How Does Neo Geo Compare to the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis? - Retro Bird 

You need to adjust your camera shutter speed. Research the strobe and shutter speed. Not frame rate.

@@NOTLeavingLV I've tried tinkering around with the shutter speed before with no success. I'll have to give it another try. I do still think the refresh rate explains the difference between my Neo Geo footage and other consoles, but I know you're correct that the shutter speed is the way to fix it entirely.

@@RetroBirdGaming me am snk fan king of fighters fan

Tetris sneaking up on you with a knife is amazing just awesome. I normally just listen to videos but I have to pay attention for little things like that.

@@RetroBirdGaming Have you seen the TurboGrafx versions of Neo Geo games ???

Yeah I've never seen one in my life they were only things of legend

I owned one

@@1978mackdaddy what happened to it?

@@thesultrystrangerdanger6824 My Dad bought it for me in 1991, I sold it to a classmate for peanuts in 1995 because I had lost interest in playing video games at the time. Believe me, I regret it looking back.

@@1978mackdaddy circle of life... You didn't love it as much as the devil's lettuce... Trade it for a bag

Great post and perspective!

☝this right here 100% You had to be there to really understand.

The prom Queen during my freshman year was a very nice girl that never refused to gently talk with whoever approached her... but the Neo Geo simply snubbed me as if I was a freak with radioactive fingers lol

This is so true. The Neo Geo was almost mythical at the time. We all wanted one. We were all happy to play whatever we could get our hands on, but the Neo Geo was that always out of reach, amazing thing that everyone wanted.

Agreed 100%. I read about it but you never knew anyone who had one. It was a unicorn lol

Happy to hear it! Glad you're enjoying the videos :)

🤟

I wonder if it was on sale where you bought it from? Every source I've ever checked has said $650 (for the gold system) and rental only in Japan until '91. Goes to show that there is always more research to be done. I'm really glad you brought this up.

I noticed this as well in both Neo Geo and SMS/NES/Genesis games. You would see a game like Strider on the Genesis with the badge “8 mega cart”… and a price tag of $79.99. It wasn’t even a RPG but 8 mega meant mega bucks. After seeing this, I noticed it other places I hadn’t before and bigger price tags that went with them (Bandit Kings of Ancient China on NES). Then I noticed later in life with the internet… most significantly more expensive games had higher cart capacity. I could remember seeing Striders 8 mega cart badge then see a Neo Geo cart like Fatal Fury (55 meg) and thinking… gee, what a value! 55 meg and it’s only $199!!

@@PabstOban Good point! Some of the competition was quite pricey with their larger ROM size. I remember seeing Chrono Trigger, for $89.99, and thinking to myself “that’s half the cost of a Neo•Geo AES cart” ☺️ I can’t imagine SNK was making a lot of money off the sales of their Neo•Geo AES carts with ROM prices being so high in the 90’s. I guess they made up the difference with their Arcade counterpart (MVS). Speaking of which, arcade ops were paying $800 each for those games in 1990. I found this out when calling my local arcade manager to ask if they had any Neo•Geo games for rent/sale. I thought back then that they were interchangeable. He told me he was paying $800 ea for a new cart. When I told him I was buying them new for $120-$170, he became VERY interested. He had no knowledge of the Neo•Geo console, or the types of carts it used. So he asked if he could drive over with a bunch of games to compare. (Now days a simple pic of the cart pins would have sufficed). He told me he’d let me borrow a few of the arcade games in return. He was more excited about the idea of buying new Neo carts for his arcade unit for much cheaper. Needless to say, the carts had different pin outs. SNK was smart about it. Both the Neo•Geo AES/MVS games were often identical in data, but they changed the dimensions/pin count to keep the markets segregated. We were both bummed ☹️ but it was cool to learn more about the Neo•Geo back in the day. He made it up to me by giving me a ton of credits for Magician Lord the next time I went to the arcade. I used most of them to complete it too! I brought my memory card, and showed him how you could save levels, and load checkpoints from it.

@@RetroBirdGaming I bought mine for $550 as well, but I got mine from what would be a sketchy 800 number from a place in New York and mine came with 2 controllers and Nam 75 and for another $150 I bought The Super Spy game because I was addicted to it in the arcade. They threw in the memory card. Still have the console, sold all of the games.

Graphically I don't mind saying that MotW is even better.

With so much attention going its visuals, its audio capabilities sometimes get overlooked. Yeah, it sounds great. All those satisfying crunchy hit sounds from the fighting games stick out to me.

