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NeoGeo CD Emulators Ah, 1994, the middle of the golden age of arcade gaming that a huge Japanese game company called SNK helped to usher in. In 1990, SNK released the Neo Geo MVS unit which would revolutionize the arcade industry. It was basically a standard cabinet which could house multiple MVS game carts (depending on the cabinet, some held 2, some 4, the highest number was 6). The system was a breakthrough in Japan and America for both SNK and arcade vendors. MVS cabinets and games were relatively cheap and games such as Magician Lord, Ninja Combat and Baseball Stars were way ahead of their time in terms of graphics and arcade style gameplay, making them insanely popular in Japan and even garnering a cult following in America. With this arcade launch, SNK planned to merge arcade gaming and home gaming into one, thus they had ready to launch that same year, the Neo Geo home system, which would use AES cartridges. There were some problems with this launch however. First, the AES cartridges with enormous; though they had a certain charm and feel of force (look at a Neo AES cart and see how dinky a Super Nintendo cartridge looks next to it), they seemed inconvenient to store for some gamers and ultimately were turned off by the look. The biggest problem at launch was the
system and game price. For $699.99, you got a Neo Geo, 2 awesome arcade
sticks, and your choice of a game. O.K., not casual dough, but the
next generation was expensive back then, but how about when the games
are $200+ a piece? Certainly to pay that amount of money The Super
Spy or Raguy was ridiculous to a lot of people, and so, the home system
didn't sell well. But it sold well enough however, and SNK's popularity
and success in the arcade market made the company realize that they
could really sell some serious numbers if they could make perfect
Neo Geo games for the home for a low price that everyone could afford.
1994, SNK had released the breakthrough Samurai Shodown 2, the soon
to be worshiped King of Fighters 94. They knew how they were going
to sell these games, CD form. So in 1994 in Japan, the Neo Geo CD
was born. The system was still expensive, $599.99 for the system,
a controller, and a game; and the side loading design of the unit
wasn't very popular, but finally, perfect copies of Samurai Shodown
and ViewPoint were available for only $50! The system was successful
in Japan and soon a new top loading model was designed for the American
launch. CPU: 16bit 68000chip running at 12Mhz with a 4Mhz Z80 chip helping out. It can handle 4,096 colors on screen at once with three simultaneous playfields. Sound: 13-channel Yamaha sound chip in stereo. Memory: 7Mb of DRAM; 512K of VRAM; and 64K of SRAM. Resolution: 320 x 224 Color Palette: 65,536 Max colors on screen: 4096 Max sprites on screen: 380 Internal RAM: 56 Mbits CD: Single-speed drive with the ability to play audio CDs. Sourced from: http://www.egameaddiction.com |
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