Neo geo

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Neo-Geo is the name of a 16-bit cartridge-based system for arcades as well as home video game consoles released in 1990 by the Japanese video game company SNK (temporarily renamed SNK Playmore).. The system's technology offered 2D graphics, and sound quality far superior to that offered by other home systems of its time. Initially the Neo-Geo system was created as a platform for arcade machines, later it was also available as a home game console at a price that was too high for many, $700, thus giving rise to two versions of the system: the arcade system, MVS, Acronym for Multi Video System (Multi Video System), and the domestic system, AES, acronym for Advanced Entertainment System (Advanced Entertainment System).

Popular games such as Fatal Fury, Samurai Shodown, Metal Slug and KOF were published and were part of this system.

It is considered one of the video game systems with the longest useful life on the market, 7 years of hardware production and 14 years of software sales. Several titles that have been part of the system have maintained a commercial presence, thanks to the porting, conversion, and publishing of its games on newer generation consoles and mobile devices. It was ranked 19th out of the 25 best video game consoles of all time by the IGN website in 2009.

History

In the 1980s, the video game business was already booming, especially in the arcade market. Over time, countless companies released an infinite number of titles, which led to some problems, arcade machines took up a certain amount of space in arcades and over time, to manage the profitability of those places, the game had to be changed for a more modern one; Consequently, making this type of change was an expensive and difficult process, since the entire piece of furniture had to be changed or sometimes only the plate where the game was contained.

At the end of that decade the SNK company, already positioned for years in the video game industry, was implementing a new system that was capable of taking advantage of this problem; For that, for the first time in its history, it is associated with a company called Alpha Denshi (ADK in its last years of existence), prominent for years in the arcade market at that time, which had already created a recreational motherboard of very successful, the Alpha68k, which can be considered the precursor of what would be that new system, the Neo-Geo.

After a while of development, the final product began to be shaped: the system had to consist of a motherboard in which a certain number of cartridges could be connected, in order to save space in the salons games and that the client could request more games from the company while having the same square meters of room. On the other hand, the hardware had to be more powerful than the competition because this interchange feature would mean that the board would have to remain inside the cabinet for a long period of time, and -not as usual- (and unavoidable), together with each new game.

The Neo-Geo system was released in Japan on January 31, 1990. It used two CPUs: a 32-bit Motorola 68000 as the main processor at 12 MHz and an 8-bit ZiLOGZ-80A running at 4 MHz. The system's main CPU was 50% faster than the 68000 processor found in Sega's Mega Drive/Genesis console. The Neo-Geo AES also had the benefit of having an auxiliary audio and video integrated circuit. The auxiliary IC enabled the system to display 4096 colors and 380 individual sprites on screen simultaneously (compared to the MegaDrive's 64 simultaneous colors and 80 individual sprites), while Yamaha's 2610 sound chip gave the system 15 sound channels. CD quality with seven channels for digital sound effects.

Logo of the Neo-Geo video game system.

At its release, the console was planned to retail for $599 USD, 48,880 yen in Japan, including two joysticks and one game (Baseball Stars or NAM-1975). However, this plan was quickly scrapped, as the official North American release was priced at $649.99 USD with two joysticks, a memory card and the Magician Lord game (the first boxes of the Neo -Geo had a golden sticker announcing the inclusion of the Magician Lord, over the initial plan which was to choose between two games). This package became known as the "Gold System" (Golden System). The system was also released in a "Silver System" (SilverSystem), which included a joystick but did not add games or a memory card. The games were $200 or more each, in the full arcade it would cost around more than double the console. With these 'premium' prices, the company believed that most gamers could not afford the system and as a consequence, it was proposed to be accessible only to a small profitable rental market; for this reason, in the initial catalog of the games the message read: “This product can only be used on the NEO GEO Rental System”. Still regardless of that, there were numerous customers who would pay to own the console, even for $650 or more, which is when SNK rethought their sales plans and decided to release it to the public a year after its release.

Regarding the graphics and the memory capacity of the games, these increased with the passage of time, the first games were somewhat "loose" compared to the new games that went on sale. In 1992 the system, both the arcade and the console, had more than 30 games available (see the game list) of different genres, mainly fighting. Games like Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting, 2020 Super Baseball, Baseball Stars 2, Football Frenzy , King of the Monsters 2: The Next Thing, Samurai Shodown demonstrated these improvements in terms of gameplay and graphics.

