Who Had An AES Growing Up in the 90s?

lachlan said:

You thinking about his prostate?

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bubba966 said:

Bought one at the end of '91. Took a long time for me to save up $650 for it. Never knew anyone else that had an AES back then.

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FAT$TACKS said:

I had an Electronics Boutiques catalogue that had some Neo-Geo stuff in it. I looked at the pictures a shit load and wore the catalogue out looking through it. I kept the catalogue for years. I played the games in the arcades and would dream of having a home system.

I didn't actually get one until I got older, when I found myself with the ability to use buying things from my past that I couldn't afford when I was young, as a means of filling the void in my life.

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redfield0009 said:

Never had and never would get one. All the games on the Neo Geo suck.

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Burning Fight!! said:

bulbousbeard you logged into the wrong account to post this

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Digmac said:

I will say, this has to be the most engaging first post by a newb member I’ve personally seen.

My prostate has a cult following to set the record straight.

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XxHennersXx said:

Engaging and in the wrong section even. Don’t usually see that

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XxHennersXx said:

Engaging and in the wrong section even. Don’t usually see that

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Digmac said:

What section should it have been in? I mean, this is general discussion. Lol

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srarcade said:

I got a few good stories for this topic-

I had a "rich kid" buddy in 91, we were about 10-11 years old in 5th grade, who got a Gold System. I didn't quite believe him when he told me at school because the system was damn mythical to own for all of us. So he invited me to his house for a sleep over that friday. I told everyone else at school who didn't believe him either that I would report back if he was full of shit or not. Turns out he was honest- he really had a gold system with Magician Lord and Ninja Combat. I would remain friends the next few years with him and he grew quite a collection but refused to sell any of it to me.

Better story- about a year later, a new rich kid neighbor kid moved in across the street from me just as Toys R' Us was liquidating Neo Geo. It was 50% off, no shit- so about $300. His mom said "Hey is this system any good? Its more than all the rest" I said "Yes, you should buy it." She was a deal hoarder, the kind that bought 50 2-liters of soda when they went on sale. So she told me the next day "I bought the game system. I also bought 8 games because they were all 50% off and I figured we could give him a couple each holiday." and proceeded to show me the stash. It was epic. In the end, the kid had all 8 games within the year. (He was 7 years old mind you) After that, she would occasionally ask me what game to buy next. I told her Samurai Shodown the day it came out- and yep, he got it. Best part of the whole story- he got bored of his Neo Geo and traded my Sega Genesis for it for 2 years. In fact, I even got my Genesis back and still had it and he never missed it. So while I didn't "technically" own the system, I had it in my possession that long plus about 10 games. I had to give it back when I moved away.

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Digmac said:

In response to the thread, I wasn’t even around when the AES could be purchased in stores. I’m a young tymer with an old tymer mindset. I do thoroughly enjoy having an AES nowadays though. Even with the market prices there’s tons of fun to be had with alternatives like the NeoSD and NeoSD Pro.

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srarcade said:

I got a few good stories for this topic-

I had a "rich kid" buddy in 91, we were about 10-11 years old in 5th grade, who got a Gold System. I didn't quite believe him when he told me at school because the system was damn mythical to own for all of us. So he invited me to his house for a sleep over that friday. I told everyone else at school who didn't believe him either that I would report back if he was full of shit or not. Turns out he was honest- he really had a gold system with Magician Lord and Ninja Combat. I would remain friends the next few years with him and he grew quite a collection but refused to sell any of it to me.

Better story- about a year later, a new rich kid neighbor kid moved in across the street from me just as Toys R' Us was liquidating Neo Geo. It was 50% off, no shit- so about $300. His mom said "Hey is this system any good? Its more than all the rest" I said "Yes, you should buy it." She was a deal hoarder, the kind that bought 50 2-liters of soda when they went on sale. So she told me the next day "I bought the game system. I also bought 8 games because they were all 50% off and I figured we could give him a couple each holiday." and proceeded to show me the stash. It was epic. In the end, the kid had all 8 games within the year. (He was 7 years old mind you) After that, she would occasionally ask me what game to buy next. I told her Samurai Shodown the day it came out- and yep, he got it. Best part of the whole story- he got bored of his Neo Geo and traded my Sega Genesis for it for 2 years. In fact, I even got my Genesis back and still had it and he never missed it. So while I didn't "technically" own the system, I had it in my possession that long plus about 10 games. I had to give it back when I moved away.

