Neo Geo AES reissue (sort of, it’s not completely 1:1) announced along with 10 reprinted carts:
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Great price point, hope it lives up to everything they’re promising.
They got me. Will report in when November arrives.
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Came here to discuss this…
Lots of questions, so it’s Koch Media/Embracer, have they done hardware before?
Is it FGPA anywhere inside? Or fully newly engineered real chips?
What kind of scaler?
I’ll need a teardown first.
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The claim is no FPGA. It’s real chips.
“Gameplay on the NEOGEO AES+ is not achieved through emulation - instead the console is powered by its legacy ASIC chips, re-engineered by modern standards to accurately replicate the original machine’s hardware and software. The system natively plays game software from both new and old game cartridges for the most authentic retro gaming experience. Not emulation, not FPGA approximation, but true console reincarnation etched back into silicon.”
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Looks like Furrtek (decap chip guy) was involved in this 
From Jotego:
“You may have seen Plaion’s announcement of an ASIC based NeoGeo console. An ASIC is a chip, an application-specific integrated circuit. This is the first retro product I know of that is using making dedicated chips. It is so cool! By the way, I should mention I took a small role in that project. I helped in the design review and I also licensed some of the JT intellectual property for the project. I am looking forward to seeing the final product!”
NGDev hyped for it:
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Excite!
Even though each one is a lot, if this is good hardware, ain’t no way you’ll ever have Physical carts for that price for these games again. Yeah, they’re essentially reprints, but at $90 they’re an actual steal.
Now, I totally get that FREE is an option here with one of the best emulated systems of all time, but when you sit at this specific hardware and you lived through that era… there’s a feeling you get that can’t be matched.
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I have an AES and a flash cart… I still want ALL of this!!
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It’s by Plaion, which did that goofy Capcom arcade stick and the recent Atari and Commodore mini-consoles.
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Yeah I saw after looking it up. But they were emulation boxes and I didn’t think the C64 was much good?
this is me too, haha - gonna make peace with what i have, but a few buddies looking at this are kinda skeptical of the top tier/1k package. 10 games that go for $90 a piece doesn’t leave much room for hardware, sticks, memory card etc cost…how are they pricing all of that for that much?
Okay after reading more they are making the promises and it’s only $330 in Australia. Almost seems too cheap.
I ordered a Garou cart, will consider the console now… quite a wait though.
I have a consolized mvs and a small collection of MVS games including all of the Metal Slug games, windjammers, neo turf masters (I will never call it Big Tournament Golf), Samurai Shodown, 2020 Super Baseball, and Bust-A-Move (Puzzle Bobble)
But I’m definitely getting the full bundle for $1k now that I know who is involved and we will be able to get RGB from the system eventually (even if someone needs to make an aftermarket cable).
I only wished there were options to buy wired new controllers (only one of the pack in controllers is wired) and a plan in place for more games to get reissued. I’m sure if this moves enough numbers, the games will come.
Given how many emulation machines for Neo Geo have been released over the years (way too many), I have to vote with my wallet now that they’re doing that seems aimed squarely at folks like us who want something resembling an og hardware experience. This is really the first official product of its kind. I’m sure the games will be basically bootlegs with official artwork rather than anything resembling original chips, but I can accept that since the console itself is getting this level of care put into it for an extremely reasonable price in today’s crazy expensive market for any type of computer hardware.
I just hope we have access to all dipswitches, including MVS modes, difficulty levels, blood toggles, etc.
The fact that they are even going as far as providing compatibility with the memory card slot and issuing a reproduction memory card is a wonderful touch. The memory card functionality was basically non-existent in most games, or very forgettable, basically amounting to a level select for stages cleared and not even storing high scores. They could’ve skimped on it but they went the distance here. Same with the controllers; they are reissuing both official 1st party pads.
I also want to see what the overclock feature is all about, specifically to see if it makes Metal Slug 2 playable (which I hope also gets reissued). Yes, Metal Slug X exists, but has very different enemy/weapon placement to Metal Slug 2. I consider 2 to be the better experience when run without slowdown with X to be more of a remix and fun novelty.
Even if they stopped at just these 10 games, there are enough heavy hitters here for me to be satisfied with what they’ve done here.
The ultimate (unlikely) dream would be they released the entire back-catalogue of games, and then continued developing some new ones rather than focus development resources on current crop of consoles. They can always port games made for this to new systems, but seeing active 2D development for a retro system like this in an official capacity would take the project to the next level.
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Yeah they have confirmed the carts use flash instead of mask ROMS.