Saving the Neo Geo (what if? scenario)

[negative chill]

So I've been playing a lot of Neo Geo games via WinKawaks and I'm curious at to what you guys think could have been done to possibly save the system and SNK from nosediving. Obviously the Neo Geo CD was a step in the right direction, but I'm sure I don't have to mention the insane loading times.

[Kamahl]

What do you mean by saving? It was a super popular arcade machine.

[Ninsega]

If you are talking about the AES, then they shouldn't have made the games ~$300 a pop.

[negative chill]

What do you mean by saving? It was a super popular arcade machine.

I'm more or less referring to the AES and Neo Geo CD home console systems

[Kamahl]

I'm more or less referring to the AES and Neo Geo CD home console systems

The AES needed cheaper exclusive games. Insane ROMs were fine for arcade releases but not for the home. The NEO CD had a similar problem, those huge games meant insane loading times for a single speed drive, it also came way too late.

The whole "arcade machine home console" was a bad idea to begin with. It was ok for the console to be expensive, but not the games.

[negative chill]

The whole "arcade machine home console" was a bad idea to begin with. It was ok for the console to be expensive, but not the games.

What if SNK had put the games on floppies ala the Famicom Disk System? Yes, there would have been a lot of swapping, but the high cost and insane disk loading wouldn't have been there

[Guntz]

High Density double sided floppies of 1990 couldn't touch the size of Neo Geo carts. By the mid 90s there was Zip Disk, but that was even more expensive.

I don't think the Neo Geo console needed saving. It survived on the wallets of rich people, right through to 2004. Neo Geo's simple but effective cartridge setup meant it was popular with smaller arcade developers. By 2003 the Neo Geo was a very nice inexpensive platform, but due to its age and lack of strong piracy protection, it was heavily pirated.

If Neo Geo was truly meant to be a Nintendo and Sega competitor like the USA advertising that was done up by SNK, the system would have needed big cost reductions and existent third party support. Although the Neo Geo had home-y feeling games like Riding Hero, Magician Lord, The Super Spy and Blue's Journey at launch, they simply weren't enough. By the time Fatal Fury was released in 1991 (SNK's second fighting game ever), it was clear the Neo Geo would only ever be an arcade platform. The home system remained supported because there was always demand for it.

[Black_Tiger]

In a fantasy scenario, they should have partnered with a big cable company to provide a Sega Channel style service. They could have rented out the hardware like a cable box.

The Neo Geo CD is from the 32-bit gen era and only for the hardcore. If they had launched with the Neo Geo CD we actually got, it would have retailed for something like $2000. Any kind of upgrades (like a faster CD drive) )beyond that would only have been all the more ecpensive.

[zetastrike]

As far as the NGCD goes besides releasing it earlier, could they have done anything design wise to improve the load times? I don't think they foresaw the huge roms of the late games. I think they should have skipped the AES and gone straight for the NGCD around 91-92 hopefully with acceptable loading. It could have attracted more devs right off the bat.

EDIT: Black Tiger put an end to that idea

[Guntz]

The only way Neo Geo CD would work is if the games were watered down closer to PC Engine or Genesis levels. In fact, some games sort of are "ported" in a way. Art of Fighting 3 is permanently zoomed out a bit because the game can't run at full size. Although the Neo Geo CD hardware is the same as the cartridge Neo Geo, the games had to be edited to work with the CD format.

[maxi]

Isn't the disc reader of the Neo Geo CD on the same speed of the Sega CD, and so they released another version with the same speed of the 32-bit consoles?
If SNK skipped the cart version and brought early the CD one (93 was probably a good year) with more genres of games it would be more sucessful, I think. In the worst case they would take the 3DO market.
People on that time was not so worried about loading times, and for me the worst problem was the lack of variety in the genres released.