The SNK Neo Geo was ahead of its time | MVG

[@baroncalamityplus]

Back in the early 90s I stopped at a yard sale. A woman was selling her husband's stuff because he cheated on her. I ended up getting a Neo Geo AES and a couple of games all for $50. I almost feel guilty. Almost. I would never been able to afford one otherwise.

[@tyguy3876]

Just thank the homewrecker instead 😂

[@juansalas2882]

OK

[@ShadowEl]

@@tyguy3876 so, the husband?

[@prcr364]

@@ShadowEl Yeah, screw him.

[@utewbd]

​@@ShadowEl You're SO virtuous and progressive, reminding everyone it was the HUSBAND who was the homewrecker. Not that everyone just read that comment seconds before yours, it was NECESSARY for you to make that comment. So many people were going to be TRICKED by the PATRIARCHY that homewrecker and woman are always synonymous. But thank god you stepped in and saved us all from male oppression.

[@Anon-cv7ru]

This is the only console that brings the true Arcade experience right to your TV.

[@HaohmaruHL]

We never had neo-geo arcades in my poor post soviet country. Instead we had these past-century analogue arcades like shooting things with a gun or pushing a button to launch a torpedo into a submarine. But I was lucky to go on a summer vacation to another country as a kid. They had many cool arcades, including Metal Slug X, Kof98, Killer Instinct 2 and Wrestlemania. I was so addicted to it I spent almost whole summer playing it, lol. Played MSX so much that I was able to beat the whole game without a single death. Such good memories. When we finally got eBay available to us I ended up importing a supergun jamma machine and all these games on the actual hardware, plus some other jamma pcb boards, mvs neogeo board and cartridges and cps boards (wish cps2 boards didn't have the memory dying issue tho). Wish I had space for an actual arcade cabinet. Now that I'm in Japan space is a real issue but I do have the luxury to go visit an actual arcade center, though it really pains me to see that they slowly die out and get replaced with stupid ufo crane machines, since they bring much more profit. I'm a big fan of traditional 2d pixelart animation and the games themselves are such a blast to play to, so these systems hold very dear to me. P. S. my nickname is from a character from Samurai Shodown series + Half-Life. Yeah, it's stupid and I didn't have imagination back in the day but I loved these games.

[@darkowl9]

The more you learn about how older sprite and tile-based systems worked, the more interesting videos like this become. Thanks for the deep dive, I learned a lot!

[@thewingedavenger1007]

Yeah, the Neo Geo becomes far more fascinating when you learn how to manage its MK-33 electroplasma system with broad-spectrum electron dampers and sub-emissive particles.

[@nirv]

How did you learn anything when everything the guy said in this video is wrong?

[@hsjoberg]

@@nirv so what was wrong?

[@ArneChristianRosenfeldt]

Sprites and sprites made of tiles and background made of sprites ( Amiga ) were an old technique at that time. I would love to see some innovation. Like when you had to code on 68000 you always fight the lame branch instructions ( on many CPUs you do that ). I would have been great if the SNK would have written a software implementation of a quad-tree for everything all the way down to the pixel level. The background could be single sprite, but the hardware quickly dives down into the correct nodes. Totally transparent nodes are not even stored in ROM. A lot of sprites seem not to really use all the colors so maybe even nodes could get their color space restricted to save some more bits. Render front to back with a coverage tree ( portal rendering ). Then the GPU only needs to fetch visible pixels from the cartridge, which in turn could use cheap slow ROM. So after proof of principle, implement this as hardware circuit where a branch is just a gate. I mean, at least for transparency the hardware needs to branch for every pixel anyway. The quadtree may give two times the overhead. So you have twice the cost for the cabinet ( not really ), but the game only cost half to manufacture. You could have much more background layers. With super scaler hardware ( Sega, Atari Lynx ) that would even be more useful because often there the scenery objects stack on top of each other. You could have a scenery where the floor does not shine through without speed penalty. Trees are difficult to write into randomly, but you cannot write to ROM anyway. The Art department suffers one minute while their new pictures is compressed into the devkit. I think, that would be okay. I would even want octa-trees for animations. So the compressor could find similarities in consecutive frames.

[@jamesaitchison9478]

I used to dream of playing Neo Geo games back in the early 90's looking at the pics in Video Game magazines like Mean Machines and CVG. I only ever knew one person that owned one back then as they were very expensive and very exclusive. Neo Geo's are still a dream machine today, a proper Arcade machine for the home, how cool is that. Awesome video bro.

[@Kaido_928]

CVG was so good to read. Job's Mailbag remember that one

[@billybobs1705]

it wasnt ahead of its time...its just a bullshit internet cliche

[@sligit]

As a home system it absolutely was.

[@ProctorSilex]

I think two kids claimed to "own" a NeoGeo. For one, it was probably just the cabinet at his parents' pizza shop. The other's parents were loaded so he likely wasn't lying or bending reality. As much as I drooled over the NeoGeo, I was not jealous because the SNES was and is the pinnacle of gaming for me.

[@paulsteel9127]

@@ProctorSilex The SNES was OK if you liked butchered arcade ports and Mario. But the AES was the real deal. It's games were several years ahead of anything Nintendo put out at the time.

