The Neo Geo AES was a console I would have loved to have owned back in the early 90's. It may have shared the 68000 processor with my beloved Amiga, but that's where the comparison stopped. This was a sprite powerhouse with instant loading. An arcade experience in the home! It was great to be able to buy, borrow, and beg all that we had to show on the table, to delve into a world most of us could only have dreamed of back in the 90's. I hope you enjoyed the musings of us mere mortals about this giant of console gaming history.

When I was 16 I saved all my lawn mowing money from May to September plus all my allowance and my paper route to buy a neo geo. I had enough for the console and one game and when I walked into the store I suddenly had a change of heart. I realized that this one game was going to cost over $1000 and all my money was going to be gone. I'm so glad I came to my senses and walked out of there with all that money. Still though part of me kinda wishes I pulled the trigger and had that memory of the whole experience of unboxing it and playing an actual arcade game at home.

As a child of the Nineties (born in ‘76), I like so many others of my generation, have very strong memories of the AES system locked away in a glass cabinet in our toy store. Above the cabinet there stood the box with a price tag so high it physically hurt. So close yet so far away😂

I was one of the chosen ones when I was growing up who had grandparents who spolied the bejesus out of me. My grandmother would always babysit me in November and write down what I said I want in her crossword puzzles pretending not to care. Turns out she asked my mom and dad and they said it was almost a thousand bucks and sure enough not only did I get it, they got me a scooter, a outdoor basketball hoop, and almost every domino rally they ever made. So now every Saturday I'd have to stay with grandpa while everyone shopped together and all we both did was play bust a move, fatal fury, and baseball stars. God I miss you guys. Thanks for spoling me. Yup I still visit u at the cemetery once a month and I am so glad I had a great childhood.

Long comment here, sorry. Back in 1982 I was lucky enough to be hired to build coin-op arcade games here in Canada, I progressed from there to working for the second largest coin-op game company in Toronto, building, repairing and (the best part) testing games. I can still remember the PCB JAMCO pin-outs perfectly. I worked in the industry for over 10 years, and saw the decline and fall of the industry first hand. Some cool stories.. When the original Pole Position by Atari came out, it was a sensation because it was the first racing game shown from something other than a top-down view. The original cabinets cost $5000 CAD and the fellow that I was working for got some money from his father and bought 5 of them. We had NO trouble placing them in arcades since they were that years hot game. The coin box held $1200 in quarters and I was going to each machine for collection every 2-3 days. People were placing quarters on the "dashboard" shroud to reserve thier turn to play and numerous fights broke out if someone played for too long, "hogging" the machine. Needless to say, those games payed for themselves in a few weeks and my company made $10000 from each one in a month. Canada had some unique laws regarding game copyrights and as a result the "grey" market in game PCB's thrived here. At one point we were selling the "copy" boards and were raided by the RCMP (!), an interesting day. My all-time favorite game was Hard Drivin' by Atari, a real breakthrough in graphics and controls. It had a force-feedback steering wheel (a real beast to repair) along with a working clutch and gated shifter, the full sized cabinet had a swing-out seat and looked like a Testarossa (a really challenging game to move). The sales literature for the game mentioned that someone at the Atari development studio actually learned to drive a manual transmission by playing the game. There was an EPROM update (I think it was about 30 chips that had to be replaced) that made the game even better. I used to take game cabinets home over the weekends and stick them in the garage, change the dip switch settings to max lives and free play so I was a hero to my kids and all their friends. I really enjoyed the work, it was technical and a lot of fun at the same time. Cheers, thanks for the memories.

Incredible timing! I just got my Neo Geo AES console on Tuesday! This console was only in the realm of dreams when I was young, very excited to finally have one.

I remember back in about 2000 I picked up a boxed AES console with two arcade sticks and about eight games for 200 quid. It was a steal, especially as one of them was Viewpoint. But perhaps the best of all was the wonderful six slot MVS arcade machine I picked up for a similar price. In the end, if you have space and you really want the arcade experience at home, get the actual arcade machine! In the end the costs work out the same given the MVS game prices.

