Neo Geo Classic Edition

[Leon Retro]

I even knocked up a prototype!

->Open Spoiler<-

I wish the Neo Geo X had been good.

[QualityChimp]

Yeah, it ticks every box the Classic should have.

I mean, the Classic doesn't have a battery, it has to be plugged in.
It's not portable enough to carry around (even if you find a power supply) and too small to have a proper gaming session on.

The X had that funky case and a decent form-factor of the handheld.
20 games built in and the option to add more on carts.

Shame the unit wasn't very good, full of unlicensed emulators and the big screen picture was washed out.

[Leon Retro]

Shame the unit wasn't very good, full of unlicensed emulators and the big screen picture was washed out.

I really hope SNK have another go and deliver the sort of AES Mini people want. I don't think mini machines cost much to make.

[Colin]

Don't hold your breath waiting Leon.

[importaku]

The uk pricing is out of control on this thing. Just seen the uk prices of the extra stuff on amazon uk dear god lol. Ten quid for the official mini hdmi cable & more shockingly the sticker sets are £9.99 for a set of 4. Absolute robbery especially considering theres 12 in the set they randomly put 4 in a pack. They really do think they can get away with the horrendous markup on this thing in the uk territory, this thing has never sold out since it went up for preorder.

[Leon Retro]

this thing has never sold out since it went up for preorder.

I doubt it will sell well in the UK. Doesn't deserve to.

[importaku]

No it certainly doesn't, i could have forgiven a £20 price difference but a £50 markup is disgusting. I don't know why it's pissing me off so much, hell you could order the USA one from Amazon.com pay the international shipping feee and the customs fees and it still works out cheaper than buying a UK one that's how much of a pisstake it is.

[Leon Retro]

hell you could order the USA one from Amazon.com pay the international shipping feee and the customs fees and it still works out cheaper than buying a UK one that's how much of a pisstake it is.

It really is a crazy situation.

[randombs]

I doubt it will sell well in the UK. Doesn't deserve to.

I think it's fair to say the Neogeo Mini isn't marketed towards the likes of us discerning retro gamers. It's marketed to this dude:

[QualityChimp]

Now you know what I look like, it'll be easier to spot me at the Christmas meetup.

[Leon Retro]

I think it's fair to say the Neogeo Mini isn't marketed towards the likes of us discerning retro gamers. It's marketed to this dude:

Well as much as a dude like that might buy it, I still think there are plenty of retro gamers who would buy a good quality tabletop or mini console. I think retro gaming is bigger than ever at the moment.

Word is definitely going to get around that the tabletop isn't very good, so the UK pricing will probably really cement a no deal with most gamers. Only a few hipster sort of people will probably just buy it for the sake of having something new and supposedly cool.

[randombs]

Well as much as a dude like that might buy it, I still think there are plenty of retro gamers who would buy a good quality tabletop or mini console. I think retro gaming is bigger than ever at the moment.

Word is definitely going to get around that the tabletop isn't very good, so the UK pricing will probably really cement a no deal with most gamers. Only a few hipster sort of people will probably just buy it for the sake of having something new and supposedly cool.

Absolutely. We would've been clamoring for the NeoGeo Mini if it was decent like the SNES Mini. But it's not. As you say, an AES would've been much better - no added costs of a screen/built-in controller, packaged with one or two Neo CD controllers instead.

They've missed the mark in so many ways that I wonder if they either:

a) completely misjudged what their target market would want, or
b) were never really aiming it at people like us with our Raspberry Pis and hacked SNES Minis

[Leon Retro]

Absolutely. We would've been clamoring for the NeoGeo Mini if it was decent like the SNES Mini.

a) completely misjudged what their target market would want, or
b) were never really aiming it at people like us with our Raspberry Pis and hacked SNES Minis

I think it's misjudged. As you say, people would be clamoring for an AES Mini - especially across the world of retro - if SNK had been sensible enough to cash in on the mini console craze. The time is perfectly ripe for SNK to have taken full advantage of the Neo Geo brand with a mini console. The marketing could have been really impressive and played on the old school image of Neo Geo being all about power and impressive graphics.

But instead - the people in charge at SNK decided to go with a tabletop. But sadly not a big, high quality tabletop that would do the Neo Geo brand justice. I've thought the tabletop looked like a joke from the start -- and then it turns out to be worse than imagined.

I have nothing against SNK, as I'm really fond of what the company has given gamers over the years, but they really dropped the ball with the tabletop and missed a trick by not creating a mini.

So, the Neo Geo X was rubbish -- and now the tabletop isn't very good. SNK needs to sack the people making these bad decisions that spoil the high quality image the Neo Geo brand was known for.

[Colin]

The basic fact is that the non SNK options are now the best SNK options, because they don't genuinely care about their legacy. The Neo SD opens up AES and MVS gaming because shelf queens have destroyed owning originals on genuine hardware. Emulation and current gen downloads give genuine replication of the games. But despite this, as a company they somehow manage to release a first party product that's utter pish. The mind boggles.

[Baseley09]

100% it's all the more galling that what was put out in the heyday was of the highest quality. Even the bog standard top loader CD system is an absolute tank.

We all know that they died with the OG bankruptsy.