[@AbominusRules]

one of the biggest draws to me was the fact that you could save on a memory card and go back and forth from the arcade to the console. just absolutely amazing for that time period. i have so many great memories with both the arcade and console. i wish i knew what happened to my console version. itd be great to pull out and play today.

[@fukuoka-musician]

You're not the one who cheated on his wife, are you? :D

[@AbominusRules]

@@fukuoka-musician huh?

[@funstuffonthenet5573]

I really wanted to find a F-zero AX machine to do this. I was only able to play it on GameCube. Neo Geo was the first to do this though, it seems

[@AbominusRules]

@@funstuffonthenet5573 it sure was! and it was fabulous!! :)

[@orbita1]

@@fukuoka-musician that's quite funny

[@favians.4823]

the nickname of this machine says all : Neo Geo is the Rolls-Royce of the consoles

[@mykr0324]

Absolutely amazing system. This and the Dreamcast were something else, just the feeling of having a full blown arcade system in the home was incredible.

[@playerone2629]

I still have my dreamcast

[@joesaiditstrue]

My parents bought me a Japanese Dreamcast from NCSX in 1998 for Christmas, by far the best Xmas gift I'd ever gotten. Eventually I'm gonna buy all new controllers and VMUs and maybe one of those Behar Brothers VGA boxes for the ultimate setup

[@mykr0324]

@@joesaiditstrue yeah man, that's awesome. I had everything, so sad that I don't have it anymore. Had multiple lightguns, fishing controller, bunch or vmus, keyboard and mouse for phantasy Star online, also had a boot disc and a whole cd case full of burnt games on top of my regular ones. One of my mates had my DC for a bit while I was moving years ago, then I lost touch with them and never got it back.

[@ChairmanMeow1]

I still have and play my Dreamcast!

[@blokin5039]

@@mykr0324 Call him.

[@arandommanthatexists]

more MVG content to make my day just a little better.

[@nothingburger1]

I grew up playing the art of fighting on a neogeo arcade machine, because my dad cleaned the rec centre that had a machine there, he had the machine keys, so he'd hook me up with 84 or so credits and let me go all day while he cleaned the place. It was way better than anything else you could play at the time.

[@IwatchTubiTrash]

I used to collect for Neo Geo but stopped when I realized the money pit I was getting into with a collector's mentality. I recently looked at some of the prices of games I used to own in AES format and knew I made the right choice to get out. I still love the system, company and its games though--Samurai Shodown II being one of my all-time favorite.

[@ProdDeity]

SamSho2 is my favorite of the series for sure.

[@nemesisnine3297]

Funny, all I did was download a emulator pack and had all neogeo games

[@altdelete7252]

The problem with collecting is that the only time you can gain any value is if you have it on the lower end. Since these started expensive, it was hard to start collecting to begin with. Then, there is really only so much the stuff can possibly be worth before you are never going to get what you paid.

[@jcollins1305]

I was 13 or 14 when the NEO-GEO came out. I remember it being insanely expensive, but you were literally playing arcade games in your home. An interesting footnote to the history of gaming.

[@fabiosemino2214]

In rural northern Italy in the 90' the more sophisticated cabinets could be pretty rare, but in almost any Bar you could find a MVS machine loaded with aero fighters 2, world heroes, fatal Fury, Neo Drift Out or Puzzle Bobble, I can say that some arcades got an extension of life into the early 2000's by putting Metal Slug 2, X and 3 on their biggest cabs.

[@badreality2]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/nGTQe4B3iLeHp5Y

[@frafrafrafrafra]

Spettacolare, io sto in Calabria e ci sta qualche bar che ancora le ha

[@francescobarrali637]

I can confirm that, same thing in southern Italy as well. Neo Turf masters, puzzle bubble, Metal slug X and even Magician Lord!

[@chrisakaschulbus4903]

@@francescobarrali637 Like them say in LA, don't steal my time, steal with style and do the crime, not the time.

[@solidsnake3828]

Same in Serbia, also Super Pang was very popular arcade game.

[@Dark.Shingo]

NeoGeo soundtracks were amazing. It was one of the few that always released an Original version and an Arranged version, due to using the arrange one in their NegoGeo CD releases, and it always was top notch. The NeoGeo Sound Team is legendary, all the music they put out was amazing and such a blend of rhythms and sounds, plus the hardware was fantastic for music.

[@kevtn8]

Audio quality is always related to memory size and Neo Geo had crazy memory sized games. They had memory to spare thus sound was always of highest quality.

[@takingcoins5446]

Love the Neo Geo AES/MVS! Have a little over 80 English games so far. Great video

[@omegarugal9283]

as a former arcade cabinet operator i still have a lot of mvs stuff laying around, the good days

[@NX6.2]

He's a smooth opetator.

[@Neb_Raska]

How old are you now?

[@consciouscool]

Are you selling?

[@omegarugal9283]

@@Neb_Raska 39

[@omegarugal9283]

@@consciouscool not yet

[@lukew9396]

Every time I see mark of the wolves in motion I’m blown away by how good it looks. Every time, without fail

[@KenMasters.]

IKR? KOF XII and XIII's graphics should've been used to make a Garou II & III instead.