The first time I have ever enjoyed a Neo Geo was after getting a serious bonus from my job and I decided to import one from Japan, that was 5 years ago. Great System.

Don't worry about the rain Neil, you're sheltering in a rather snazzy cave.

I finally got a Neo Geo AES about 3 years ago and picked up a NeoSD too, absolutely amazing console. Looks fantastic with a retro cables RGB and a B&O MX7000 TV

I use an AES version of the 161-in-1 cartridge and it works perfectly, no crazy adapter required. Its the same size as a normal cartridge. I would highly recommend it! Edit: KZfaq recommended this video to me AGAIN and I did watch it AGAIN so here's an update after 1 year that I guess I didn't mention. It looks like only later serial numbered AES consoles can use the 161-in-1 with no issues and a Sega Genesis power adapter which is how I use it with the jailbars RGB fix. Also, despite never being released on AES, Puzzle Bobble is available on the 161-in-1. Yes, the AES version as well and it works, once again, perfectly. You will have countless hours of fun. Your house will not burn down.

My mom purchased a Neo-geo aes on launch day at Electronics boutique. My favorite console ever. You had to have it back then to really appreciate the console.

From a moral position, I couldn't sit there downloading these roms (my friend down the road did that for me)

When I was a schoolboy in the late 80s and early 90s, my best friend had an absent father who walked out on his family not long after my friend's birth, and was now living a very successful life in another country. To allay his guilt, he used to buy his distant son every console going, and most of the games too, yes, including the Neo Geo. I was so insanely jealous, and often voiced how thrilled I would be to swap my father for an Aladdin's cave of gaming goodness. I stand by it too. 🤣

Me: "This video is not british enough." _rain starts pouring down_ Me: 😌

Oh you know me. I love the Neo-Geo Neil and all that applies to it kind sir. I posted this up on the Neo-Geo thread to help with additional exposure and to show my everlasting support you do bro. Thank you for sharing this and keep up the great work you always do. 8^) Anthony...

First time I played Neogeo MVS while on family vacation in Greece. The game was Street Hoop (aka Street Slam or Dunk Dream). Still has a special place in my heart! I love the music and the gameplay!

Great video as always guys. Thanks again for fixing the Neo Geo CD 🙌

I remember downloading the Metal Slug 2X ROM, on a 56k dial up connection in 1999, shortly after sound support for Neo-Geo games was added to MAME. Sitting there, watching it so,so slowly download, praying the connection wouldn't drop, was no fun at all!

I remember reading the multi-platform magazine C&VG and seeing the reviews for the Neo Geo games. I just couldn’t believe it when I saw the price of a game as £120. Blew my mind.

I love the ominous "Keith remains a happy Neo Geo owner, but for how long?" at the end. Planning on getting the old "murder gloves" out again Neil? 😂

The Neo Geo consoles are beautiful machines, specially the CD version and even the joypads have a cool design. And of course, the arcade stick is super cool. Best way to play 2d games.

As a kid Neo Geo was Samurai Showdown and Metal Slug for me. If either of those games was at the arcade I was playing them. Still fantastic games to this day. Would've loved to try this in the 90s, but yea it was WAY above my pay grade as a young child lol.

I did actually own a Neo Geo console at the time it was released, but I had to team up with my twin brother to be able to afford it. We used our combined income from our minimum wage jobs at the time and after a few months, we eventually saved up enough to buy one. It was glorious! I sold the game and the console right before I went to college. Since I missed playing the system, I also ended up emulating the Neo Geo in the mid 90s with an emulator called NeoRage that ran on an my old Pentium II MMX running at 250mhz and I downloaded a bunch of roms on a 28k modem dial up. They took awhile to find and download, but it was way cheaper and I was pretty blown away when I got it run a game I had previously spent hundreds of dollars for. Good times.

