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Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Games The Neo Geo Is Back! (Maybe.)

Posted by Earnest "Nex" Cavalli on Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 6:09 PM

Well honey, when a Neo Geo and an iPhone really love each other ...
  • SNK Playmore
  • Well honey, when a Neo Geo and an iPhone really love each other ...

You guys remember the Neo Geo, right?

In an abstract sense at least? Nobody actually owned one of those things, but we all saw the ads and played the Neo Geo cabinets at the local arcades. The idea that you could own a console that would play those same arcade games exactly as they appeared at the Avalon was just mind-blowing in 1992, but unfortunately nobody's parents wanted to drop $600 on a console for their dumb kid.

As a result, the Neo Geo was crushed by the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis. The last game released for the console hit retail in 2004, and up until last night the machine seemed to be decaying in the graveyard of defunct videogame tech.

Then, out of nowhere, SNK Playmore offered a glimpse of something called the "Neo Geo Portable Device."

Hit the jump and I'll tell you more.

Japanese gaming site Famicom Plaza broke the news last night and thanks to a translation crafted by the fine Nipponophiles at Andriasang, we've got some pretty solid details on what exactly this "Neo Geo Portable Device" is supposed to be.

Verbatim:

The device, currently going by the placeholder name of "Neo Geo Portable Device," has 4.3 inch screen, two gigabytes of internal storage, and ships with 20 Neo Geo classics built in:

1.WORLD HEROES
2.ULTIMETE 11
3.TOP PLAYER'S GOLF
4.SENGOKU
5.NAM-1975
6.MUTATION NATION
7.LAST RESORT
8.KING OF MONSTERS
9.FRENZY
10.CYBER LIP
11.FATAL FURY SPECIAL
12.ART OF FIGHTING
13.SUPER SIDEKICKS
14.LEAGUE BOWLING
15.METAL SLUG
16.MAGICAL LORD
17.BASEBALL STARS PROFESSIONAL
18.SAMURAI SHODOWN
19.KING OF FIGHTERS '94
20.FATAL FURY
The games are all the North American versions with English.

According to the Famicom Plaza report, the device is 170x72x15mm and is a bit larger than an iPhone-like smartphone. It has a 2200mAh battery.

Controls on the device include four face buttons, a d-pad, four shoulder buttons, a menu button, a start button, and buttons for volume and brightness. Ports include headphones, AV and an SD.

The Famicom Plaza report fails to mention how much this thing might cost or whether it will be appearing here in The States. However, the fact that those twenty built-in classic games are in their North American, English-language iterations prior to release in Japan hints very, very strongly that the Neo Geo Portable Device will be jumping across the Pacific at some point in the future.

 

Comments (4) RSS

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1
what about bonk?
Posted by miguelaron on January 25, 2012 at 7:55 PM · Report
2
Bonk is on the Turbografx-16, not the Neo Geo. It's available for the Wii's virtual console, or you can easily emulate it.

I dunno about the Neo Geo "decaying in the graveyard". Except for Cabala Deer Hunter and Golden Tee, Neo Geoscabinets with Puzzle Bobble/KoF 93 were almost the only coin-op games you'd see anywhere for a long time.
Posted by cat & beard on January 25, 2012 at 10:06 PM · Report
3
True, but when was the last time you saw a Neo Geo home console?
Posted by Earnest "Nex" Cavalli on January 26, 2012 at 12:59 AM · Report
4
And more to the point, those Neo Geo cabinets you see all over aren't really an indicator of the company's health. Outside of the occasional one-off custom cab, SNK Playmore stoppe making that stuff a long time ago. You can still see tons of it though because a) they sold like hotcakes back in the mid-90s and b) they're super easy to repair/refurbish, etc. -- especially when compared to similar Capcom tech from the same time period.
Posted by Earnest "Nex" Cavalli on January 26, 2012 at 1:12 AM · Report

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