Launch Neo-Geo console owners on day one.

[grittykitty]

i don't remember the launch day, but i remember buying a june 1991 issue of egm (with the ninja turtles on the cover) that posted the winners of a neo geo contest: 3 lucky people each won a system and maybe two games and some controllers. at the time i remember thinking "what the heck is a neo geo? if it's not nintendo or sega, it's not worth my time!" but as i saw the previews for new neo geo games in later issues, i really wanted one.

i finally got to play a home unit at gametronix in late 1992 - this was a tiny but amazing game store in houston that also sold raw anime laserdics and such, and they even advertised in egm back in those days. i lived a block away, so i would go in to play games and annoy the jerk with a ponytail - i'd usually only get in a single match of art of fighting before he would turn off the system and take away the cart... so much for "display unit"

i just read on wikipedia that the machines were only available to rent in hotels, bars, and such before being publicly released for home use... so when was the public release date?

[Metal Militia]

I didn't even here about the Neo Geo until a couple of years ago to be honest with you. like grittykitty if it wasn't Nintendo or Sega I really didn't care and probably didn't acknowledge it when I was younger.

[J T]

I played the NeoGeo a lot after its launch, but I never owned one. I posted this elsewhere in the forum, but it's more appropriate here anyway.

"There was this place near my house when I was younger called "Just For Fun" that had a bunch of consoles that you could pay by the hour to play. They had the Super Famicom (before the SNES was released), Genesis, NES, Master System, and Turbo Grafx 16. There were little stations for you to play that lined the walls.

There was a special room for the Neo Geo though. It was a dark room, and it had this great smell to it-- to my little gamer nerd nose, it smelled like the future. You have to keep in mind that at this time, the Neo Geo was the COOLEST most EXPENSIVE thing in gaming. Each game cost $200-$300 dollars upon release. Sure you can buy most of the games on a PS2 compilation for about $10 now, but back then Neo Geo was THE cutting edge. There were two television hooked up to one NeoGeo in this dark room. There were two banana chairs and two of those awesome lap-sized NeoGeo joysticks. They also had it hooked up to a great sound system with a 3 foot tall sub woofer right behind you. The grenade explosions in Nam 1975 would make your hair blow around. No other kids were allowed in the room with you when you played, so you had it to yourself. There was an observation window in the back so they could see what you were doing and be jealous though.

I spent so much time at this place. I beat every game they had: Nam 1975 (still my favorite Neo Geo game), Magician Lord, Baseball Stars Professional, Cyber Lip, Ninja Combat, Sengoku, and League Bowling. I had such a great time there, that whenever I see anything Neo Geo I still kind of drool a little. So, my opinion is not objective in the slightest, but I agree with Keith Apicary-- Neo Geos are the Ferrari of gaming."

[Pulsar_t]

I've never met anyone with a NeoGeo but the CD unit was a different story. Even knew someone who claimed he had his machine modded. I wouldn't have known so I took his word for it. Back when you could hardly afford a single high-street game one was outraged by how expensive those NG games were.

[gtmtnbiker]

"There was this place near my house when I was younger called "Just For Fun" that had a bunch of consoles that you could pay by the hour to play.
...
I spent so much time at this place.
..."

That's a neat concept. Do you remember how much it cost per hour?

[J T]

That's a neat concept. Do you remember how much it cost per hour?

I don't recall the price, but I remember that they weren't very vigilant about time keeping, so we would pay for one hour and they'd let us stay for 3 or 4 if nobody else wanted to get on, so it was worthwhile. For us anyway. The store went out of business pretty quickly, I think largely because they were nice like that and they didn't have a lot to buy beyond that. It was about the only place you could find NeoGeo stuff for sale though.

[17DaysOlderThanNES]

"There was this place near my house when I was younger called "Just For Fun" that had a bunch of consoles that you could pay by the hour to play.
...
I spent so much time at this place.
..."

That's a neat concept. Do you remember how much it cost per hour?

It's also an illegal concept. I actually have an original Neo Geo flier with "industry news" on it and one of the articles is about some raid on a place that was charging for console play. It's sort of like buying a DVD and a big screen TV and then charging someone movie admission. If anyone is really interested, I could take a picture (don't have a scanner) of the article.

[shallowgamer]

"There was this place near my house when I was younger called "Just For Fun" that had a bunch of consoles that you could pay by the hour to play.
...
I spent so much time at this place.
..."

That's a neat concept. Do you remember how much it cost per hour?

It's also an illegal concept. I actually have an original Neo Geo flier with "industry news" on it and one of the articles is about some raid on a place that was charging for console play. It's sort of like buying a DVD and a big screen TV and then charging someone movie admission. If anyone is really interested, I could take a picture (don't have a scanner) of the article.

Our Die Hard Game club was doing pay for play up until 1998 or so. Like J T, it was the only place around to play a neo geo. They even had a neo cd set up with the horrendous load times. Hardly seemed fair to charge by the hour

[thetooth]

If anyone is still wondering why there were no NeoGeo AES units simply socked on shelves is because there simply were none. I was just reading some old mags this morning and there was an article covering the history of the AES, apparently none of the big name retailers would sell the AES due to the price(over $600) and so it was left up to SNK to market the unit.

Most of them were sold via mail order direct from SNK's ware houses and only a few of the absolute hardcore gaming stores(mostly independent, single location types) stocked them "on shelf". As for the carts it was only in about 1994 when the manufacturing costs became "stable" did the carts acutaly start appearing on gaming chain stores and some of the less well known retailers. To make matters worse SNK was notorious for doing short runs of carts in order to get them out the same month as there MVS counterparts and thats why Metal Slug 1 will cost you thousands now.

[NeonPeon]

This lucky kid won a Neo-Geo on Johnny arcade show, video. I'm pretty sure he didn't have the money to buy the games, but lucky for him. I actually almost bought a neo-geo pocket color around the time pokemon snap was released. I wished I never bought pokemon snap instead a good n64 game or neo geo pocket.

Hahaha! That lucky kid was me! I recently discovered that video, and I googled to see if it's being linked to. I replied to one other forum too.

I actually did get a few Neo Geo games as presents, but mostly I rented. I was lucky enough to have a local store that rented them. Magician Lord was one of my faves. I also had Fatal Fury, Nam 1975 (came with the system) and Alpha Mission II. At least of those my dad bought used so it wasn't TOO expensive. I play on emulators these days - my favorites are probably the Metal Slug games.

Here's a recent pic of me, with my XArcade stick my wife got me for Christmas. Yup I'm a retro gaming geek too! (Wish I had more time to play - work/wife/baby/other hobbies) Wonder if you can tell it's me. I find this highly amusing....lol.



Anyway I'm glad to be on this site...I'll have to check out more of it.