO JOKE...

Edited December 4, 2009 by Shaorin

[jenius]

One thing to note about the NEO-GEO, it was a huge source of delight for emulator fans back in the day. I remember it being relatively easy to find a NeoGeo emulator and just about all the ROMs. Good times.

[Ghost Train]

What ancient 20th century wonders will Shaorin show us next? ...

I loved Ninja Combat for the arcade system, I'm assuming they released it for the cartridge as well. Good times.

[F-ZeroOne]

The British gaming magazine "Edge", which has always been the grown-up cool kid wearing the shades and who was listening to The Smiths when all the other UK gaming magazines still thought Bucks Fizz was the epitome of music, once defined a hardcore gamer as "Someone who has owned a piece of gaming hardware with the SNK logo on it - that wasn't a Neo-Geo Pocket"...

[Nightingale]

**What the difference between this and the NEO GEO GOLD version?

The Gold ver. came with an extra joystick, a game (Magician Lord or Ninja Combat) and an extra cable (can't remember which cable, I think it was the power cord or RF cord).

I remember back in the day, my brother and I worked and saved for 2 months just so we could buy a Gold System.. man it was the most awsome $700 we spent at the time.

Edited December 4, 2009 by Nightingale

[Jolly Rogers]

Geesh, I remember the days, when a new cartridge for it would cos about as much as a current generation console... hundreds of dollars LOL. Nothing beats 0 second loading time though.

[nukatsuka]

Bringing people together since...December 1, 1999.

oh, and perhaps you and my

sweet-sixteen year old little sister

should go out together.

she LOVES MAGICIAN LORD every bit

as much as you seem to, NO JOKE...

Edited December 4, 2009 by nukatsuka

[MilSpex]

I was lucky enough to pick up an AES from a Hard Off in Japan a few years ago for $25, only with one arcade stick however. I scoured every Hard Off in Western Kanto got another 6 common games for about $4 each, then I went to Mandrake in Nakano and got King of Fighters `96 and then to Super Potato in Akihabara and got Metal Slug 4. My holy grail is Metal Slug X but the price is just too nuts right now.

My suggestion to less OCD Metal Slug fans is to get a Wii, the Metal Slug collection and the official Neo Geo arcade stick available for Wii in Japan. Its an exact replica of the AES stick but plugs into the Wii.

I also suggest not getting a Neo Geo CD, the load times are terrible.

Edited December 5, 2009 by MilSpex

[Gaijin]

I had believe it or not two Neo Geo Gold systems, and later, a Neo Geo CD when I sold the cart ones. Loved them at the time. CD sounded great, but the load times were just unbearable. Best joystick for the home ever. It was crazy spending $200-$250 per cart, but oh man was it fun.

[Wanzerfan]

The reason why the carts and system were so expesive is that because the hardware and cartriges were an exact match for the stuff in the cabinet (the arcade cabinets basicly ran off of Neo-Geo cartriges).

[Gaijin]

The reason why the carts and system were so expesive is that because the hardware and cartriges were an exact match for the stuff in the cabinet (the arcade cabinets basicly ran off of Neo-Geo cartriges).

Almost exact. The arcade boards had different pins. So you couldn't run home carts in an MVS. It was because the home carts were cheaper than the MVS boards and to prevent arcades from buying those instead. At least back then.

Edited December 5, 2009 by Gaijin

[JB0]

Almost exact. The arcade boards had different pins. So you couldn't run home carts in an MVS. It was because the home carts were cheaper than the MVS boards and to prevent arcades from buying those instead. At least back then.

In most cases, the ROM chips used are identical, both across region and across platform(home VS arcade) There's a very few exceptions.

Which is why NeoGeo carts were so stupidly expensive. The amount of ROM in them was(and still is) absurdly large, especially for a home game(but they were pushing it even for arcade games).

Pulstar is a larger game than Zelda 64, despite being 3 years older and far simpler. It's roughly the same size as Marvel VS Capcom, again 3 years later.

(Note that the above examples are not active advocacy of any of the titles in question. Just convenient frames of reference.)

It didn't help that SNK actively discouraged space-saving measures. They wanted to brag about their megabits, and the bigger the better. Which led to MASSIVELY bloated games.

Simple data compression could've made them significantly smaller, and thus cheaper to manufacture, with no effect on the games. And in fact, was employed in a few VERY late releases.

Edited December 5, 2009 by JB0

[Kin]

AOF is my favourite. The sprites are HUGE

[Gaijin]

In most cases, the ROM chips used are identical, both across region and across platform(home VS arcade) There's a very few exceptions.

Which is why NeoGeo carts were so stupidly expensive. The amount of ROM in them was(and still is) absurdly large, especially for a home game(but they were pushing it even for arcade games).

Pulstar is a larger game than Zelda 64, despite being 3 years older and far simpler. It's roughly the same size as Marvel VS Capcom, again 3 years later.

(Note that the above examples are not active advocacy of any of the titles in question. Just convenient frames of reference.)

