General Category > General Discussion
Is the Neo Geo worth getting?
KalessinDB:
You don't really... "make" a Neo Geo cabinet, honestly. You buy them. I've seen prices range from $100 for beat-to-shit but working cabinets with a 1slot board up to $1k+ for pristine and/or expertly restored 6slots. It also depends heavily on what's available in your area, as shipping can add on $3-400+ easily.
MVS is the semi-official term for the arcade motherboard. A Neo Geo cabinet would have an MVS board in it, but there's plenty of MVS boards that aren't in cabinets -- they've been consolized (CMVS is the term for those) or just sit bare, hooked up to a supergun. AES games come with the pretty cases from SNK, have much larger/nicer labels, and originally came with instruction books though they're rarer. MVS games have a text-only label kinda like an old VHS tape might, although there ARE replacement labels that are picture and very nice (though still smaller than AES labels), and originally came in brown cardboard boxes with move strips -- that's referred to as "full kit" games usually these days, and will jack those reasonable MVS prices up to AES levels usually. There's also several different options for aftermarket boxes for MVS games to pretty it up on the shelf -- Shock Boxes from Southtown Homebrew being the prettiest, comparable to the best of covers from this site. I personally go with one called Neominibox, much cheaper and it gets the spine nice which is all I care about -- in the end, they are utilitarian after all.
You may remember the Neo cabinets having multiple games in them -- MVS boards come in 1slot, 2slot, 4slot, and 6slot varieties. The 1slots are the ones most commonly made into CMVS, and they're the ones that are JAMMA standard (the "generic" hookup inside of the majority of arcade cabinets from early 80s to late 90s/early 00s era). 2/4/6 slots have a similar but not exactly identical standard (mostly to account for the fact that they have stereo sound, which wasn't JAMMA standard) pinouts so if you use them with a supergun you need an adapter.
the7k:
Is it worth it to get a Neo Geo? If we're talking the MVS: yes, yes and very yes.
I own a 1-Slot, 2-Slot and 6-Slot MVS board. (Had a 4-Slot but it died...) Got a good handful of games. Would love to own a complete collection, but that'll be a slow burner.
MVS is the only way in my opinion. AES is Rolls-Royce expensive. Neo Geo CD is pretty cheap and good for single player, but you'll need patience to deal with the loading - patience that honestly makes it impossible to play fighters with friends unless you go with the earlier fighters, and considering the Neo Geo is well known for fighters... yeah.
If you wanna make it easy, just go to an arcade auction and buy a cheap arcade cab with a decent monitor. I've gotten arcade cabs with decent monitors for as cheaply as $25. (It was a Die Hard Arcade cab with a bad Sega ST-V Titan board, but if you are going to put a Neo Geo MVS board in anyway, who cares.) Wire up the four buttons per player (MVS uses 4 JAMMA buttons per player, while most cabs us at most 3 JAMMA buttons - even SF2 cabs use 3 JAMMA buttons and 3 JAMMA Plus buttons for the Kicks, so even with those you'd still have to wire up the fourth button) or if you don't wanna wire up, buy a Neo Geo cab specifically (with four buttons obviously.) If you don't have the space, make a Supergun. Or buy one. Still cheaper than going the AES route.
Einhander:
--- Quote from: the7k on December 01, 2014, 03:00:27 AM ---Is it worth it to get a Neo Geo? If we're talking the MVS: yes, yes and very yes.
I own a 1-Slot, 2-Slot and 6-Slot MVS board. (Had a 4-Slot but it died...) Got a good handful of games. Would love to own a complete collection, but that'll be a slow burner.
MVS is the only way in my opinion. AES is Rolls-Royce expensive. Neo Geo CD is pretty cheap and good for single player, but you'll need patience to deal with the loading - patience that honestly makes it impossible to play fighters with friends unless you go with the earlier fighters, and considering the Neo Geo is well known for fighters... yeah.
If you wanna make it easy, just go to an arcade auction and buy a cheap arcade cab with a decent monitor. I've gotten arcade cabs with decent monitors for as cheaply as $25. (It was a Die Hard Arcade cab with a bad Sega ST-V Titan board, but if you are going to put a Neo Geo MVS board in anyway, who cares.) Wire up the four buttons per player (MVS uses 4 JAMMA buttons per player, while most cabs us at most 3 JAMMA buttons - even SF2 cabs use 3 JAMMA buttons and 3 JAMMA Plus buttons for the Kicks, so even with those you'd still have to wire up the fourth button) or if you don't wanna wire up, buy a Neo Geo cab specifically (with four buttons obviously.) If you don't have the space, make a Supergun. Or buy one. Still cheaper than going the AES route.
--- End quote ---
Thanks as far as space, how big would you say the average arcade cabinet is for the Neo Geo? I'm really thinking about this. I have many consoles. But I'm starting to think the way to get the best Neo experience is to play them the way they're meant to be played, on a cabinet. Something about playing Metal Slug on a cabinet as opposed to a console.
the7k:
A typical Big Red is going to take up about as much space as a refrigerator and about as tall too. So yeah, it's going to take up some room. There are "Mini" Neo Geo cabs made for sitting down at, but they are very hard to find and usually pretty pricy.
As long as it's a JAMMA cab (which is most of them - if it's from the 90s, it's almost definitely JAMMA) you can just throw a 1-Slot Neo Geo MVS board into any cab, you just need to wire the fourth JAMMA button. I'd say going with a standard JAMMA cab and a 1-Slot is best, because you can just swap out more JAMMA games too. (2-Slot and up Neo Geo cabs aren't quite JAMMA compliant.)
TDIRunner:
Very interesting discussion. I'm enjoying sitting in the background quietly reading this. But I'm still not quite following what the supergun is.