NeoGeo in Arcades, NeoGeo in Homes (1989-1994)
Sometime in 1988 SNK began toying with the idea of a modular video game cabinet for use in an arcade setting. Up to that point, stand-up arcade cabinets typically contained only a single game. When an arcade operator wanted to switch or replace that game, he'd have to completely rip the guts out of the existing cabinet or exchange the entire setup, display and all, for another. SNK's solution to the problem was an arcade machine that could pack multiple games into a single cabinet, using a cartridge-based storage mechanism similar to that employed by cheap consumer consoles.
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The NeoGeo MVS (short for Multi-Video System) made its debut in 1989 and allowed arcade operators to display one, two, four, or six separate games in a single cabinet. In order to swap in a new game, all the operator had to do was remove one cartridge and exchange it for another. Changing the title cards and cabinet artwork for a new game took minutes, thanks to the custom cabinet designed by Neal Zook, an experienced industrial designer who also served a brief stint as SNK Corp. of America's operations director during the late 1980s.
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The MVS was an immediate success. Arcade operators loved it because the setup time required for each game was nearly nonexistent, the floor space required was minimal, and the cost outlay for new cartridges was barely $500--less than half of what a traditional arcade unit cost at the time. Arcade-goers fell in love with the MVS as well. The first four games--NAM-1975, Baseball Stars Professional, Top Player's Golf, and Magician Lord--took familiar genres and reinvigorated them with the kind of colorful 16-bit graphics and huge character sprites that players had been wanting to see in arcade games for some time. NAM-1975 spoke to the shoot-'em-up crowd, Baseball Stars and Top Player's Golf attracted sports fans, and Magician Lord is widely regarded as one of the defining side-scrolling adventure games of the 1980s.
Consumers had always dreamed of bringing the arcade experience home. That's why the Sega Genesis and Nintendo Super NES consoles were so successful--they allowed gamers to get a taste of those large sprites and colorful backdrops in their own living rooms. SNK wanted to take advantage of people's desire to play arcade games at home, but without making the same compromises on CPU and memory horsepower that typical home consoles were forced to make. In 1991, the company released a home version of the MVS, a single cartridge unit called the NeoGeo Advanced Entertainment System (AES for short). Initially, the AES was only available for rent or for use in hotel settings, but SNK quickly began selling the system over the counter when customer feedback suggested that there was an untapped market out there composed of grown-up gamers willing to bring the real arcade experience home no matter what the cost.
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Compared to the other home consoles of the time, the NeoGeo AES was a beast. Under the hood, the AES featured two CPUs: a 16-bit Motorola 68000 main processor running at 12MHz and a Zilog Z-80A backup processor running at 4MHz. Even though the system's main CPU was "just" 50 percent faster than the 68000 processor found in Sega's Genesis console, the NeoGeo AES also had the benefit of specialized audio and video chipsets. A custom video chipset allowed the system to display 4,096 colors and 380 individual sprites onscreen simultaneously--compared to 64 simultaneous colors and 80 individual sprites for the Genesis --while the onboard Yamaha 2610 sound chip gave the system 15 channels of CD-quality sound. Seven of those channels were reserved specifically for digital sound effects.
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