thetooth wrote: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.
Youre right, Metal Slug 1 on AES goes for 2500 to 2800. I started trying to do the AES thing a couple of years ago. I bought about 25 or so games and decided to go the MVS route. Ive now have a Super Neo 29 Candy, a Crowin Candy Cab (Korean) and a CMVS along with a modded Xbox with every emulator known to man. Ive got over 15 or 16,000 roms from every system on it including arcade emulators. I put a 500 GB hard drive in it thats why its got so many games, along with some original Xbox games burned in to the Hard Drive.
I also recently started collecting NGPC games again.
I vaguely remember seeing the Neo Geo at Toys R Us here in Tampa, FL back when it was released. And seeing it was $650 and the games were $200 I kept walking right by it to the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo Isle. haha I also noticed they kept it on the top shelf where only a store employee could get to it with a ladder.