By 1993 the panorama of videogames changed considerably and little by little the “polygonal revolution” began to dominate, brought from companies like Sega and Namco. During that year there were already some companies offering new systems based on polygonal graphics rendered in 3D, this greatly changed the perception of players of arcade systems and video game consoles. On the other hand, some companies opted to change the cartridge game format for a newer and cheaper one: the CD compact disc. However, SNK was still successfully offering its Neo Geo system and released a reissue of the console in CD format, the Neo Geo CD in 1994, which allowed the player to enjoy the same games as those of the AES, but without having to pay the high price of its cartridges, since the CD was much cheaper to produce. However the new system did not stand out due to the output of more powerful 32-bit systems with 3D graphics such as Sega's Saturn and Sony's PlayStation, and other reasons were that it was still expensive and dedicated to being 2D graphics only..

In 1996 games or conversions of the Neo Geo system began to be released for the Saturn and PlayStation consoles, these conversions were not perfect and presented some details in some published titles. In that year, the game Metal Slug was launched on the market, part of what would be a series of games that would accompany the system in an important way until the last years of its existence, also accompanied by the fighting game saga. KOF.

With the opportunity to enter the 3D video game market, in 1997 it launched what would be the successor to the Neo Geo, with the capacity to display 3D graphics, the Hyper Neo Geo 64, although it was considered another The failure on the part of the company that somehow many gamers and fans of SNK preferred to play the 2D versions, although the games looked very well finished it failed to somehow convince consumers. In addition, Namco and Sega had a superior arcade hardware and a larger catalog of 3D games to choose from. The system was discontinued in 1999, publishing only 7 titles, so it had to continue publishing games for the Neo Geo.

SNK stopped manufacturing home video game consoles in late 1997, but software for both formats and arcade hardware was produced for several more years (CD games were discontinued in 1999).

In 1998, it launched a portable console on the market, the Neo Geo Pocket, designed to rival Nintendo's GameBoy, the absolute dominator, for many years, of the portable sector. It was released in Japan on October 27, 1998, and continued to be produced until 1999, before giving way to the Neo Geo Pocket Color mainly due to low sales of the monochrome system. What stood out about those systems was the long battery life of up to 40 hours and some built-in features. Even so, it was considered another commercial failure and finally, on June 13, 2000, the company announced the cessation of production of NGPC consoles and software for said support.

Until 2000, the Neo-Geo system continued to publish games and entered the 128-bit generation, unfortunately the commercial failures that it had previously had as a company caused it to be on the brink of bankruptcy, this made it sign a contract with the Japanese company Aruze (a company specializing in pachinko games, the equivalent of Western slot machines) to obtain a rescue plan by which it would take care of its large debts in exchange for obtaining the licenses for its franchises and thus be able to decorate the machines of pachinko with details of Fatal Fury, KOF and other games from the company.

Unfortunately the situation did not improve, Aruze did not support SNK as it should have been to just stop seeing their true intentions: to use only SNK licenses and leave the company to chance without giving any financial support that it had contemplated, resulting in the cancellation of several titles in development, an example of which was the sequel to Garou: MOTW still in development. The production of new games for the veteran system had decreased drastically (See in the list of games) until the company SNK officially declared bankruptcy on October 22, 2001. Due to this scenario, the founder of the company Eikichi Kawasaki, resigned to form another company, Brezzasoft. Said company, instead of continuing to produce new titles for the NG, created its other system, the Crystal System.

Some time later, sometime in 2001, Eikichi Kawasaki himself created the company Playmore, which would absorb Brezzasoft, and from there negotiations began with Korean companies such as Eolith or Mega Enterprise, to provide support in future projects again for the Neo-Geo from which gave birth to the publication of 2 titles: The King of Fighters 2001 and Metal Slug 4 respectively. Noise For its part, the Japanese developer creates Sengoku 3, with gameplay never seen before in the previous titles of this franchise and publishes other titles under the Evoga and Atlus licenses (although the former was previously joined with 8ing/Raizing): Power Instinct Matrimelee and Rage of the Dragons 3. Eolith would again continue using a new installment of the KOF saga, The King of Fighters 2002, of high quality and based entirely on the work of the original SNK.