Amiga was king imo, my friends had consoles and each had like 3 or 4 games. I had over 200 games on my Amiga thanks to copying.

That is really cool that your kids enjoy playing the old 2D games with you. It is kind of funny to think that in 2040 they might be nostalgic about playing the Neo-Geo in 2022.

I thought they died because you never saw them in stores.

If they were going to charge that much for games, they should have sold the console at a loss, get millions of users, then make the money on the games.

The 90's kid in me adores the fact that it's 24-bit hardware. So neat-o!!!!

​@@IndohNintendo That was all marketing though.. SNK was simply adding up the Motorola 68k and Z80 CPUs. If Neo-Geo is "24-bit", then so is the Sega Genesis. :) Which really just goes to show you how the CPU is just another part of the bigger picture, I.E. the video chip, GFX modes, system memory, cart ROM size, mappers, etc..

@@videogameobsession I believe SNK took the 24-bit argument from the data bus width of the graphics chipset (which is indeed 24-bit wide, in contrast with SNES PPUs and Megadrive/Genesis VDP which have 16 bit data buses).

@@benjib2691 They were adding up the CPU's. The system box shows "The Only 24-bit Home System, System Specs - CPU: 16 BIT and 8 BIT"

You must have been pretty well off to be able to afford one back in 1990! Did you also have a 3DO when it came out?

Seems like all the early mvs cabs were loaded with Magician Lord and Fatal Fury. That first person shooter was popular as well, forget the name of it

​The Super Spy?

How much was it and how much were the games at that time if you don't mind me asking? I usually see that new the games were anywhere from $200-$300+ but I'd think in 2005 they had to be somewhat cheaper.

@@HerecomestheCalavera I guess I conflated two different times. I first saw the system at Games For Less in the early '90s, but they wanted $750 for the system and two games. That was way beyond what I could realistically beg my parents for! In 2005 when I was finally had some of my own money, I got an AES system off eBay for $150. Complete boxed systems were around $300 in the mid 2000's. Many cheaper US AES games were under $100 at that time. I bought JP Garou Mark of the Wolves for $275, US SVC Chaos was available on the Neo Store for $169, and the highest priced game I ever bought was a US Metal Slug X for $600. The prices for everything started to change in 2011. I had a wedding to pay for and had to sell them and switched to MVS. I really miss my AES set, but 2022 prices are probably 5x higher than 2011.

16 bitters, limão

Most actual arcade games are like that, they look and sound great and have to have a gameplay that grabs you for a couple of minutes or so, and then make you come back another day once again to try beating it. There some exceptions but many are actually very short games and most get repetitive really quick.

It had some great games but like you said not near the variety from the other systems at the time. The price was absolutely insane aswell. Sure the games looked somewhat better but nowhere near $200-$300 per game better! For example the Metal Slug series is great but back then for the price of an AES and Metal Slug 1,2 and 3 you could have got around 30 Genesis and SNES games. I think only the rich and gamers who were hardcore into arcade games had the AES back then. The same people who had a Neo-Geo most likely also had a Laserdisc player lol

At the very least, the idea of it being a _high-end_ product is inconceivable in Current Year; something like the Evercade VS is sold at more of a _budget_ price if anything.

yeah, especially with how specialized it is, people are willing to pay 1000-2000 for a gaming PC, but a PC is alot more general (even just for gaming), the neo geo was even more specialized than the other consoles.

@@CassiDS yeah exactly you don’t see RU-vid commercials of Evercade calling Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo weenies.

@Dances Rainy Streets Of course they did. I'm saying Evercade isn't competing with the big three. They're going for a totally different, way smaller demographic. However back in the early 90s, something as left field as the Neo-Geo would try and market that way, where it doesn't makes sense for Evercade to do the same.

well arcades aren't viable now so...

Yeah, the Saturn had some pretty solid ports. The loading times are the main thing I see people complaining about. Nothing too bad to deal with from what I've experienced.

@@RetroBirdGaming once you get in the ram cart territory the loading times are barely noticeable. I have to admit though I miss those cool loading screens Capcom did for Street fighter alpha 3 and rival schools on the PlayStation 1

The Sega Saturn, PS1, N64, and Dreamcast getting almost arcade perfect ports of games for home are the main reason arcade were dying in the late 90s and early 2000s. Console games are not suppose to be better than their arcade counterparts, once they started getting better and even surpass arcade then there's no point in going to the arcade anymore thus when arcade died, so did the NeoGeo.

you should have eaten ya greens then like ya parents told ya too.