There was a big review of Neo Geo and it's games in Finnish computer magazine MikroBitti in the Autumn of 1991. That was the first issue of a computer magazine we got in the home. I was nine and didn't have a lot of context for all the stuff in it, though I was extremely interested in games and had played a bunch of them (mostly at friends' houses). I think I thought a lot in the magazine was really cool. On the Neo Geo coverage, I do remember they of course made it a major thing how expensive it was, how it was like an arcade at the home, and how audiovisually impressive (but also shallow) the games were. It was really cool for sure, and seemed so far away as something to own or even see.. it was a mythical machine. If memory serves there was a big, nice photo of the console, the controller and a cartridge, with their sleek design. I think I still remember how reading and thinking about it felt. I've since played a bunch of the games but never on the original home hardware.

"Four bright buttons and two joysticks, cool red cabinet and name that sticks"

In the early 90s, I bought the Neo Geo AES Gold System direct from SNK in California, and picked up a bunch of accessories: Duffle Bag, extra Controller, Memory Card, T-shirts, Pins, and Posters. This system was incredible! The huge Japanese animated sprites and sounds blew all my current systems away. It truly was BIGGER - BADDER - BETTER!

Ah, the rich kids machine we all dreamed of. I didn't know a single soul who owned one and also never even heard of anyone who knew someone who owned one. I definitely remember always wanting one though. The price was absolutely insane.

I had an Amiga 500 at the time. The NeoGeo was like looking at a Lamborghini whilst owning a Maestro.

Besides a tiny bit of exclusive games, the Neo Geo CD had one other thing going for it - a hidden course in Neo Turf Masters (Big Tournament Golf) that you can actually unlock with a simple code - press left, down/left, down, down/right, right +D when selecting your course. Scotland is unlocked and it's extremely challenging. The NGCD of course also has the bonus of games being a lot more affordable, but not every big title (especially late releases in the fighting genres) got ports, though many that did had some other similar bonus content like improved soundtracks and some extra animated scenes and such.

During my teenage years, I was studying in a boarding school and the students would be allowed to go out to town every 2 weeks. Street Fighter II was BIG at the time, but students couldn't go to the arcades. Students from my school were required to wear our school uniforms and those wearing school uniforms weren't allowed in the arcades. I had to find my gaming fix somewhere... luckily, there was an electronics shop that had the NEO-GEO AES and let people play for 30 minutes on it for RM1 (1 Malaysian Ringgit ). They only had a few games and I would play Fatal Fury just to get my fighting game fix. Remember seeing the price of the console at the time and it was mind boggling to think how a games console could be priced close to a personal computer. I would go back to my school and in the hostel, I would wonder how much I had to save up to buy a NEO-GEO AES. Luckily, I didn't need to as I eventually got a Sega Mega Drive and SFII, AND Fatal Fury came out on the Sega. Aaaahhhh... memories...

I believe the first time I experienced the Neo Geo was on an MVS multi arcade cab at East Midlands Airport in the early 90s. The next time I dabbled with Neo Geo was on emulation using my Dell 233MMX PC back in 1998. I can remember it taking forever to download King of Fighters on my 56k modem. Then came the Neo Geo Pocket which I picked up on release. The same colour you have in the video Neil. I got King of Fighters R2, SNK vs Capcom and Metal Slug. I was really impressed with the machine at the time, that joystick click brings back memories. I finally got to enjoy the delights of an AES at the National Video Game Museum when it was based in Nottingham 6 or so years ago. Around this time I also downloaded some SNK games on the PlayStation Store for my PS3. Right I’m going on EBay now looking at AES’s.

I bought my Neo Geo AES two years ago with the NeoSD. I remember seeing it for the first time ever. It felt so special to actually own it. I was born too late because I grew up with the PS2 and Xbox360 but I started collecting and playing retro games. A couple of years ago I couldn't imagine having a Neo Geo at home. The games feel really special.

I spent my high school graduation night at a truck stop just outside of town with some buddies of mine. We spent the entire night eating the greasy burgers the cafe there served and playing the Neo Geo. World Heroes 2 had just come out the month before and they had it, so that was our game that night.

I’ve been a proud owner of the Neo-Geo since 1993. I sold both my AES systems for a consolized 1-slot MVS and a Neo-Geo CD. I owned and loved my Neo-Geo Pocket, but I sold both (I had a Special Edition as a backup) when SNK dropped support.

Great video! Thank you for sharing your experiences with these expensive systems ...