The continued support and use of the system with more than a decade in commercialization would incur other problems that would condemn it forever, piracy. The popularity of the Internet brought with it the ease of hacking different arcade systems including those produced by SNK. Originally, there was no copy protection on system cartridges, although it was added later. In 2002, programs that simulated arcade systems and video game consoles to run on computers called an emulator became popular. Programs like MAME or NeoRAGEx make these emulations of the Neo-Geo system; With this, it must be understood that in order to emulate said game (called Rom in emulations) it was possible to extract the information of those games from the Rom memories of the cartridges, mocking the protection of the system, therefore, this aggravated the piracy of the system cartridges of both formats, an example of this, is that a few days after the launch of The King of Fighters 2003, it was already emulated and ready to be downloaded and played anywhere. PC or to be ported and sold on pirated cartridges. Finally, and hopelessly beset by such piracy, it ceases to create new games for the system in 2004. The last Neo-Geo system game, Samurai Shodown V Special, was released on April 22, 2004.

Since those years, the company went from bankruptcy to revival, the companies that Eikichi Kawasaki had created to rescue him, would merge to create SNK Playmore, then in 2004 he would win the lawsuit against the company Aruze for damages, which he paid to SNK, the figure of 5,640 million yen, about 47 million euros. Finally after that long process of rebirth, the company announced that it would continue to produce arcade games now under Sammy's Atomiswave board. Later he would do it for the Taito Type X series of plates.

On August 31, 2007, SNK stopped offering maintenance and repairs for Neo Geo consoles and games.

At the beginning of 2012, the same company announced the sale of a portable version of the system based on the home version, the Neo Geo X. In terms of hardware, said console is much superior to the original Neo-Geo, but it already Since it is an emulator (FB Alpha), running on Linux, the results are not always as expected. The Neo Geo X system comes with Neo-Geo AES games stored in memory, and bundles with other released games can be purchased on an SD card. The console's release date ended on October 2, 2013 due to TOMMO Inc. does not fulfill what was promised with SNK and additionally offered a poor emulation.

Since its commercialization and introduction of the hardware to the market, more than two decades, with fourteen years of support for the Neo-Geo system by the manufacturer, makes it the longest-running arcade system in production, even more than the Sega Naomi or the Capcom Play System 2.

Technical aspects

Memory card for the Neo-Geo system.

The joysticks of the Neo-Geo game console are 6.4 cm high, and their base measures 28 by 20.3 cm, and contain the same arrangement of four buttons as the arcade machine.

Arcade machines had a memory card system by which the player could save the game to resume it later, so that they could continue playing on the video console at home.

The version of the hardware for arcade machines, was also known as "MVS", an acronym for Multi Video System (it was available in versions with up to 6 slots, MVS was last capable of loading six cartridges in one machine). plate itself. On the other hand, the game console system was known as "AES", an acronym for Advanced Entertainment System (probably to distinguish it from the Nintendo Entertainment System, the console that dominated the market at that time). epoch).

In some games, they come with the option to change the language, even to Spanish. Only the operator is enough to access the service mode (activating DIP SW-01), enter the game settings "Setting up the soft dip" then select the slot of the game inserted in the arcade and change the language in the option "LANGUAGE" (Available only on certain games and on all European boards, but some games also on boards from other regions.) In the case of the AES console, it is possible to adjust the language in the options menu of each game, if there is one. It should be mentioned that this option only changes the language in some texts on the screen and not the entire game in general, by default those without translation will appear in English or in the original language (Japanese). Another DIP switch found on the MVS board corresponds to FREE PLAY, where it is activated when certain events occur (a tournament for example), allowing players to play without inserting physical chips. Also within the service mode you can change the number of credits (only if the plate itself is chosen in "soft dip"), number of lives and even the option to remove or censor violence from some games. Don't forget to turn off the DIP SW-01 before booting games inserted into the board.

Preview of a Neo-Geo cartridge, in its version for MVS recreational machines.

The programming code is the same on the MVS and on the AES hardware. In fact, owners can port the EPROMs from one system to another, and the game would still work. Specifications for both the MVS and AES program options were contained on each game cartridge, whether the cartridges were intended for home use or arcade games. However, the arcade and home version cartridges had a different pinout. They were designed this way to prevent arcade machine operators from buying cheaper home cartridges for use in their machines.

In the case of Neo-Geo mini, released on July 24, 2018 in Japan, the appearance is arcade-like, includes a 3.5" at 640x480 and built-in but single-player controls, a USB port for powering the console, and a mini-HDMI port (cable sold separately) for connecting to HDTVs. In addition, it has a headphone slot and two slots to connect Neo-Geo CD controllers (sold separately) whose ports have also been modified. The built-in games only run on their AES version instead of the MVS board and each one has up to 4 slots to save data. The Japanese version includes 40 games and a selectable interface in Japanese, English, Chinese, and Korean. The international version only has 14 changed titles, but may include more languages.

