New handheld plays Neo Geo games, has a Neo Geo price

Posted By: Michael Lacerna In: Console News, Gaming News, Handheld On: 13 Aug

Long before Sony made the mistake of trying to sell a system at $599, SNK created the 24-bit Neo Geo AES home console and tried to sell it for $650. Keep in mind that was back in the early 90′s, so if you adjust for inflation the system would actually cost you the equivalent of about a thousand dollars in today’s money. Despite the high price, the Neo Geo got some great games, and now, twenty years later, SNK has created a handheld that not only accurately plays those same games on a handheld, but also accurately recreates the insane pricing of their beloved AES system as well.

Priced at $200, the Neo Geo X Gold handheld comes preloaded with the following games:

3 Count Bout
Art of Fighting 2
Alpha Mission 2
Baseball Stars
Cyber Lip
Fatal Fury
Fatal Fury Special
The King of Fighters 95
King of the Monsters
Last Resort
League Bowling
Magician Lord
Metal Slug
Mutation Nation
Nam 1975
Real Bout: Fatal Fury Special
Samurai Showdown 2
Super Sidekicks
World Heroes Perfect

The line-up of pre-installed games is kind of meh: while Metal Slug and Samurai Showdown 2 are still great games, I can’t think of many people who would want to pay $200 to replay stuff like World Heroes Perfect.

In addition to the games, your $200 also gets you a docking station shaped like the old Neo Geo AES console, as well as a Neo Geo arcade joystick. The docking station charges the handheld system, and also lets it output video to a TV screen via HDMI or traditional standard-def RCA cables, and the arcade stick obviously let’s you play these games with the controller that they were originally designed for.

The pricing is kind of strange: sure, the docking station and arcade stick are both nice extras, but at $200 the system might be a hard sell — after all, that’s only $50 less than a cutting edge PS Vita, and it’s $30 more than a new Nintendo 3DS. That’s a hell of a premium to pay for what’s essentially just a portable version of 20 year old hardware, and the system’s initial line-up doesn’t include the Neo Geo’s best titles: where’s Garou: Mark of the Wolves or Metal Slug 3? When the system was initially announced in Japan a few months back, there was talk of SNK releasing more titles for the system, but today’s press release about the American release doesn’t say anything about additional games beyond the ones already pre-installed on the hardware.

I always wanted a Neo Geo AES when I was a kid, but it was always out of my price range. The system and its games have even managed to remain pretty pricey to this day, so technically the Neo Geo X Gold handheld is sort of a deal if you want a piece of genuine SNK hardware. The kid in me wants to pre-order a Neo Geo X Gold right now, but the reasonable adult (well, cynical man-child) part of me says I’d be better off ordering one of the many $20 retro collections that SNK put out on the PS2… but still, back in the 90′s the Neo Geo was pretty much considered the Cadillac of home consoles (especially if you were into arcade games,) and it’s hard to resist that deeply-ingrained lust. Hey, it wouldn’t be an authentic Neo Geo experience if it wasn’t crazily overpriced, right?

Source: Retrogaming Round-Up