3:00 You went proper West Country when you said "lusted after" :)

Incredible video! I love to the Neogeo, well done!

I managed to get my AES off ebay from japan about a decade ago for ~$300 shipped with the console, 2 arcade sticks and 6 cartridges.

I've been playing my 4 slot a lot and restoring it a bit, so this video came up at the right time for me. NeoGeo is awesome!

I have a memory that there was a NEO-GEO cabinet in The Roadhouse Manchester in the late 90's. I think it had multiple carts in it. I seem to remember playing Metal Slug at some point.

Totally remember this. I had an Amiga at the time, and there was one of these on the University campus. I was gobsmacked by its capabilities, even as an Amiga owner. In many ways, this was the first time the cracks started to show in my Amiga (500)'s closed architecture, and its lack of upgrade-ability. Of course, I still loved my Amiga, but it wasn't long after I saw the Neo Geo that I realised it was probably time to build myself a PC, and make the painful switch.

Very cool interview. Thanks RMC

I always love the sniff of the game cartridge.. pure PCB Bliss..

The game system that some other kid we all knew swore they had a "cousin" that had it. I remember this having 200.00 games, and was only advertised in "adult nerd" magazines like Omni.

This is great! I purchased my AES last year I currently have 48 games so far and loving this console. Purchased a CMVS a few months ago to purchase some of the games on MVS that are too expensive on AES.

My friend at primary school in the 80s had one, it was the only reason I heard about it and it blew me away the idea of having an arcade in your home. Fast forward to now and I’ve got the omega (consoliswd mvs), neogeo cd (top loader) and cdz. I got very lucky with the top loader in that I bought it as faulty for £50 (couldn’t read discs) and it turned out it was just a dirty lens! Tempted with getting an AES just because 😁

I just finally decided to buy a neo geo cd yesterday, still waiting on it to get here from japan. To this day, i still have NEVER seen any neo geo in person, besides the actual arcade cabinets. Can't wait to mod it and finally experience all the rich kid games

A great episode Neil. I was aware of the Neo Geo from the early nineties and played on one at the local arcade with the first game I played being Magicians Lord from what I can recall. I had bought both the NGP and NGPC upon release and played lots of Neo Geo games on various home consoles over the years, but never on actual Neo Geo hardware. Though this all changed when I bought an AES in early 2020 and a Neo SD flash cart in late 2020. Along with the Saturn I rank it was one of my favorite systems in my collection. My system also has some mods in the form of a RGB mod, Unibios and an power led mod. The Neo SD cart isn’t perfect though and does take a while to flash the memory, but once that’s done the game runs just like the real thing. Great stuff.

Gaelco World Rally Championship is *literally* one of the greatest arcade games ever. You won't see it on retro games shows (other than this snippet, here) or channels, but it is (like 1943 in shmups) probably one of the best arcade games you'd ever play.

We had a Neo Geo cab in the breakroom at college in the mid '90s loaded with Puzzle Bobble, Sam Shodown, Wind Jammers and something else I don't remember! Loved that machine. I was emulating it in the late 90s on my PC also - Last Blade II and Garou: Mark of the Wolves being particular favourites!

I have always wanted an original Neo Geo, maybe one day! Cheers and great video!

What an excellent and detailed summary of the Neo Geo! I subbed on the strength of it alone, I hope your other videos prove to be of the same quality, and I will be a happy classic gaming nerd. ;-)

oh puzzle bobble a fave! i did the official port of puzzle bobble for taito, for the sidekick blade lol.

In the early 2000's I was lucky enough to buy an original 4-slot NEO-GEO arcade cabinet. Ebay provided the cartridges, so this video was very nostalgic for me. Thanks!

Classic console the AES - remember the experience of playing arcade perfect Samurai Shodown and Fatal Fury Special at home in 1994 was supreme - glad I repurchased one and a dozen games again CIB about 8yrs back... awesome sound and graphics to this day 👍 *got a NeoCD and 2x1 Slot MVS also since then, amazing systems.