It didn't help that SNK actively discouraged space-saving measures. They wanted to brag about their megabits, and the bigger the better. Which led to MASSIVELY bloated games.

Simple data compression could've made them significantly smaller, and thus cheaper to manufacture, with no effect on the games. And in fact, was employed in a few VERY late releases.

Everything you said is known....What did that have to do with the AES carts not being able to be used in an MVS in the 90's again? Same ROM had nothing to do with the physical limitation that AES boards would not work with an arcade MVS since the arcade boards were priced higher than MVS carts. I know they were the "same" but back then, you wouldn't be able to strip off the casing of a cart and shove it in an MVS slot. My post was to point out that even though they are the same, the physical construction of the pins were different preventing home carts being used in arcade cabinets.

Edited December 5, 2009 by Gaijin

[Excillon]

That samurai spirits game reminds me of a game I had for Sega Genesis called Samurai Showdown IIRC, which I think was the greatest 2D fighters ever made. I remember I used to kick ass with a gray ninja on that game.

[Gaijin]

Samurai Shodown (yes, spelled wrong) is the US name for Samurai Spirits. And you probably used Hanzo Hattori.

Edited December 6, 2009 by Gaijin

[JB0]

Everything you said is known....What did that have to do with the AES carts not being able to be used in an MVS in the 90's again? Same ROM had nothing to do with the physical limitation that AES boards would not work with an arcade MVS since the arcade boards were priced higher than MVS carts. I know they were the "same" but back then, you wouldn't be able to strip off the casing of a cart and shove it in an MVS slot. My post was to point out that even though they are the same, the physical construction of the pins were different preventing home carts being used in arcade cabinets.

I was going off the "almost exact" comment and reading it in a different way for some reason. And my brain filled in some things about the region lockout mentioned in the first post.

...

I'm not entirely sure why I quoted you, to be honest.

[Gaijin]

No biggie, I was starting to wonder if I was wrong about the pinouts, but I have the memory of them not fitting and the story why.

[JB0]

No biggie, I was starting to wonder if I was wrong about the pinouts, but I have the memory of them not fitting and the story why.

Pinouts! I remember now!

I was supposed to say something in there about it being a trivial effort to make a converter, then got distracted by the wholly tangential ROM size thing.

Since everything except the pinout (and maybe actual physical connector?) is identical, it's a simple passive adapter to convert home carts to arcade carts and vice-versa.

Just 2 connectors, cross-wired to create the right physical connection on the other side, in much the same vein as the FamiCom->NES adapters found inside several first-run US NES games.

Stability would pose a hell of a challenge with carts that big, though... maybe that's why adapter boards to stick home carts in arcade boards wasn't a booming business.

[Excillon]

Samurai Shodown (yes, spelled wrong) is the US name for Samurai Spirits. And you probably used Hanzo Hattori.

Hattori Hanzo?! As in Kill Bill? So that's where Tarantino ripped that off from...what a hack.

[ly000001]

Hattori Hanzo?! As in Kill Bill? So that's where Tarantino ripped that off from...what a hack.

Actually, Hattori Hanzo was a historical figure, played by Sonny Chiba in a series that Tarantino watched during the '80s on a local L.A. TV station: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hattori_Hanz%...popular_culture

But getting back on topic, yeah, the NEO-GEO AES was one system I wished I could afford back in the day. I still love the slightly Engrish narration during the title sequence for 'Nam '76: "Do I have to go back to the Hell again?"

Edited December 7, 2009 by ly000001

[Gaijin]

Pinouts! I remember now!

I was supposed to say something in there about it being a trivial effort to make a converter, then got distracted by the wholly tangential ROM size thing.

Since everything except the pinout (and maybe actual physical connector?) is identical, it's a simple passive adapter to convert home carts to arcade carts and vice-versa.

Just 2 connectors, cross-wired to create the right physical connection on the other side, in much the same vein as the FamiCom->NES adapters found inside several first-run US NES games.

Stability would pose a hell of a challenge with carts that big, though... maybe that's why adapter boards to stick home carts in arcade boards wasn't a booming business.

I don't doubt it could have been done....but no one did.

[Ladic]

this thing was prohibitive, I remember when i bought my NES for $100 in the late 80's this thing was going for $600 the system and $200 each game.

[Gaijin]

this thing was prohibitive, I remember when i bought my NES for $100 in the late 80's this thing was going for $600 the system and $200 each game.

It was a true arcade system in your home...it was expensive but, oh man if you loved fighters, there was no other way to go except to mess with JAMMA boards.

[Axelay]

Once of the greatest gifts I've ever been given:

When I graduated from college, my friends all got together and bought me a Neo Geo MVS. They did a substantial amount of restoration on it, and it's in better condition than any I ever saw in an arcade. Samurai Shodown 3 came with it, and they also got me King of Fighters '94 and Magician Lord. Over the years, I added Samurai Shodown IV and KOF '95, '96, and '97. I still play it to this day.

[Shaorin]

and here she is!!

plus, as you can see here, i added padded feet

from an old AKAI integrated amp that was

part of a rack system;