Worldwide it kept it simple but in Japan the Super Famicom was a mess, it had far more adapters than it needs and Nintendo released two Super Game Boys in that regions too with the second one having a link cable port and a more accurate clock speed to the Game Boy.

Thanks! Glad you liked it :)

you would be surprised that alot of games released for ps1, saturn, dreamcast, and ps2 were first released on the Neo Geo!!! such as KOF, metal slug, samurai shodown, king of the monsters, GMOTW

@@tropicalbeach9225 Oh yeah I know it was great for Japanese fighters. I’m a big fg guy fan if you didn’t notice the icon

@@MKF30 I agree with you that in todays generation and year 2022, The Neo Geo is not worth the price or buying unless you are just some rich collector who wants to buy the console and all the games/original cartridges and place it behind a glass case or wall. With that being said, most Neo Geo games can easily be pirated and can play them on systems such as hyperspin, or plug and play devices such as pandoras box. So is it worth the cost in todays gaming... Hell no. However, back in 1990, and the early 90's this game system was incredible for its time and you got the real arcade experience at home. SNES and genesis started dying anyways around 1995, because that is when Saturn and PS 1 came out; but Neo Geo was still amazing for its time and arcade experience. When I was a kid growing up in the 90's; the only type of arcade games that impressed me and that I played was street fighter, MK, PAc man, and galaga, other than that didn't have too much interest in arcade games and was more into console such as genesis and SNES because my friend had a genesis and we would play the heck out of streets of rage 2 every friday night and order chinese food or pizza while playing it. plus loved sonic 2 and loved donkey kong country on snes. I could never afford a neo geo back in the days and I rarely ever spot a neogeo/ fatal fury arcade machine back in the early 90's around my area.

@@tropicalbeach9225 Oh yeah for sure for collectors or those now who didn't have thr money then since price wise wasn't the most practical in the 90s to charge 4 to 500 bucks for a console lol 😆 but definitely agree. If you were a rich kid who had every console or just the neo geo or jaguar etc then that was cool to own. One of my 2nd cousins out in Connecticut had a big ass house 🏠 with a yard big enough to play baseball and football lol they had every console snes, Sega genesis, neo geo, jaguar and something else I just forget. Definitely cool systems I just think their only issues were thr price points snd variety of games that the snes and Sega g had. Yeah then snes lasted longer than most thought I think but since that was around the time of PS1, N64 and SS then the 16 bit were dying out so you had Neo Geo you figure this thing or the newer Nintendo and PSX? I'm not sure that helped the NG's case either. Yeah same i loved playing snes and Sega. I admit more of a SNES guy but my friend had the genesis I borrowed it and he had a turbo graphics 16. I remmeber being a big MK fan liking mk on the genesis due to the blood code even though the snes seed closer to the arcade speed wise. But then Nintendo realized ok we lost money on MK to Sega so they said F it uncensored for MK2 onwardnand I remember mk2 for snes just demolishing everything else lol 😆 also DKC yes legendary series love them one of my fav platformer series for sure and TMNT turtles in time. Lots of videos on here arguing that this is one of the few and rare exceptions where the home version was better than the arcade port more stages, perfect gameplay, graphics and modes. The only thing the snes version didn't have was 4 players but still had 2 so wasnt bad. If they had the multitap as an option for the game would have been perfect but still imo the best home beat em up ever made. Final fights and streets of rages were fun but something about turtles in time that was special.

I am not from USA, and no one plays baseball here, but that SNK game was very fun.

If they had released some AES exclusive games like RPGs and even platformers it would have helped the popularity of the system quite a bit. Although even if it had several amazing RPGs the $650 price tag for the system and the $200-$300 price per game would have still limited it's appeal to the large majority of households.

There was a Samurai Spirits RPG. I don't think it ever came out on AES, just Neo Geo CD and Saturn.

Glad you appreciate my art!

@@RetroBirdGaming the VU/Warhol reference was on point!

Hmm... I checked multiple sources. What I did come across is that they were originally considering a lower price but settled on $650 (for the bundle that included two arcade sticks and a game). Thank you for bringing this up though. I'll have to see if I come across anything else.

No problem! I bought mine from a place which advertised in the back of an EGM magazine. SNK didn't start selling at brick & mortar stores, namely Babbage's, Software Etc., and EB's, until around summer of 1991, and they only carried the Gold System, for $650., and games for $199.99. This is why I believe that many sources are citing 1991 / $650 info. SNK has verified the 1990 / $550 (Gold) $399 (Silver) releases in the USA with two authors of the Bitmap Books Official Neo•Geo Compendium book, released a few years ago. It's the only official book on SNK's Neo•Geo history. I helped with some photos, scans, and shared my proof of release / price as a secondary source.