[@ghost.8836]

@@KenMasters. At least Garou 2 is coming.

[@KenMasters.]

@@ghost.8836 It's about time Garou got its 25th anniversary sequel.

[@Kaiesis]

The community is still thriving for MotW. We play on Fightcade now. There are weekly tournaments on Sunday.

[@ghost.8836]

@@Kaiesis Well, I know what to do when I get my PC fixed. I'm going to suck but hey, it'll be fun!

[@robertdanielpickard]

I think it was SmokeMonster who pointed out Mister had great NeoGeo support pretty early because of the active NG collecting community. Basically there was a lot of documentation of NeoGeo chips because the collectors wanted to stop cannibalizing dwindling supplies of original equipment. So they started reversing and ultimately fabricating the parts of the NG that weren't off the shelf. I think it's a neat story about the contribution of collectors

[@TravisStamper]

I never owned one either but always thought they were awesome. Thanks for the video

[@adonian]

You can get a lot of neo games on the switch for like $7.99 each. That’s what I do with my switch. I keep my neo geo in its box.

[@uria2001]

I think alot of us where in the same boat. The systems I had before I was able to buy my own were Atari, Nes, SNES, Genesis, SNES, Turbo Graphix 16, and N64. this was up to my 17 birthday. Also, these systems were shared with my two brothers and not always bought by my Mom. Ps1 was the first system I bought myself

[@StonerJames]

Seeing this takes me back. I never had a Neo Geo only a SNES. I did have a friend that had one though. His family wasn't rich but we'll off. Better than my family. But he was an only child where as I had one brother and three sisters. But I would say he was spoiled because not only did he have the Neo Geo and like every game for it, but he also had a SNES, Genesis, and an Apple IIe computer and a shit ton of games for all of them. He didn't have to share the TV with anyone since he also had his own TV in his room with all his consoles and computer so he was able to play when he wanted and as much as he wanted. Unlike me. There was only one TV in my house and with for siblings, there was always fighting over the TV that my parents ended up setting up when who can use the TV when. So you can bet I basically lived over at my friends house since he lived two houses down from me and since we went to the same school and were in the same homeroom, there were numerous occasions when I spent the night at his house on school nights sitting up to the small hours of the night playing video games. Those were the days. If I could only turn back time...

[@_____7704]

I can remember playing one of these at my mates house and it was insane... feels ALOT like an arcade

[@leeartlee915]

Love to know the story behind that friends situation. Everyone who was into gaming knew about the Neo Geo but NO one had it. I even had some pretty well off friends and what they would have is a serious computer back in the early 90s. But with Neo Geo, even if you bought the system for 600 bucks, the games were just too expensive to get any kind of collection going. You would have to have parents who were both a) rich and b) spoiling there child rotten.

[@TheT0nedude]

It IS an arcade machine, literally.

[@yellowblanka6058]

@@TheT0nedude this, lol, contains the literal same hardware.

[@_____7704]

@@leeartlee915 Was about 15 years ago, I am in my mid thirties. This wasn't a childhood thing. My mate worked at a Cash Converters and picked it up after someone came in and hocked it. He also had an Atari Jaguar CD which is equally ridiculous. I bought a Commodore Amiga CD32 and a Satellaview off him which I still have today.

[@leeartlee915]

@@_____7704 Ahhhhh, see now that I can see (we are around the same age). I still have never played an actual AES. I’ve always lusted after those joysticks.

[@javierruizleon]

I had a NeoGeo at launch, $700 and you got to choose the pack in game, I got Magician Lord. I also visited SNK in Torrance, CA, got to hang out with Chad, Carlos, and the Roller Coaster guy in the back warehouse.

[@SmaMan]

6:00 - Also important to note that the Neo Geo carts themselves are the same internally across all regions. It just loads whatever regional version (or even Arcade/Home version if you're using an adapter or UniBIOS) depending on what the console is set to on startup.

[@omgitsmario7]

Can you use a japanese neogeo in usa are they region free😊

[@hardcorevideogames]

@@omgitsmario7 yes, it just goes off what the systems bios tells it to do. You can easily modify it to mae the system do whatever you want it to.

[@BrianJones-il8nq]

I have a friend who had bought a MVS arcade cabinet and about 15 games back in the late 90’s. His wife eventually decided it was taking up too much room and he sold it me for $1200. I’ve been collecting games for it ever since and have a current library of 90 games. Nothing beats the arcade feel!

[@jonniefast]

i had to build my own from scratch i use mvs-1b motherboards and a variety of upscalers and signal converters i can use vga, hdmi, s-video, or RF 😎🕹️

[@jonniefast]

learning & building was good fun but blazing star, metal slug 3, puzzle bobble, spin master, kof99, pochi and nyaa, & shock troopers are some of the best games of all time 😭

[@leogolive]

In the 90s when I was in high school I used to read EGM and Gamepro magazines. I used to drool over the Neo Geo advertisements in those mags. I wanted to play KOF ‘94, Samurai Showdown, AOF and all those games so bad! Whenever there was a SNK game review or player’s guide I’d study them like I was gonna actually get to play them lol! I’m so glad years later I’m finally able to play them all! I love SNK!