When I was a young lad decades back during the early 90s, I firstly saw the AES in a video game shop showing AOF1 in Malaysia. Coming from nes going towards the mega drive, I was instantly impressed by the AOF1 huge sprites and thumping music. However the price was really insane and totally out of my budget. This was during the time the super Famicom was coming out. All of my friends knew bout the Neo Geo but none has it.

Neo geo was just a pipe dream when I was a kid ..I have it now via raspberry pie and its impressive now ,just imagine owning one in the 90s

I was given a new 2021 release of XenoCrisis. Looked like a perfect Neo Geo arcade release in a cart.

Great episode guys! I loved the reference to GetRight! Those were the days!

This Aes Neo Geo and the controllers stick are really neats 😍

Great video!

I always felt the AES system - with its gold HiFi-style lettering, slim front profile, wide-mouthed Cartridge slot (phwooaaaar) and matching power button to the arcade sticks' buttons - was one of the finest looking consoles ever designed! Very jealous Keith!

One of my friends had 2 older brothers and they bought a Neo Geo. My friends and I weren’t allowed to play with it, but it was awesome just to look at.

It was me wanting get an Amiga again then learning more about the Neo Geo and the cost of said items I went full into the MiSTer coz that thing is a bargain! I'm hooked on Turf Masters :)

There's the Pioneer Laseractive console, this was more expensive than the Philips CD-I. To the best of my knowledge the Pioneer Laseractive was the only video system to use Laserdiscs instead of CD-ROM, it's price when it debuted was $970.00 USD. Another thing that was pretty neat about the Pioneer Laseractive was it was compatible with Sega/Mega CDs, TurboGrafx CD.

I remember the adverts for the NeoGeo and never having met anyone that owned one back in the day (because it was so darn expensive) that a strange mythic aura surrounded it like maybe it wasn't real or was still a concept like concept cars that never got released. Even at school the talk surrounding NeoGeos was always kinda reverent and with a sense of awe, wonder and mystery.

About AES: not just the console itself was quite expensive, it’s necessary mentioning the Cartridges were almost as expensive as some consoles. I think the games usually cost 200 USD.

I've had one for 22yrs, 43 carts here

Fighting games are not beat 'em ups! Street Fighter and King of Fighters etc. are fighting games. Final Fight and Streets of Rage are beat 'em ups. :)

Great channel, thank you very much for your content. Cheers🍷

Great video, glad you've shown off some Neo Geo hardware. It was fun playing the Pocket at the cave. The Sega Mega Tech was Master System based, the Mega Play was Mega Drive based.

As for me, just like everybody else, I wished I owned one of these when it first came out, I would only see it on magazines and nobody I knew even had one on the plus side, now, as an adult, I actually own one, and I own the Neo Geo cdz aswell as the nei geo pocket, and let me tell you the first time I held an actual cartridge for the AES... It was magical and I'm glad that I got to make one of my dreams happen💖💖💖

I have an neogeo AES in the closet, with some games, also have all the MVS king of fighters games and an AES converter, but I just used the machine to play metal slug games and neo turf masters 😅

I remember playing on a Turbo Grafix, and a goldstar 3DO, around the time the Neo console was around. I was working as a software salesperson when the Super NES came out.

Ah yes, the 90s "luxury consoles", Neo Geo, CD-I, 3DO (Beach Boys song!), Jaguar...

Our local arcade had a Neo Geo machine but I was too young to really understand what it was. No one I knew had the home version as, like you've described, one would have had to be rich to afford one.

Excellent video - thank you.

Well, Nintendo marketed the NES to retailers as a toy (with rob) but we all knew it was a game console.

Neo Geo is awesome. I discovered it in MAME. I fell in love with it. It inspired me to make MAME cabs with more than 3 buttons. I have a tabletop Xarcade MAME machine that I made with a 4:3 LCD computer monitor and a PC. My favorite games are the Metal Slug series in Neo Geo. Love NEO GEO. I discovered how good it was in around 2015.

I remember the Neo Geo AES as the unicorn. You wanted and dreamed of it but could never afford it as a kid. As a kid, I didn't really understand how it worked and just thought the games were beautiful. As a 40yo man I finally own one now and it's as magical as it was when I was a little kid.