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FredyFired said:

The same can be said about me too, I'm part of the newer generation of fans who discovered this great system and it's games through ports and emulation during the mid 2000s. It's the system I enjoy playing the most and the 161 in 1 cart can also be a blessing if you can't afford the NeoSD.



Great stories . I enjoy reading stories like these just as much as reading about the history of the Neo and it's games, stories about someone's past experience during a time period that I wasn't able to experience myself.

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Avram Merkava said:

The console wars were a hell of a time to be a teen. Things got really ugly on the playground, friendships dissolved. The AES (or, simply, Neo Geo, as we called it), was this superlative, Trump card we'd pull during debates. We would be debating system specs, which console could handle a type of game best, etc, and then some shmuck-y guy would invariably blurt out, "yeah, well, the Neo Geo makes those systems look like crap," or some such statement. And, again, this is about ten years before we were really able to verify things online. Information moved slowly. I remember calling up the 800 number for Lucas Arts on a pay phone an asking them questions about games!

Basically, SNK wasn't marketing to my demographic. They conceded to sell the AES to consumers after initially offering it as a rental console to bars or something. I'm really not sure what their sales strategy was, but for us -- the system was a tall tale that literally no one we knew had.

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FredyFired said:

Well SNK truly targeted an older demographic, even the price tag sort of made that clear, it was for people who really wanted the arcade experience at home and were passionate and I guess able to afford it. In the mid 2000s there was a console war too, between the Playstation and the Xbox (that sort of is still going on rn, but not quite) and there was always someone who used the PC as a "trump card", saying it runs games in the best possible way, can do most stuff (even when it came to emulation ofc) and do it much better than any console, even tho this is sort of bullshit if you take some things into consideration.

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RAZO said:

The Neo was way too pricey. I knew damn well not to even ask my parents for anything that expensive. I asked for a Sega Genesis instead and even till this day I think I made the right choice.

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Avram Merkava said:

It would be what today, $1200?

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Avram Merkava said:

And I will get shit for this, no doubt, but the early AES games were not *that* much better graphically than the 16 bit console games. You didn't see real enhancements in sprites until the mid nineties, when the AES was competing with the Saturn, et al. Again, for me, the AES was more a concept into which I imbued everything I thought was lacking in my Sega and SNES.

When classmates described it, they painted mental pictures of controlling actual TV cartoon characters on the screen (which, let's be honest, we didn't get for another two generations, maybe). But that's my demographic -- the middle school set. The older demographic, who SNK was probably targeting, saw the AES for what it was, an opportunity to play MVS at home. And here's more sacrilege for you... I wasn't an MVS fan. At the arcades (Sports World, for anyone who grew up in North Jersey in the 90s), we gravitated to MK, SF II, Turtles in Time. Samurai Shodown, my favorite arcade game now, wasn't on my radar. In fact, I knew the names, Capcom, and Konami, and Data East, but not SNK. Again, entirely possible I was an uniformed moron. But most of my friends were the same. That's at least my experience in the early 90s in the wilds of North Jersey. Your histories probably vary.

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Avram Merkava said:

And I will get shit for this, no doubt, but the early AES games were not *that* much better graphically than the 16 bit console games. You didn't see real enhancements in sprites until the mid nineties, when the AES was competing with the Saturn, et al. Again, for me, the AES was more a concept into which I imbued everything I thought was lacking in my Sega and SNES.

When classmates described it, they painted mental pictures of controlling actual TV cartoon characters on the screen (which, let's be honest, we didn't get for another two generations, maybe). But that's my demographic -- the middle school set. The older demographic, who SNK was probably targeting, saw the AES for what it was, an opportunity to play MVS at home. And here's more sacrilege for you... I wasn't an MVS fan. At the arcades (Sports World, for anyone who grew up in North Jersey in the 90s), we gravitated to MK, SF II, Turtles in Time. Samurai Shodown, my favorite arcade game now, wasn't on my radar. In fact, I knew the names, Capcom, and Konami, and Data East, but not SNK. Again, entirely possible I was an uniformed moron. But most of my friends were the same. That's at least my experience in the early 90s in the wilds of North Jersey. Your histories probably vary.

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