[@yellowblanka6058]

My sole exposure to neo-geo was a cab in the lobby of our local wal-mart that had “Zed Blade”, and “World Heroes 2 Jet” (it was cranked fairly loud and I remember always hearing “WORLD HEROES 2…….JEEET!” while entering or leaving, lol) when I was a kid. That was until I discovered NeoRAGEX in high school. I remember downloading neo geo roms took all night over dial up.

[@GeomancerHT]

God save the MAME creators and contributors. Thanks for the video, love the channel!

[@yellowblanka6058]

Yeah, you think of how many obscure arcade games would be unknown/dead were it not for people dumping ROMs and MAME. The companies certainly don’t seem to give a shit about their legacy.

[@parrishharris3008]

That's the absolute truth 😍✌

[@jonniefast]

mame = horrible

[@bubbythebear6891]

@@jonniefast It ain't perfect, but it's necessary. How else can we play marble madness 2?

[@Charlie-Cat.]

Hello MVG, Pleased to meet you. What an excellent and highly informative video you uploaded for us to enjoy. I love the Neo-Geo. I've been playing it at first for the MVS for 32 years. The first time I ever played one of the units was at a local Dairy Queen in Paramus, NJ. I actually was amazed by technology at first because of how many game cartridges can be inputted into a unit. The game that I first played was Magician Lord. I recall inserting so my quarters in the unit that I must've spend over $5 Dollars worth just for one game. After that day, I became a buff of the Neo-Geo since. 8^) Also MVG, I posted this outstanding upload for you on, the Neo-Geo-Thread for you on the forums for others to take notice on AtariAge. I'm sure they will really enjoy your content regarding it kind sir. Thank you for sharing this with us MVG. Glad to make your acquaintance, and keep up the good work you offer to the community. 8^) Anthony..

[@AccelSternritter]

That console that truly a monster! Love your content MVG, keep it up!

[@Umtree]

I lived in Japan for a few years back in early 2000’s and stocked up on tons on AES systems and games. I got addicted to collecting for this system.

[@chestercastillo2703]

We used the Motorola 68000 processor for our thesis in college. I didn't know it was the heart of the Neo Geo. Very cool! Love these kind of videos MVG! Thank you!

[@Seboss38]

The 68k was at the heart of most 16-bit machines of the time: Amiga, Atari ST, Genesis / Mega Drive, Macintosh, Sharp X68000 ...

[@chestercastillo2703]

@@Seboss38 🤯 Good to know! Love learning the history of these things.

[@sabin1981]

I was *insanely* lucky to end up with my own AES when I was younger. I was 13 years old and had an Amiga 500 with the 1024 monitor... I traded that with some guy I met through the free ads, he wanted my Miggy and was offering his NG with 4 carts and 2 sticks. Best trade of my life! His mom kept fussing and saying that he was only offering 4 games and I was offering a hundred or so, and it didn't seem fair, and was I sure?`Was I really sure? Haha, yeah, Mrs, I was very VERY sure. Astonishing machine

[@COLOFIDUTI]

1994 a friend of mine got one AES.The first game ive saw was samurai shodown, and man! to say that i was mindblown was a understating! The scalling in that game was incredible and the size of the chars... for the time we were still impressed by sf2 and mk1 on snes 🤣

[@Alexandratheberge]

i got one in 1991 i was obsesed

[@chemergency]

The Neo Geo was an overpowered superbeast of a console for back then. Very few people can afford it, but the few that can are never let-down.

[@Bo_Knows_Tecmo]

The animations on AOF 3 look great to this day. Another cool effect is on kof96 there is a stage intro where you have a blimp flying and all of a sudden everything zooms to a rooftop building to the start of the match. Really cool

[@jakeeheredia]

Arcade hardware is insanity and I love it. Great video

[@ATomRileyA]

I always remember them being almost mythical machines as no one had one because of the cost. I always feel that time was so exciting because so many cool things were happening compared to today where i don't get very excited about new games and consoles because there is not much new and interesting stuff mostly just 1000 versions of call of duty not to say there is not good stuff out there but just not quite the same and not as many breakthrough things. Although the VR stuff now had brought back that sense of wonderment for me :).

[@nojuanatall3281]

Rez HD made me a VR believer. But it's still not all that way there. Hopefully PSVR2 is a step forward.

[@jc7997aj]

Yes I remember many times lusting over it looking in the back of Game mags that had ads to import syatems and games.

[@leeartlee915]

As far as I’m aware, the Neo Geo is the only system that no one person has a full library of. I’ve heard of people having every other complete library from the NES, to the Saturn, and even the PS2 (which is NUTS considering the size of that library). But yeah, never heard of anyone having the full set. And this system is the poster child for why emulation is almost required to play some systems.

[@VTorner]

PSVR is shit lol Wake me up when Nerve Gear

[@Burger-s8z]

Yikes boomer

[@StooCambridgeArtist]

I couldn't afford one when it first came out but a few years later during my Sensible days I was very fortunate to own an MVS with a few carts. Man, the excitement of playing proper arcade games in my living room was awesome! During my career I got to work on many machines but not the Neo Geo - I would so loved to have got my teeth into it as the hardware was just so good for an ol'pixel pusher like me! Another top video mate! Big thumbs up!