@@videogameobsession Ahh, I see. They must consider when it hit retail stores as the official release and not the magazine orders. That's pretty awesome you got involved with that compendium book.

I'm not sure if I can post links here, but here are a couple things that may be of interest. The first is me opening my Neo•Geo AES on Xmas morning 1990. It was basically a gift from me to me. Hehe. My big gift that year was Top Player's Golf, and also talking my dad into letting me use his credit card to order it. He wasn't really into the idea of me playing games in the first place, but he was cool with it since I was always putting half of my earnings into a savings account. It arrived so close to XMAS (on 12/20/1990), that I just let my mom wrap it up since I had very few gifts that year, with TPG being most of it, along with a cool Nintendo calendar. I had checked with a couple of other online stores, and they were all $550 for the Gold, but Anlenn said they'd throw in a free $30 memory card, so I went with them.

So pic #1 (XMAS 1990) showing the USA version of the Gold System AES. www.videogameobsession.com/videogame/zz-other/origins/Neo-Geo_Unwrapping_Xmas_1990.jpg Pic #2 is a scan of the original store receipt. www.videogameobsession.com/neogeo/neo-scans/Neo-Geo_Gold_System_Sales_Receipt_12-18-1990-vgo.jpg Hopefully they will work here. -Matt

I love that thing! Glad you know what it is :)

It was a 32bit arcade cabinet,... a better one than the 32X, the 3DO was a system that had developers dumbfounded, as much so for the Atari Jaguar, which is why only certain titles even feel like they are finished,.. 3DO was great but Need For Speed, Road Rash and Return Fire were all better in cabinets or on the PS1 when ported since it didn't have to try and run 32 bit games on a 16/16 bit system,.. which is what the 3DO was essentially trying to do since it was running 2x16 chips. It shot itself in the foot releasing as a disk system, the load times and small amount of VRAM made for horrible presentation. The 3DO had no quality,.. it has 260 games that were done better on other systems and controllers that daisy chained lol.

@@dr.decker3623 Espcially considering how willing 3DO company was to port their games to other machines.

^^^ This guy knows what's up

I'm glad you found it as well! Welcome to the channel :)

I knew one person in my city who had one and there was another in the next city. I got the Neo CD version for myself later, and even the Neo CDz from japan, which was almost the same thing. Loading times were terrible, even in the CDz version.

Duh

It is really a shame that they never made any AES exclusive games like platformers or RPGs. It may have helped the Neo-Geo become more well known if they'd done that. Imagine if Square would have released an AES exclusive Final Fantasy. Maybe even somehow talk Sega into releasing a super "24-bit" Sonic game! I know that would have never happened but it would have been cool if it did lol

Yeah, the fighting genre was definitely over represented on the neogeo. I would have like to see an rpg on the neogeo with those large rom sizes and graphical capabilities, but it was of course an arcade platform first and foremost.

@@HerecomestheCalavera they should have used the neo geo cd as an opportunity to branch into more genres instead of releasing the same games on cd.

@@yellowblanka6058 That's the problem, it was literally an arcade made into a console. It played arcade games put onto a cartridge. There were never any rpg arcade games made, because they are not arcade friendly. So obviously none were going to appear on the NeoGeo.

@@JMFSpike Oh yeah, I know that, but was there anything preventing them from say, releasing Neo-Geo CD only RPGs etc. that weren't also in the arcade?

Thank you!

Thank you!

Well there's River City Ransom if you want that super deformed look. Double Dragon was always more realistic looking in the arcade games and 1 on 1 Fighter.

Yeah. I couldn't be too mad cuz the fighting game they did was solid (surprisingly a better fighting game based on a movie based on a game than Street Fighter got) but it was a missed opportunity.

I always felt like the Neo Geo could've done the Beat 'Em Up genre better than it did. There's some good ones, but given the quality of its 2D fighters I think it could've pushed the envelope further.

@@RetroBirdGaming That's true. That would have fit the arcade style of play better than platformers and RPGs.

I had to do a double take on your comment. I first read it as the Neo Geo had the edge in affordability 😁

I initially misread your comment to say the Neo Geo was affordable too. Haha.

Well, I don't think the Neo Geo was trying to win the console wars.

The Neo Geo was never trying to take part in the console wars. It was a luxury console. You don't enter a F1 race with a luxury car.

