Neo Geo CDZ: The Final Evolution of SNK's CD Pivot! Full Teardown and History of the AES Alternative

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Well here we are! It's Neo Geo series time! Because damn it...it's my favorite retro gaming platform of all time and I've been collecting for the Neo Geo AES for years! As far as retrogaming collecting goes...it's not cheap, but don't forget...you can always get the 1:1 experience on MiSTer FPGA, which is how I am playing this now! (no I am not...its the CDZ episode baby!)
Patreon Thanks : Seth Peterson, John Thompson, Paul daniel, Porch, Jon Anderson, RayceARoni, Kuranghi, Jason Hixon, Sam Matthews, Alex Tessler, Jonathan Leung, Martin Donlon, Tom Van Deusen, Barabob, Steve Randall, Ahab, K-2, Eric Walklet, J Z, Ivar Wennerholm, Adrien Sebbane, tobemorecrazy, Mike Puelinckx, Tony Escobar, H7, Humanoide70, Ben Parfitt, Holder Schmidt, Tim Lehner, matschmonster, Shad Uttam, Dan L, James Mann, Richard Schneider, Sunder Raj and Dorfus!
Up next: The history of the Neo Geo CDZ...because YOU requested extra episodes on the exclusive Neo Geo CD games...and this is unique and interesting enough to do a full hardware teardown and history. Everyone remembers the Neo Geo AES and MVS...but less people remember the Neo Geo CD...and ESPECIALLY the Neo Geo CDZ as it was the only piece of Neo Geo retrogaming hardware never to release in the United States.
I do hope one day Neo Geo CD support gets added to MiSTer FPGA!
Questions? Comments? Just leave them below and I will do my best to answer each and every one of them!
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VGE
#neogeo #retrogaming #retrogamer #retrogames #arcade #fightinggame

[@visionop8]

I LOVE my CDZ! It currently sits in my living room hooked to a home theater via a receiver that has an upconverter and a game mode. I had no idea it had overheating problems. I've left it on for days at a time lol! Maybe it's because the game I left running for almost a week was League Bowling and it isn't super CPU intensive.I won't be doing that anymore! Thank you for this teardown. This was really interesting.

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

haha yep. SNK covered their own heat vents with an RF shield!

[@Mr_x_19922]

How do you keep your disc drive working? I bet those things stop working after a few years of use. Also, I've heard that the controller breaks easily

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

The drives are relatively reliably

[@f1reb4ll77]

6:59 The games are far from being "the same", since the CD/CDZ's RAM is quite limited (4MB for graphics, 3MB for the rest) compared to MVS/AES carts which are known to have upto 89.5MB of instantly available data in their chips. Most of CD ports have reduced resolution, reduced number of animation frames, etc.

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

They are the same games. Sure you lose a frame of animation here or there but from a “fun” perspective, nothing is lost

[@SkyScourgeGod]

I have no idea how I missed this video when it came out but I'm glad I found it. I love my NGCD and mine is a 2nd model top loader. Barely anyone talks about the Neo Geo CD, even less so about the CDZ let alone any of the details that come with one including the overheating. Most people just say "CDZ load better, so play better durr hurr" when in reality it's got more to it than that. Most games will load just fine on a regular front or top loader model, but the CDZ does improve some of the more notorious games that have longer loading times.

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

I’ve never minded the load times. They are beer breaks. SNK coded in a little drinking time

[@sebastienlopezmassoni8107]

@@VideoGameEsoterica Is it possible to reduce the overheating?

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Yes. Remove the bottom RF shielding blocking the vents

[@sebastienlopezmassoni8107]

@@VideoGameEsoterica Ok thanks, that so weird that they made this mistake

[@yooamatwa]

Wow so it's definitely 2x then, cool. Great video, I love my CDZ. There's something that's always felt special about this console to me. I wish it had more memory though , would have beens cool to get a disc version of blazing star.

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

It’s a fun console for sure and a CD copy of Blazing Star would have been great

[@Laserdreamz]

Interesting re: CD drive, always read it was 1 x speed with a larger cache. Anyway who cares, one thing I know for sure is that the CD soundtracks are the best i've heard on my life, such a wonderful system IMO.

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Yes the drive specs were debated for years till someone took a scope to it

[@ruiner_9]

Great little feature! I love my OG top loader with the ODE, but dang I had no idea how small the CDZ was in comparison! That would clear up a lot of room on my shelf lol

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

its tiny compared to the top loader and EXTRA TINY compared to the front loader. That thing is a BEAST

[@arcadeages3917]

The Crossed Swords conversion to AES/MVS is missing the music. Music was available only as redbook (being CD exclusive), so music tracks from Crossed Swords 1 was used in substitution

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Yes Crossed Swords II is still best played on NGCD due to that

[@Sonicfoxtrot]

Love the psycho soldier music during the tear-down.

