“Witness the rebirth” of the Neo Geo with a new console and handheld duo coming this holiday season.
Watch out 3DS and Vita, there’s a new handheld, slash console, uh… thingy(?) in town. The Neo Geo X Gold, a device from Japanese game-maker SNK – The King of Fighters, Metal Slug, Super Sidekicks – that will revolutionize the industry once it drops December 6 worldwide! …Or so I wish.
*Sigh* It’s nice to want things. And as much as I would love for the once mighty Shin Nihon Kikaku to regain some of its former glory, the logical expectation from their latest hardware venture, partnering with North American videogame-related merchandise retailer Tommo Inc., is a glorified Neo Geo emulator.
Which is cool beans honestly, and as a Neo Geo fanboy myself, that’s yummy gravy. The $199 USD price tag, though? Yikes. Not a good deal if you ask me; I can already play SNK’s catalogue from a multitude of digital platforms be it PSN, Virtual Console, and heck, even iOS (don’t do this; virtual d-pads are the devil) on the cheap.
The machine itself though is rather interesting — I’ll definitely give kudos to that.
Out of the box, the Neo Geo X Gold ships with a Game Boy Micro-esque handheld – its the same Neo Geo portable we covered way months back, and thusly answers the question about its fate – a console that can be played on a big-screen TV (via HDMI or RCA) and be used as a docking-station for the included portable, and a fully-sized arcade stick. It looks rather nice, actually.
Both the console and it’s mini-me handheld come packed with 20 pre-installed titles (full list below), which certainly raises red-flags on whether this bad boy is nostalgia-bait for gamers who remember quite fondly the golden age of arcades. Spoilers: it is. Hey though, as I pointed out that’s not such a negative… well, except on your wallet. $200? Seriously? Killing me SNK, killing me!
Here’s the full list of included games on the Neo Geo X Gold:
- 3 COUNT BOUT
- LEAGUE BOWLING
- ART OF FIGHTING II
- MAGICIAN LORD
- ALPHA MISSION II
- METAL SLUG
- BASEBALL STARS II
- MUTATION NATION
- CYBER LIP
- NAM 1975
- FATAL FURY
- PUZZLED
- FATAL FURY SPECIAL
- REAL BOUT – FATAL FURY SPECIAL
- THE KING OF FIGHTERS ’95
- SAMURAI SHODOWN II
- KING OF THE MONSTERS
- SUPER SIDEKICKS
- LAST RESORT
- WORLD HEROES PERFECT
Tommo Inc. hasn’t listed the retailers where you’ll be able to buy the Neo Geo X Gold, but they happen to be quite buddy-buddy with major shops like Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and GameStop, so it’s likely they’ll end up there. Meanwhile, you can become quite buddy-buddy with us here at Walyou by checking out our gallery of geeky news. How about a Space Invaders chalkboard or Facebook oven mitt, hmm?