You’ve missed the most important thing. What you really need is great games. The Genesis and SNES had it all over the Neo Geo on this aspect. Totally regardless of technical capability. Not that the Neo Geo didn’t have some good games. But they lacked the number of games, the different style of games, and best SNES games and Genesis games are considered to be some of the best games of alltime. Not really the case with the Geo

You can comment as much as you'd like. Very cool to see it broken down like this :)

It's too bad Samurai Shodown RPG is the only RPG it got. Also sad that it's only available on the NeoGeo CD, a system known for its terrible load times. They could had easily port that to the AES, not sure why they didn't do it, the AES had memory card support so an RPG with long play time could totally work on it.

​@@VOANSamurai Spirits Bushido Retsuden (RPG) was only released in Japan, so SNK didn't even do an English translation of it. As far as it coming to AES, there was no chance of this ever happening. The CD version of SS RPG was around 500MB IIRC. The largest cart released by SNK at the time was Metal Slug, (193Mbits, or only 24MB). They would need a cartridge rom which is roughly twenty times larger than the largest game in 1996. There is also Crossed Swords and Crossed Swords II, if you're looking for some lite RPG elements.. more action/adventure though. The thing with Neo-Geo games is that they had to first, and foremost, be popular for the arcade setting, in order to come to the home market. By the mid to late 90's, they were really only releasing the home carts in very small quantities, out of loyalty to their fans. In some cases, as little as 500 copies were produced for the USA market. This was documented for Sengoku 3, and Metal Slug 3.

I agree. It had many less games, but so many of them were incredible. They had to make sure all of their games were test marketed for arcade, first and foremost. So there was no real filler there.

Which would say is superior Contra 3 or any of the Metal Slug games? Contra is pretty good but I'd pick Metal Slug over it.

@@HerecomestheCalavera Well Contra 3 is peak Konami....their soundtracks were better than the rest...so I would pick it....but of course games like Metal Slug X and 3 are better in a lot of ways...I grew up on Contra 3 (well Super Probotector) though...I think with Konami its the music that seals it

@@HerecomestheCalavera I love both the Contra and Metal Slug games. The hand drawn animation in Metal Slug is insanely good, with Metal Slug 3 being Nazca's swan song, IMO. Also give Cyber-Lip a try, if you haven't already. It was developed by a few ex-Irem devs who would go on to join Nazca. It's an excellent run & gun co-op, which is probably a bit more Contra-like, than the Metal Slug games.

TURBOGRAFX-16 puts on more colors on the screen than Super Nintendo and Genesis combined and the TG-16 has faster gameplay than regular Super Nintendo. Yes I have TG-16 and NEO-GEO AES It is my most prized systems in my collection I just recently picked up a 3DO it's gonna be hard to get nice games for that as far as not being scratched or beat up disc

@@demonology2629 oh ya man turbografx is awesome to the max! Use to rent one from blockbuster every now and then never got one for Christmas or birthday but I did have nes, snes and the genesis! I love shooters and sega is one of the kings of shmups but turbografx is right there with em great shooters! 3DO they use to have a display at circuit city and they changed the game out all the time or by request so stood there many hours playing it, just never owned one they was 699 if I remember and that was in the early 90s!

@@digitalworms all the expensive systems were more powerful one way or another too that's for sure

@@demonology2629 Oh ya man to experience the classic gaming you had to have all the systems they was all part of the story!

@@digitalworms Atari Jaguar is the only one I haven't touched yet or Phillips CDI Atari Jaguar CD and 32x CD as far as next gen goes!!

I'm happy you did too! Welcome to the channel :)

Thank you for watching!

It has a tile layer but that is only meant for text and HUD graphics elements. It also did not use subpallets, just one main 12 bit pallet with 4096 16 bit RGB entries. It was literally arcade hardware, it was a cartridge-ized and slightly upgraded version of an arcade board designed by Alpha Denshi.

If you're saying NEO-GEO AES can't do parallax scrolling you are completely wrong. Magician Lord does it and many other games do too.

@@demonology2629 - I'm not saying that at all. The Neo-Geo can handle multiple layers of full-screen parallax... using sprites.

@@demonology2629 People see the single tile layer in the specs and assume it can't without understanding how the hardware actually works. The tile layer is there just for text and graphical HUD elements. Playfield elements are all made up of 16x(up to)512 pixel strips.

@@AnthonyFlack look at fatal Fury 3 on Hong fu elevator stage in Hong Kong look at it it will discredit everything you said

Cheaper than Amiga.

Excellent point!

Thanks!

@@RetroBirdGaming What's producing them? CRT, RetroTINK, MiSTer or CRT Shader if you don't mind me asking?