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

It’s a great track

[@Charlie-Cat.]

Such a great unit the Neo Geo CDZ is VGE. I still think it's better in just about everyway than the NGCD. I always though grey was a great choice for a game console. The NES, Playstation and this unit was just perfect. Thank you as always for stopping by the Neo-Geo thread to share this with us VGE. I was going to share this video on your thread, but you beat me to the punch bro. 8^) Anthony...

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Yes the CDZ is by far the best looking piece of Neo Geo hardware IMO

[@RetroReWire]

That M2 stole the CDZ's thunder, haha. I see CDZ units from time to time here in Japan, and it's a very tempting piece of hardware. Looking forward to the follow-up episode, cheers!

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

New M2 has been exported for December :)

[@Ninthusiast]

Such a neat piece of gaming history and finally made the neo geo library affordable to consumers!

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Yes this def brought the price way down for the average consumer

[@snethss]

I never knew about the heat issue. Do RF shields actually serve a purpose or is it tinfoil hat level of protection?

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

They get tested for interference by govt agencies. So it’s actually not tinfoil hat protection. Fun fact!

[@thenickshorts713]

Teardown is so satisfying 😍

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

glad you enjoyed it! People really love to see teardowns of esoteric hardware it seems

[@ValterCustodio85]

Still intrigued by the Samurai translation, I know of two homebrew projects, one that never was made public and another that was abandoned very early and is available for testing. I don't know if I misheard, but isn't the front loader also a Japanese exclusive?

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Top Loader is what the US market got. I’ll show the translation next month :)

[@TheRealDustinNunn]

Way better than the original crappy Neo-Geo CD model. The CDZ is the better Neo-Geo CD model.

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

It’s def the best of the three

[@katseazzz]

@@VideoGameEsoterica best overheating device

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

That’s very easy to solve

[@katseazzz]

@@VideoGameEsoterica how? to drill holes?

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Remove bottom rf shield

[@shootermcgavin1208]

Interesting that unlike the other CD consoles of the time, the NGCD was mainly produced to offer their games at a cheaper price point rather than creat brand new games/experiences like the Sega CD/PCE CD. Unfortunately, the load times are unbearable, especially for fighting games. The CDX does mitigate that a bit but I still don’t see a reason to buy one of these over a Japanese AES, MVS, etc.

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Yes it was the opposite of what everyone else did. But for Neo Geo that made sense since the carts were luxury items

[@DehnusNorder]

Ah, the M2, sadly too expensive, but would blown the PSOne, N64 and Saturn out of the water! :)

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Graphically it 100% would have

[@snesfan8935]

Video connector on CDZ is actually the same as AES C-shaped 8pin din connector. Genesis uses U-shaped 8pin din. Pin out is the same, but, the shape is not compatible.

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Must have misspoke there

[@jerryinohio1978]

No memory card slot for the CD system?

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Internal storage

[@dreamcast3607]

Awesome video I've never even seen one of these in person lol

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@TitchgamerRG]

Looking forward to more details on that translation ;) I love the NGCD though, I have a top loader and quite a few original games for it. The pads are amazing its just a shame they are so fragile! I have a pair of Arcade style sticks I made that I use on mine and my CMVS though so my pads stay working lol

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Yes the pads are becoming more fragile lately it seems. I have one in need of repair myself

[@TitchgamerRG]

@@VideoGameEsoterica yeah hopefully someone makes a proper repair kit type thing for them. Its a shame for them to die out as they are perfect control pads.

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

I’m sure someone will. They always do :)

[@PopeTheRevXXVIII]

Since I'm good for engagement 😉😉 I actually themed my Arcade stick after the Neo Geo CD Razer makes a fighting game controller that's this weird hybrid of a Saturn pad and a neo geo cd Controller.

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Haha fun build

[@PopeTheRevXXVIII]

I was just about to Tweet it out to you 😂

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

👍

[@darthv72]

you should add a 2-way switch to that jumper location. That way you could switch between languages as you wish. I did that with my top loader.

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Yes at some point I may add one in

[@caribeskinner6290]

I opted for the beefiness of the front loader with a NEO GEO CD SD loader.

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

A good option for sure

[@SkakinBaconMedia]

I have one that I got modded with UniBIOS!! It's great!!

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Unibios makes a diff for sure

[@spokehedz]

so, the 'fix' is to remove the airflow blocking metal?