When it came to the 'slowdown' issue, SNK figured that the players would appreciate the added chaos that those extra sprites brought to the playfield and would be willing to overlook the resulting slowdown. Given how popular NeoGeo is, especially the Metal Slug franchise who is most notorious for it, they were right.

I remember asking my dad (at age 10) if we could own a neo-geo console knowing damn well that the answer was a hard no lol. It's 2022 and I'm still just as in awe for the neo-geo back then as I am now. Nice to know I'm not the only one. I hear another neogeo is in the works, I'm stoked. Great video, long live neo-geo 🙌.

Great overview of the NEO GEO, guys! I recently bought my second AES with tons of games for a very reasonable price, I'd say. Dreams do come true.

The NEO GEO jingle is the alert tone on my phone

Incredible tech for its time, the graphics still look incredible

My favorite NEO-GEO game was Super Baseball 2020. Played it constantly at the arcade and, when it was ported to the SNES, my friend and I played it on there when we were roommates. Played him 365 times and beat him 365 times. He got a run once. Korea Dragoons for the win!* * - He beat me pretty bad playing WWE Royal Rumble, so it worked out =)

The Bally Astrocade is probably the inflation adjusted most expensive video game system. In the 70s, a new Bally was $500. However in the 90s, at a thrift store, I found a Bally Astrocade, 4 controllers, and 9 cartridges, including Muncher and Blast Droids for $5. I don't think Neo Geo had a dip in the market like the Astrocade did.

We had one of these things on a South London council estate - far from “rich” but very diligent at purposefully directing every penny. Absolutely crazy machine, literally transforming any bedroom or front room into an arcade. We only got to play various games by swapping/part-exchanging existing games. Cartridges ran from £70 up to £180 or so for the latest releases - this was around 1993. System wasn’t economically viable for us so it was sold to a random console import/export vendor. By then we had already been building a nice library of games on an imported Super Famicom (Japanese SNES), the Sega Megadrive, and our trusty old Amstrad CPC 464, so all was all lost 😊

I marveled at this magnificent machine when I was young.. I still do.

I owned a neo geo when it came out back in the day. I was the only kid in my neighborhood with one.

I got my very own AES two months ago, an old dream finally fulfilled. There are so many options to play Neo Geo games today, emulation is spot-on since late 90's but that feeling when you see the Neo Geo logo and hear that jingle coming from real hardware is very rewarding. I had a NG CD back then but like many others I've always dreamed about owning the real deal. Interesting how back in the day AES carts were cheaper than their MVS counterparts and now it's the complete opposite. Some AES games cost thousands of dollars and the MVS ones go in the hundreds so thank God those converters exist. So far my collection is quite small, I have 3 AES carts and 11 MVS ones but I plan on buying more whenever my wallet allows it!

Great video. Intelligent people of around my age talking about the games I remember from my youth. L was a bit snobby about the neo geo too. I always thought the games after seemed quite low res compared to rival dedicated arcade titles

I'm a huge fan of your work. I just realized that your area of England is the source of the pirate accent. That makes it so much better.

Oh, Getright. I remember that! Used it a lot back in the days.

I had one as kid in the early 90's loved it.

Loved all the Neo Geo stuff, but oddly enough the part that hit me in the nostalgia bone was the mention of using GetRight on Dial-up!

1992. Early twenties, still living at home so had plenty of disposable income. Went to Tottenham Court Road with several grand in cash, clubbed together with 2 other mates. Managed to buy 3 AES consoles, 3 extra arcade joysticks, 3 memory cards and 8 games (shop keep wouldn't stretch to a 9th game). There was a group of us that went, purely so we didn't get mugged. I still have mine, boxed, in storage in the house somewhere. The games (about a dozen) are still in their original cases on a bookshelf. One day I'll get time to relive past memories, assuming it still works LOL.

Me and my brother had all the systems back then, from the turbo grafx to the Sega CD, but we could never pull the trigger on a neo Geo,those 250$ games were what we always talked about and is why we never got one, but In 95 when we got the Saturn and VF2,that was next level

My local video shop had fatal fury loved it always wanted one