The Most Expensive Gaming Console in History

When people talk about game consoles in the 90's, they usually talk about the Nintendo SNES and the Sega Megadrive. The console wars that was fought between Sega and Nintendo almost makes you forget that there were more consoles at the time. There even was one console that was superior to both the SNES and the Megadrive

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The Golden Age Of Arcades

You have to understand that in the 90's Arcades were a huge thing. Arcades had games with graphical prowess people at home could only dream about. If you wanted to play games with great graphics you had to go to the Arcade. The Arcade games were the originals and the gaming console ports were water downed versions of those games.
Neither the Sega Genesis/Megadrive or the Nintendo SNES were powerful enough to produce arcade quality graphics.

This became the Holy Grail of Gaming Consoles owners, to have a console that could produce arcade quality graphics. Would such a machine ever exist?
Well actually it already did.

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The bright idea

Back then stand up arcade cabinets just contained one game. If the arcade owners wanted to replace the game, they had to remove the inside of the cabinet and even the screen. This was not very efficient to say the least.
A company called SNK was busy working on a solution for this problem and in 1989 they presented their new arcade system, the Neo Geo MVS (Multi Video System).
The Neo Geo MVS had multiple games in the cabinet and swapping and replacing games just meant that you had to replace the cartridge which could be done in a matter of minutes. The cost of the games was also much lower than the traditional arcade games.
Of course the Neo Geo MVS became a big hit with the arcade owners but also with the arcade visitors.
The Neo Geo's power was unrivaled at the time, it was not until 1993 that Capcom introduced a system (CPS-II) that could compete with the Neo Geo MVS.

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The Promise Fulfilled

SNK made a modified version of the Neo Geo MVS in 1991 called AES (Advanced Entertainment System). It was a single cartridge unit system meant for hotels and rental to video game stores but had the same hardware as the MVS.
Now remember the Holy Grail I mentioned earlier? Suddenly this was in the consumers grasps.
SNK saw an opportunity to give gamers that had the means something that had never been accomplished....Play arcade quality games in your home on your console, even better, the games were the exact same games from the arcade!
So SNK decided to release the Neo Geo to the public.

Oh no, you didn't.....

After reading how great this console is and reading that the one ultimate wish for console owners was fulfilled by this mighty machine, you might wonder why the Neo Geo is not known as the best-selling console of that time period (or any period for that matter)?
Normally there are a number of reasons why a console did not have the financial and commercial success it deserved. In the case of the Neo Geo however there is one short answer.....The Price Tag.
The Neo Geo had a release price of $600 dollars. You might think that this is not extremely expensive but actually this means that after a correcting for inflation, the Neo Geo would cost you $1150 at the current price level. You could actually buy 2 Xbox Ones or PS4 Pro's for that amount.
And that's not all, the prices for the games were somewhere between $100 and $300! Again at today's prices that would mean that a game could set you back $576.
Even if we don't correct for inflation the price tag was still insane. The Sega Genesis/Megadrive cost $189 at release, That is 1/3 the price of a Neo Geo, even the games of the Neo Geo cost more than the Genesis/Megadrive or the SNES consoles did.

It is no wonder that the Neo Geo is the most expensive console ever launched.

On A Personal Note

The Neo Geo was the console I really wanted to have but had no chance in hell of ever owning. All I could do was drool over the pictures and ads of this unattainable super console in Video Gaming Magazines. Nobody I know has ever owned a Neo Geo, I have rarely seen one in real life, save the occasional AES rental version. It was the console I dreamed about but knew that I could never hope to have.
Luckily later in life I was introduced to emulators. Neo Geo-X made it possible for me to replay my favorite SNK games like Samurai Showdown II, Metal Slug, King of Fighters, Fatal Fury but also other gems I had never played before.

SNK had some of the best games of the 90's and one of my favorite fighting games of all time, Last blade 2. Unfortunately the price tag (that may have been warranted) made the console unattainable for most people. The Neo Geo has become almost a mythical thing, often talked about but has anyone ever seen one?