[@retropuffer2986]

I like how MVG finds some neat info he somehow knows we'll love.

[@GadgetUK164]

Awesome video!!! Really enjoyed this one =D The Neo Geo is such an awesome piece of arcade and home gaming history!

[@dsnein]

Love your videos on marathon fixing them! I picked up a box of 20 cheap at auction and have gotten a few working thanks to you.

[@TheWorldDBZ]

As a kid lived in Japan during the ’90s, I remember the MVS games as “games for punks.” Large video game arcades would often have games running on the CPS2 and such, but smaller and dirtier ones preferred the MVS because of its much lower costs, and such places tended to be filled with rough teenagers who would often extort money from nerds. There was a small convenience store run by an old woman near my high school and it had some MVS cabinets in a small separated space in the edge, where punks skipping classes were often playing KoF and Metal Slug, puffing at their cigarette.

[@Newbobdole]

That kinda explains how the “KOF aesthetic” with young peoples’ clothing got popular throughout Asia, they were cool/dangerous

[@stevesharpe3370]

Wow really interesting! Thanks for that!

[@CarbonRollerCaco]

Love how you just up and use what's considered a slang term in its native language and is often used disdainfully-"punk"-so casually like it were a normal descriptor. That's something Japanese does a lot with loan words.

[@stevesharpe3370]

@@CarbonRollerCaco we do that in here where I’m from in United States too!

[@DFX4509B]

That's ironic given the home version was an exclusive, premium product with the insane price tags to match.

[@michiganjack1337]

Finding someone who owned a Neo Geo was like finding a diamond encrusted albino unicorn rhino. No one actually had one but almost everyone knew a guy-who knew a guy-who had a uncle that owned one. We would talk about the games being as large as VHS tape and that each game was like $500 (which is weird because they’ve maintained their value more than anything over the years).

[@BaneKing57]

Love your content! You make Monday mornings awesome!

[@Gorilla_Jones]

I still remember walking into Software Etc. And walking out with my NeoGeo Gold system. The golden age.

[@SalDOWN]

Ah, the legendary Neo-Geo arcade games... nostalgia overflow! :)

[@Prizrak-hv6qk]

The Neo-Geo AES and the Sharp X68000 were the two super-powerful, beautifully designed and built premium systems which had almost mythical qualities for me and gave me wet dreams (figuratively speaking) when I was a teen who was lucky to own both a Genesis and a SNES. The dreams involved me coming upon some money and buying either one of these systems and some games. They were hard to wake up from! The Neo-Geo began to lose some of its allure for me due to getting flooded by one on one fighting games, which I didn't care too much about, but then stuff like Metal Slug and Pulstar came out, rekindling my interest. With the X68000, it was about playing the "lost" Castlevania game, near-perfect CPS1 arcade ports and all the cool shmups.

[@manoftherainshorts9075]

Neo Geo games still amaze me, their look is timeless. I suppose newer generation of gamers will see those games 15 years later and still find them aesthetically pleasing.

[@realamericannegro977]

In many ways I like this more than the cps2 and 3

[@NinjaMuffinLive1]

In the early 2000's MAME, Metal Slug, Snow Bros and Windjammers was pretty much my childhood (along with SNES). Great vid!

[@TechWithSean]

There are tons of good Neo Geo games that never really came out on other platforms. I picked up one of those recent MVSX home cabinets and modded it to have basically all the MVS library.

[@CubicIronPyrite]

Seeing Magician Lord for the first time in the arcade was a "wow" moment for me.

[@trueakuma777]

I remember when the Neo Geo came out, all my friends and I were excited about it. Then we heard how much they cost and that excitement quickly fizzled out! I didn't know anyone who had one, and they were WAY outside my price range, so the only way I could experience Neo Geo games was in the arcades or in the somewhat uncommon instances where they were ported to other consoles like the SNES or the Sega Genesis. But they were fun games and if money had not been a factor I likely would have bought a Neo Geo at some point. Thanks for the informative video and stay safe out there!

[@TN_AU]

I remember seeing this back in the day at my local Myer store in the city here in Australia, they had the unit in a glass cabinet but had a video playing on the TV showing off the games. When I saw the price tag, yeah nah.

[@connorkiss2614]

How much was it in Australia?

[@TN_AU]

@@connorkiss2614 this was in 1990, I was a very young lad, I cant recall how much it was but the $800 AUD mark keepa popping into my head. $800 back in those days was alot of $ to splash on a console, and then the $ for the game carts.

[@NOPerative]

Awesome vid. I got my my NeoGeo back in 95-96 time frame and had a 32 inch stereo Philips I rigged it to; gaming was good.

[@KarlRock]

I’d never heard of this console until I watched this video. But it does look premium from your video. I imagine $600 USD would’ve have been even more expensive back in those days too.

[@ChaossX77]

Yeah, it's called inflation ffs. 🤦🏻‍♂️

[@humansrants1694]

At the time in the Uk the Nintendo SNES was £190 and the Sega Megadrive was £179 on release, the Neo Geo I got in 1993 was £460 with no game and one controller. Games for for SNES and Megadrive were £35 each apart from the 3D ones that cost around £40, the Neo Geo games in the Uk were £185 new and £77 - £84 for games that were two years old.