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Correct. That allows for air venting from below

[@weltoninja]

Boa tarde, você saberia me informar qual o peso do NeoGeo CDZ?

[@Bugatti12563]

Eagerly awaiting neo geo SNAC support on mister just so I can use the NGCD controller!

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

it really is the best of the controller options of that era IMO

[@thebeautifulvideogame1396]

Don’t wait, I’ve been using two usb adapters and they seemed to work fine with my controllers. I have no previous experience with Neo Geo games, but I do know that I really enjoy playing them with the CD controllers.

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

I have some for it actually

[@JolliAllGenGamer]

Does the CDZ play burned games? Because I read on forums it is a hit or miss.

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Hit or miss

[@JolliAllGenGamer]

Thanks! I have a top loader, front loader, aes, and Neo geo mini. If it is hit or miss that is unfortunate. I would like to buy a cdz but the price is almost or higher than an aes. But it is exclusive to have one.

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Get good CD-R media and good dumps and you should be fine

[@tiagopereirasantossilva556]

I don't know why but NEO-GEO CDZ look like game console if 90's Konami made one .

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Haha interesting take

[@nickiebanchou]

that's nice and all but you should turn off your ceiling fan when filming shiny things :P

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

I shot this in August so it was a tiny bit essential lol. VERY humid in Chicago summers unfortunately. You are the first to ever notice

[@nickiebanchou]

@@VideoGameEsoterica it's only because it made the whole left side of the PCB flicker in the inside shots :D

[@erick103]

That English translation of SSRPG piqued my interest. I've been trying to play that game using a screen translator. It works fine, but really slow trekking having to stop and translate every block of dialogue.

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Yeah that’s always a “it works but ugh” method haha

[@erick103]

@@VideoGameEsoterica Yup! Really killed the game for me. I got fairly far before I thought "forget this! I'll just pray for a translation" lol!

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

I’ve never completed a game using phone translations. Just takes tooooo long

[@samamir8765]

Still talking about failure consoles that were just to weak I love Neogeo games a lot but their consoles were just bad if SNK didn’t sell their games on Xbox PlayStation they would play just bad

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

What? Def can’t agree with that

[@humansrants1694]

Was the best console of the time.

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

A classic for sure

[@Riz2336]

After playing Neo Geo for many years I still have never used the gamepad, looks unique. The CD console I never saw in stores or anything growing up so I don't have any experience playing one but I do remember people saying the loading times lag a lot. Crossed Swords 2 is a great sequel, that's weird it only got an official release on the disc system

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

the CD pad is hands down the best controller ever made for that style of controllers. Its just straight up perfection IMO

[@GamerGee]

Loads and loads of loading lol. I wished they added more ram so it could have been more practical.

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

They were trying to keep costs down vs AES so sadly the RAM didn't really make the cut

[@GamerGee]

@@VideoGameEsoterica I think if they gave the system 2-4MB more ram. This would have been amazing alternative. Saturn did good ports because of this minus the PCM audio. Wasn’t as clear as the neogeo. Dreamcast changed the game. They said. Screw using the port audio let’s go back to the studio and get the studio vocals. I wish they’d do this for alll the old neo geo games. I mad they didn’t make a neo geo cd of blazing star. We don’t have any cd quality audio even the soundtrack is from the arcade version. Pulstar was amazing on CD.

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

The issue with more ram would be more loading time. Gotta keep spinning the disc to load the data into ram

[@GamerGee]

@@VideoGameEsoterica that too but KOF would just load one time with all the characters. Like it used to on KOF94.

[@BeatemupMaster]

Just Buy the better Hardware from the beginning! Never know the First or Second Neo Geo CD... Just Buy Neo Geo CD Z from the beginning! Load Times are very little and even not Existenz by the First Games! Too Bad, that have no Garou or Later Games...

[@BeatemupMaster]

Also Made in Japan!!! Not a China Crap like all Game Konsolen Now days!!!!

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Yes its a bummer the later fighting games never made it to CD

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

I think all SNK hardware of that era was made in Japan

[@BeatemupMaster]

@@VideoGameEsoterica Yes it is! But not the Neo Geo X or Mini Konsoles!

[@lolomixed6442]

could you use another pointing device?

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Definitely not lol. Cat pen is as much part of the channel as I am

[@dorfus]

A word against cat pen is a word against all that is good in this world. May all your syrup be replaced with Log Cabin brand.

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

oh god pancake syrup. That's a real travesty

[@ViegasSilva]

The best NeoGeo CD machine is a stock Dreamcast with the bootdisc NEO4ALL.

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

It’s impressive just how good at emulating Neo Geo CD Dreamcast actually is