Rom sizes and boot screens

There are 3 cartridge sizes and 3 screen types:

The games of up to 330 megabits (39.27 MB) show the text "MAX 330 MEGA - PRO GEAR SPEC" when loading.
In addition, some 100 megabit games exhibited another animated screen showing the text: "The 100 Mega Shock".
Since mid-1998, the original size of the ROMs was improved in the cartridges using bank switching memory technology, increasing the maximum size by cartridge to 1 gigabit (128 MB) and showing the text "GIGA POWER - PRO GEAR SPEC" when loading. This text does not appear in games that come from MV-0 plates.

Technical specifications

Base plate of the Neo-Geo system in its home version AES.

Inside a Neo-Geo MVS recreational machine with its 4 cartridge base plate and its controls.

CPU

Central or main processor: Motorola 68000 (12 MHz)
Coprocessor: Zilog Z80 (4 MHz)

Sound

The system in general uses the Yamaha YM2610 sound chip, with 15 sound channels. Respectively, the chip can generate 4 different types of sounds: ADPCM digital audio, FM synthesis, PSG sounds and noise. It works in conjunction with the Yamaha YM3016 chip for digital-to-analog conversion (ADPCM and FM sound only, PSG sounds and noise is generated directly to analog), used for final audio output.

General aspects:

7 digital channels ADPCM, from which it works in two sets of samples: 6-channel ADPCM-A, 12-bit audio and playback depth to 18.5kHz, and 1-channel ADPCM-B, 16-bit audio depth and variable playback from 1.85 to 55.5kHz (programble)
4 FM synthesis channels (synthesis by frequency modulation), four channel operators
3 PSG channels
1 programmable noise channel
Sound RAM: 128 KB

Display

The system graphics processing unit (GPU) consists of some custom chips or circuits for image, video and graphics generation, the circuits used have been modified to adapt to some models and versions of the system without affecting its functions.

MVS System

PRO-B0, PRO-C0, LSPC-A0 (employed in the first models)
NEO-MGA-T, NEO-GRC (first model reviews)
NEO-B1, LSPC2-A2 (revisions in later models)

AES system

NEO-B1, LSPC2-A2

Neo-Geo CD System

NEO-GRC, NEO-OFC
NEO-GRZ (used in the CDZ model and in some revisions of the arcade MVS)

General aspects:

Screen resolution: 320x224 in NTSC mode and 320x256 in PAL mode
Color palette: 65.536
Maximum simultaneous colors on screen: 4.096
Maximum simultaneous sprites on screen: 380
Minimum size of sprites: 1x2
Maximum size of sprites: 16x512
3 simultaneous scrolling planes
Appearance ratio: 4:3

Storage

Internal RAM:

RAM: 64 KB
RAM: 68 KB
RAM of Z80: 2 KB

Memory cards: 8kb or 68-pin of JEIDA memory specification ver.3.

Food

Source: 5 V DC (older systems and Neo-Geo mini) and 9 V DC (newer systems)
Consumption: 8 W (5 W in newer systems)

Dimensions

Console: 325 mm (width) x 237 mm (depth) x 60 mm (height)
Controller (AES): 280 mm (width) x 190 mm (depth) x 95 mm (height)

Support from Third-party companies

During the first years of the system's existence on the market, it had some support from a company in the creation of some of its titles (most of Japanese origin); It is worth mentioning that there were some companies that only developed and published games exclusively for the Neo-Geo, which as a consequence also caused the economic problems that SNK had in 2001 and had to disappear due to financial bankruptcy, although other companies also disappeared due to situations unknown or different, it should also be mentioned that some of these companies are not very well known about their existence today. Even so, the rights to those games were recovered and are still maintained by the SNK Playmore company (except in some countries). Although almost all the games had considerable acceptance and popularity by video game fans; some last titles published in the last years of contribution to the system were not. The companies or companies that contributed a game or title to the Neo-Geo system (including some data) are mentioned below:

Alpha Denshi (renamed after ADK, closed its doors in 2003)
Aicom (It was renamed Yumekobo in 1996 shortly after becoming part of Sega)
Aiky (Closed in 2003)
Data East (Closed its doors in 2003 by bankruptcy)
Eolith (Existant until 2008 when merged with a company called M-Dream)
Evoga (Closed its doors in 2004 by bankruptcy)
Hudson Soft (Completed by Konami in 2011, officially ceased to exist the following year)
Mega Enterprise (Aolith subsidiary company)
Monolith (Still active)
Nazca Corporation (Form of former employees of Irem Company, was bought in 1996 by SNK itself)
NMK (Make its operations until 1996, closed its doors 3 years later)
Noise Factory (He finished his operations in 2011, after developing the last sequel Sonic Blast Man of Taito in 2010)
Psikyo (It was created by some former employees of the Video System company, still active)
Sammy (Part of Sega)
Saurus
Sunsoft (already active)
Technos (Closed its doors in 1996 by bankruptcy, Arc System Works obtained its intellectual property rights in 2015)
Tecmo (Merged 2010 with KOEI to rename Koei Tecmo)
Yumekobo
Yuki Enterprise (It was created by some SNK employees who developed Samurai Shodown in 2006, called Examus Inc.)
Taito (already active)
Visco (although active)
Viccom (Closed its doors in 2003 by bankruptcy)
Video System (Closed its doors in 2001)

To learn more about the support of third-party companies for the Neo-Geo system, see the References section.

Curiosities

Neo-Geo is a system that can currently be emulated in the following systems: PC - Xbox - Wii - Nintendo DS - PSP - Nintendo Switch - Android - iOS (with jailbreak) -PS3.
Some Neo-Geo games were converted for the Megadrive and SNES consoles. Although some versions were good, the results showed the huge technical differences between Neo-Geo and other 16-bit domestic systems.
The first and second batch of 32-bit consoles did not match Neo-Geo in 2D games. Conversions were made to PlayStation that had programming restrictions (decrease in the size of the fighters, loss of animation frames, lack of details on scenarios, etc.). The conversions to Sega Saturn were of higher quality although the use of an additional RAM cartridge was necessary.
It was not until the arrival of the 128-bit Sega (Dreamcast) console when perfect conversions of Neo-Geo games were obtained. This due to the increased RAM of this console.
In addition to being known as the main competition of powerful 16bit arcade systems such as Capcom's CPS 2, there was another system that competed with the Neo Geo, the PGM (PolyGame Master) of the Tawainesa IGS company. This system had very similar technical elements or aspects to the Neo Geo with the exception of a different sound chip from 32 channels and the same CPU, but more powerful. The games for this system were very similar to those developed by SNK, for example, the Demon Front game had playability aspects and graphics very similar to that of Metal Slug. In the end this arcade system did not have the desired success for being marketed in a late time, as this system came out in 1997, it was not until the year 2000 when the games were developed in greater quantity. PGM was a very popular video game system only in the Asian market.
It is considered in the first console to use Memory Card

Disadvantages compared to its rivals

Although this console was generally the most powerful of its generation, certain aspects of its hardware were inferior to the competition:

As with Capcom CPS1 and CPS2, Neo Geo could not perform hardware transparency while SNES did. Some games where pieces of ice appear that allow you to see background animations are just replicas of the same graph with a colored blue tone.
The maximum number of simultaneous players was two while Megadrive and SNES increased that figure to four and five using adapters.
The games were limited to four action buttons. Some competing arcade plates, Megadrive and SNES could handle up to six, or even eight in recent arcade titles.
The console couldn't handle polygons. Megadrive and SNES were able to use special chips in their cartridges. However, it is fair to nuance that Neo Geo, thanks to its powerful main processor and the rest of support microprocessors, could have dealt with games that mixed polygons with sprites, and even uncomplex games at a polygonal level, in fact the Megadrive itself proved to be able to this, with games like "Red Zone" or "Muhammad Ali Heavyweight Boxing price" among others. Super Nintendo, being specialized in two-dimensional graphics did not highlight so much in this facet by being less 'verse', the reason is that its main but powerful processor is not fast, and all its support processors are mostly directed to work in two dimensions, or otherwise said: they are not intended for pure mathematical calculation. Still, there are games that show beautiful bill polygons, a good example is "Star Trek Starfleet Academy"
Neo-Geo did not possess other types of controls outside the standard or mahjong, like the gun. Megadrive had the Menacer and SNES the Nintendo Scope.

Collectibles

There is a thriving collecting scene for Neo-Geo home systems, mainly due to the low print runs of some cartridges, and its reputation for being highly capable of 2D gaming. It is common for both games and consoles to fetch great prices on Internet auction sites like eBay. Some Neo-Geo games can be downloaded on different current consoles through the Virtual Console service and on the PS3 through the PlayStation Network, there are also conversions for Xbox 360 for Xbox Live Arcade.

Games released for Neo-Geo

See the wiki Annex:Videogames for Neo-Geo.

Other Neo-Geo systems

Several consoles were created based on the same hardware used for arcade games, as well as portables under the name Neo-Geo Pocket, Neo-Geo Pocket Color, and Neo-Geo X.