[@LK.Cynric]

Fantastic video. Very informative and entertaining. Don't know how you manage to always include so much technical information without it being too much or boring.

[@war3zlod3r]

The serial numbers were also used to keep track of which arcade the carts were sold too, many in the wild had the serials scratched off because if SNK found out you sold your carts second hand you'd be fined on your next order from them.

[@thomashrlewis]

You make it sound like this was in the past. I was just fined last week. They've got their spies everywhere.

[@luishandal]

lies

[@lukemorgan6166]

Sounds a little far fetched

[@war3zlod3r]

Lol sure I just made it up and that’s why so many serials on sold carts are removed. It’s absolutely true because it was undercutting SNK’s bottom line but you guys are welcome to believe whatever you like 🤣

[@whatwasisaying1338]

A quick Google search reveals corroborating info to OP's statement on a Neo Geo forum way back in 2005.

[@Philroq7]

I was one of the lucky few who was able to buy a consolized Neo Geo, the CMVS from Analogue, back in 2012. While waiting for the console to arrive at my doorstep, I managed to purchase a bunch of MVS carts from various places as back then MVS carts were pretty cheap. Eventually I landed on about 60 MVS carts. Till this day the CMVS is still hooked to my B&O tv vis scart and it looks and sounds absolutely beautiful. Such a great, timeless console. Btw, love the background music from Twinkle Star Sprites, one of my all time favourite shmups and I own the MVS cart as well!

[@jinvid]

People don't realize that this was a FULL FLEDGED Arcade system IN YOUR HOUSE!

[@wugenius]

The fact that this came out in 1990 and arcade perfect ports weren’t possible until the Saturn with Ram cart says a lot.

[@RetroMoments]

Yes! Awesome video. More NEO-GEO-related stuff would make me very happy!

[@hardcore8uk]

Another great retro KZbin video, best KZbin retro gaming channel on the net , thanks my Ozzi brother, Piece love n respect from Glasgow Scotland !!!!

[@joesshows6793]

Good stuff. Grew up in this era and we did rent the neo geo for a week I think. Joysticks weren’t the best but it was pretty wild having the arcade games on the tv

[@mattb9664]

I'm grateful that I got to play on Neo Geo hardware as soon as it came out in the early 90's arcade. The games just looked gorgeous with fluid animations and it had sound and tight controls that was only starting to appear in arcade games at the time.

[@godslayer1415]

You had shitty arcades then

[@demonsty]

of course i knew all this but i love the neo geo and MVG your presentation is always top tier. love the video!

[@melchior2678]

Thanks for giving SNK and their NeoGeo the respect it deserves. You just earned a subscription from me. Hope to see more content like this from u in the future! 👍👍

[@Oni64]

The Neo Geo will forever be known as that one expensive system we could never afford lol

[@ProdDeity]

I picked one up a few years ago. I was lucky.

[@baoquoc3710]

Zilog Z80 is actually one hell of a great piece of semiconductor history that even intel has to push a Z80 competitor fast, Lowspecgamer has a video on how brilliant this chip was, even its Italian founder!

[@adrian_veidt]

I always thought the Neo geo is the pinnacle of what you can do with 2d sprites. It's like taking an arcade machine to your home on a literal sense.

[@leeartlee915]

In a lot of ways, it kinda is the apex of 2d sprits. What we see today is kinda cheating on what people would call sprites.

[@DecibelAlex]

ironic because nowadays it probably makes more sense economically to buy the arcade board instead of an AES

[@ArtemyMalchuk]

I think Gen 5 consoles like Saturn and Playstation, and later GBA and DS, were the perfect successors to Neo Geo's 2D.

[@linuxstreamer8910]

it is the best sprite based system for it's time that goes for mvs & aes but still it is the best

[@SockyNoob]

@@ArtemyMalchuk Saturn yes, PS1 no.

[@Aearonjer]

Loved my NEO - GEO console. Only drawback was the clacking sound from the joysticks late at night. Good times.

[@golfboy83]

I got a NeoGeoX system with 2 controllers and all available game cards that they made for it back in 2012 or 2013. It feels like playing original hardware with the big amazing arcade sticks. Probably a better option than the mini counsel they put out, plus the Neo Geo X is also a portable handheld system. I absolutely love it, and feel that the build quality is top notch.

[@godslayer1415]

garbage system.

[@golfboy83]

@@godslayer1415 have you played one, or are you just regurgitating what all the haters say online? For $250 for everything, it's pretty great....better than one Neo Geo cartridge for the same price.

[@8bitsnkboy472]

I have a confession to make, I never owned a Neo Geo back in 1990 either. I too dreamed about owning one for many years and fortunately that dream did come true eventually. Long story short, It took me 25 years to finally get the machine of my dreams. First a humble Neo Geo CD, very quickly followed by an AES and then an MVS. Anyway, fantastic video and very informative as usual (I'm still learning new things, despite my obsession). I particularly liked the sprite stitching and sprite layer explanations - beautifully done. I could watch this stuff forever... Subscribed.

