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Comment by Tepix | Hacker News Reader

It's too bad that these consoles with their amazing graphics were so expensive at the time.

OK, so you know how every time you boot up a Neo-Geo game you see that little piece of technobabble:

    MAX 330 MEGA
    PRO-GEAR SPEC

It took me years to figure this out, but it actually means something. (Hell, even "Blast Processing" means something; it was some marketroid's sizzle term for the very fast DMA controller the Genesis had). Anyways, to break it down, MAX 330 MEGA means that cartridges could have a maximum size of 330 megabits. Bank switching would later increase this limit, with appropriate sizzle text on game boot. PRO-GEAR SPEC means that the technical specs of the home console are identical to the Neo-Geo arcade machines which are considered professional equipment or "pro gear". The Neo-Geo console was an arcade board in a console case -- at time of release one of the more advanced arcade boards at that. And the cartridges weren't home ports -- they were literally the arcade games. So of course the Neo-Geo was going to be vastly more expensive than the SNES or Genesis -- it had more memory and more advanced hardware than either of them, its games had vastly more ROM, and chips were pricey in 1990.

Thanks for the info. I also just translated it and 330 megabits is around 40 megabytes, so no wonder the cartridges were eye-wateringly expensive back in the late eighties/early nineties.

Cartridges didn't actually get that big for years though. When actual cartridge size started surpassing 100 megabits (12.5 MB) in 1992 or so, an additional screen reading "The 100 Mega Shock!" would appear.

Even at 100 megabits or less, the Neo-Geo cartridges were still huge. SNES cartridges started out at 4 megabits.

I was always in awe of the graphics and was always envious of those who had one (only one boy at my school ever claimed to own one, but we never had any proof) but when I finally had the chance to play the games (via NeoRageX, amazing piece of software, written in assembly I believe) I was kinda disappointed. To begin with I was never a fan of fighting games (SFII being the one exception) and all the games I played were very arcade-y (because well, they were literal arcade games). No NeoGeo game could’ve given me the gaming experience of, say, A Link to the Past for the SNES, I think.

Still an amazing piece of hardware.

Pulstar and Blazing Star were very good. And Super Sidekick 2-3. Most emulators had switches for arcade settings in order to maximize the game time per match.

> No NeoGeo game […]

Not only NeoGeo games — I would say that there is no game that could give me the experience of A Link to the Past for the SNES. Best game ever (for me).

Turns out the sheer amount of hardware in the Neo Geo and cartridges does kinda explain the price of everything around it! (Too bad about the game library...)

By 1998 everyone emulated them at home among SNES and MD with Neorage or Zsnes/Dgen/Gens. Also, by 1997-1998 the PS killed arcades forever.

The reason these consoles were so expensive was precisely because of the cost of hardware required to produce those amazing graphics.

What else would it be?

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