Neo Geo AES appearance question

[shallowgamer]

I'm looking for some neo freaks to enlighten me:

Is there any way to tell by looking at an AES what region it came from? Or do you have to actually turn it on to find out? I know that there were some Korean ones with script on the top, but as far as US/JPN, can you tell the difference?

[irixith]

My old and failing brain seems to remember that Street Hoops (Dunk Dream) is a great game to use as a region tester. If the title screen says "Street Hoops", you've got a EUR unit. If it says "Street Slam", you've got a US unit. If it says "Dunk Dream", you've got a JP unit.

I'm not sure there's any way to eyeball it and know, but any region AES machine will play any region AES game. If you stick a JP cart in a US AES, it will display English. Neat, right? The US and JP hardware is almost identical. You could always look into the Unibios if you're going to want to be region switching.

Good luck.

[shallowgamer]

Yup, I know the games will play, I'd just prefer to have a unit that plays in English. And they're too expensive to bust open and mod

[sneth]

You can look underneath to tell the region.

In most cases, the game will play in the language of the Cart not the system.
Also, most games have a language select in the options.

you can also get a bios mod.

The Neo CD requires you to change some jumper settings for region.

[shallowgamer]

Thanks for the tips. Reason I asked was because there were some AES systems being sold on ebay by a 3rd party, and they couldn't tell me if it was a JPN or domestic system.

Anyhoo, I "settled" for a JPN system, because the deal was too good to pass up. If I absolutely fall in love with it, my next purchase will be a pre-modded one.

[sneth]

There is no region lock out or anything, so you made a good choice either way.

The neo market right now is great for the lower rarity games. The rare game prices are out of control right now, so don't even bother. Don't bet on the prices always being this high either, so don't drop $2500 on Last Hope NGH.

[Bradtemple87]

There is no region lock out or anything, so you made a good choice either way.

The neo market right now is great for the lower rarity games. The rare game prices are out of control right now, so don't even bother. Don't bet on the prices always being this high either, so don't drop $2500 on Last Hope NGH.

Has it really climbed that high? Geez

[shallowgamer]

There is no region lock out or anything, so you made a good choice either way.

The neo market right now is great for the lower rarity games. The rare game prices are out of control right now, so don't even bother. Don't bet on the prices always being this high either, so don't drop $2500 on Last Hope NGH.

Has it really climbed that high? Geez

I'm naive. I don't know why a homebrew cart would carry any value. If memory serves me correctly, not only did you have to fork over around 700 bucks, but you also had to supply a sacrifice cartridge to put the game in.

I'm not having much luck grabbing AES carts. I joined neo-geo forum to buy from users, but it's mostly MVS carts for sale. I should have known those enthusiasts aren't in the business of getting rid of their carts

[sneth]

well that's for a couple reasons.

1. Like i said the market for the commons is very low. So no one even bothers to sell them.
2. CMVS's are all over right now. So MVS is the hot item.
3. No one can afford the rare AES games.

Start on ebay. You'll find a ton of commons on there right now. Better to build up slowly anyways.

[ChuChu Flamingo]

The prices are ridiculous, much like some retro game prices. The buy it now price on ebay are horribly overpriced. Let us look at Pulstar for example. People want $1000 buy it now on ebay, when it should really be $400-$500. All these buy it nows on feebay has made our hobby way more expensive than it needs to be.

I guess that is what happens when back in the early days of ebay, it used to be people trying to get rid of their stuff. The bidding market would determine price. Now we have rarity guides where everything is worth X amount instead of letting open market bidding decide the price.

Heck, whenever a rare neo geo aes game or any retro game goes on ebay, it is always considerably lower than buy it now.

Eventually the bubble will burst.