[@AllySandrana]

Never owned the system, but I love the game. Metal Slug is one of My favorite game all time.

[@thegamerfe8751]

Of course the NeoGeo is ahead of its time, some of its games still look beautiful to this day.

[@WrestlingWithGaming]

AES with a multicart, even the expensive $600 ones, is such a money saver in the long run. The HD retrovision cables paired with the Neo Geo adapter is how I play mine and the picture is gorgeous. Killer video as always. I do agree with you that due to the expense and great emulation available, it's hard to recommend buying the actual hardware outside of finding a decent deal. I'm sure it's in my head, but I swear some games feel different on the real hardware. But that's probably just my subconscious trying to justify the money I spent on it 😅

[@Ali-Britco]

You're absolutely correct about there being a difference. I used to play tournaments (mainly the King of fighters series) in our arcades. For a while things were fine, then emulation happened and arcade owners were flocking to the new arcade machines which were mame cabinets. Once we started playing on these everything changed, there were suddenly combos we could pull off that we never could on actual hardware and stuff we no longer could do because of the changed timing. It led to tournaments getting split into two camps, the emulator ones and the originals (based off actual neo Geo hardware). Pretty soon that split led to the demise of our little tournament circuit and by then the world had moved on (Street Fighter, tekken etc.)

[@WrestlingWithGaming]

@@Ali-Britco I will say that it's something I only notice on some games. Most of them are, to me, indistinguishable from emulation. But to be fair, it's something that I'm not usually sensitive to in other emulated platforms but I'm sure there are people out there that can feel these slight differences more deeply than I. I also think some of it comes from the feel of using the Neo Geo sticks too.

[@Ali-Britco]

@@WrestlingWithGaming yep, I think the difference is more noticeable in games that rely on 'twitch' reflexes like fighting games. For example, in my younger years I'd memorised and beaten the nes Battletoads, on real hardware I still can, but on emulator ( around 2013 anyway) I couldn't get the timing right for the unicycle level and knew something was off.

[@Alexandratheberge]

I got mine in 1991 i was so obsessed

[@luciusthegreat5569]

Great video ! I always appreciate your views on games . Always good to see one of your videos !

[@moesaber4325]

I'll never forget spending all my money on playing Samurai Showdown and Metal Slug in the arcades.

[@KenMasters.]

I've done the same for KOF '96 - 2003 and Sonic Wings 2 at a laundromat.

[@TheBandoBandito]

I don't mean to make you feel old but it's always inspiring seeing gamers well over my age (24). I hope I can keep my passion for games as long as you have.

[@Waccoon]

When I first heard that the system uses sprites for backgrounds instead of tilemaps, that blew my mind. Talk about a brute-force approach! They might have done that specifically because it makes it easier to scale backgrounds. I should check out an emulator sometime to see how the DMA timing and fetch modes actually work.

[@realamericannegro977]

This explains the crispness you see in theae games

[@VenomStryker]

I remember reading about the Neo-Geo in various gaming mags back in the day. I knew I could never afford one, let alone the carts, but it was cool that it existed.

[@hadesmcc]

Great video as always, I found Neo Geo through emulation as a kid, when a mate showed me he was playing Metal Slug. Many moons later, I came to own an AES and I'm glad of it. On a different note, you neglected to mention one could also acquire a Darksoft or Terraonion cart and load up the full library on an SD card.

[@zeikjt]

13:09 I guess not by name, but the tech was mentioned

[@DocMagneto]

He mentioned multicarts at 13:20

[@hadesmcc]

@@zeikjt Not the same thing, he mentioned those 161-in-1 carts with a fixed library of games.

[@hadesmcc]

@@DocMagneto Multicarts and flashcarts are not the same thing. Multicarts have a fixed library of games, like the popular 161-in-1 cart which is what he was alluding to. I was specifically talking about something that allows you to play whatever ROMs you want to.

[@zeikjt]

@@hadesmcc Ah fair enough, I figured he was just talking about carts with sdcards preloaded with games, not fixed hardware data but I guess not!

[@cyrollan]

This is one of the best KZbin videos I've ever watched.

[@savagedregime8176]

My favorite NG trivia is how Fatal Fury has the Y2K bug. The date for Geese's death in the ending is based on the BIOS clock, but it loops back to 1900 after the turn of the century. Check any recordings of the ending on KZbin the date will be the same as it was recorded in but 19XX instead of 20XX. Apparently this only affects western Neo Geo models, so the Japanese ones are Y2K compliant.

[@konman10000]

As I was born in 93' I have very little recollection of this console... It was basically mythical to me and now I finally understand. Thanks for the awesome video MVG!

[@kirby0louise]

The M68K had a 32-bit internal bus but a 16-bit external bus, so I guess you can think of it as a 24-bit CPU if you want to

[@SomeOrangeCat]

As for what "bits" is a console is, It all comes down the to "What is the instructional bit width the CPU can handle?"

[@vadnegru]

@@SomeOrangeCat Yes, +1 this. Many 8-bit cpu has 16-bit addressable space. Overall "bits" is used loosely, generally advertising bigger number.

[@ATomRileyA]

I remember trying to explain this to a kid at school who seriously told me it would explode if you had anymore than 16bits in a console no idea why he thought this was true but something that i look back on and makes me laugh.

[@fatalfallacy]

„Do the math!“ Ah wait, this were the other guys that also got pretty „creative“ counting bits on the bus… haha… Afaik the 24bit refer to the GPU‘s 24bit wide data bus here.

[@kirby0louise]

@@SomeOrangeCat No? For example, x86 instructions can vary in length, from 8 to 240 bits. The number of "bits" a processor has almost always refers to the max width of the standard data type (so SIMD is excluded)

[@Trevor6714]

I had a co worker who was crazy about neo geo. At the time I thought it was just another 16 bit era machine but the truth is much more than that. It’s neat to see how it works and the fact that it’s legit an arcade cabinet at home, not just another genesis or snes. Thanks Mvg

[@loganford3921]

I always wanted a Neo Geo but still haven't got one but I do own 11 sealed AES games that I bought in 2009. They were going for between £20-40 and I couldn't pass them up. They had Man 1975 sealed but I didn't buy it as the woman on the front cover had a white dress covered with a black marker pens. Also had Andros Dunos sealed for £80 and now sealed there going for over 2 grand so I'm regretting that lol.

[@elijahingram6477]

Up until very recently, a local Topper's pizza place I used to frequent as a kid had a Metal Slug arcade cabinet in it, and I absolutely adored it. That game, along with Strikers 1945 Plus II, were games I sank many quarters into growing up. They just recently got rid of the cabinet (which made me very sad), but they now have games like Crazy Taxi in there, which is also super fun. I will ALWAYS love Metal Slug. Such a fun and jaw-dropping game :D

[@MarcoGPUtuber]

It's OK. I didn't own one either.

[@mtunayucer]

Lmao

[@IncendiarySolution]

Nobody owned a neo geo

[@rockfresh1993]

Only drug dealers and surgeon kids had one

[@Nordlicht05]

I didn't even know what it was. Everything I knew was there are Sega Nintendo and someday Sony. That was it 😅

[@mcrsit]

"It's OK. I'm gonna shoot you in the head." -Jericho

[@GameplayandTalk]

I appreciate you showing off how the platform handles sprites. I had no idea that's how the Neo-Geo did things. Cool stuff!

[@AVGNROCKS1996]

The holy grail of video game consoles. One of the few times a $700 video game console was totally worth it.

[@Spiritcr1jsher]

It was barely better than snes. Definitely not one of the few times $700 was worth it . Pretty much the only system besides the 3D0 that ever costed that much

[@bookoflists]

@@Spiritcr1jsher That's kind of a nuts remark. The neo geo pulled people in at the arcades. The SNES is also great, but it is not arcade-power hardware.

[@Spiritcr1jsher]

@@bookoflists The games were mostly not representative of the hardware. Snes towards the end ran arcade quality games like street fighter alpha 2 and mk3 . To say it was one of the few times it was worth 700 is insane . Barely had any good games

[@bookoflists]

@@Spiritcr1jsher Don't get me wrong, SNES is a great system but what you are saying is not true.

[@ps3inquisition441]

Was always a dream of mine to own a Neo Geo. I remember seeing reviews of Neo Geo games in magazines, and thinking I’d never be able to afford it. Now I have a consolized MVS and about 40 carts, plus a CDZ with 5 games. It’s such an amazing system.

[@markdenniss8480]

Great video. Another option which I believe is better than the Neo Geo Mini is to check out the Neo Geo Arcade Stick Pro (you can download the entire back catalogue and is licensed by SNK) which came out a year after the mini console and has a far superior resolution when you can connect to the TV.

[@polioepidemic8746]

Pandora 9 H Better All Snk Games Plus Various Systems 3369 Games In Total Only 109 Dollars

[@boydpukalo8980]

I always enjoy how you go into details describing how these systems work. Fascinating video. I look forward to the next video.

[@boydpukalo8980]

That is great. Let me know when you have sent me what I won.

[@luckyrockmore2796]

Top tier quality arcade games at home well before the beloved Dreamcast did it! Respect! 👍👍

[@lennyngrado6365]

Thanks for this episode. I never understood why SNK virtual console games were a thing but this answers it.

[@retrogamestudios6688]

Dude none of us could afford one at launch. But seriously saying it's ahead of its time is like saying NASA is space age....btw what's under the electric tape

[@cryptokarnage6394]

aww the nostalgia , I was born in 82, and i remember my brother got rid of my nes for sega genesis. I was sooo mad!! lol but i loved samurai showdown so much i remember dreaming what a NEO GEO would look like . I never seen one till the late 90's and still crzy expensive. 40yrs old today i remember those day. thanks my friend. GREAT VIDEO.

[@arturowareham1683]

NEO-GEO really paved the way for better games and the next gen consoles.

[@JudgedMentalMusic]

Notice every console he just so happened to know about and was always hyped about “back in the day”. The “one upper”

[@RetroPiero]

It truly was. A console that everyone wanted but couldn't afford. The original PS5.

[@BillB808]

PS5 is a cheap console that is slightly less powerful than its XBX competitor. Neo Geo was a very expensive console (and games), which was 2x as powerful as its competitors. Totally different ball game.