Why the brand new NEOGEO AES+ console adjustments all the pieces about retro gaming

The announcement of the brand new NEOGEO AES+ piqued my curiosity, not as a result of it’s one other retro console launching right into a crowded market dominated by Evercade’s glorious EXP-R and VS-R consoles, however due to what it’s claiming to be – a remake of the unique {hardware} at a silicon stage, no emulation or simulation, with all of the bells and whistles which means for followers of traditional video games.

Plaion’s pitch leans exhausting on ‘re-engineered ASIC chips’, a phrase that sounds dry till you realise what’s being implied right here: this isn’t emulation, not even the more and more accepted FPGA route a number of the finest retro sport consoles take, equivalent to Analogue, however one thing nearer to a bodily reconstruction of the unique {hardware}, its behaviour, quirks and character. It additionally means the NEOGEO AES+ helps backwards compatibility with unique sport cartridges from the ’90s.

Why does this matter to me personally? I cherished the unique console. I selected to purchase a NEOGEO AES again within the ‘90s over a PlayStation (I got Sony’s console a couple of years later, bundled with Ghost in the Shell no less), and there’s all the time been a reverence that follows the SNK’s premium console, not simply because it was costly or uncommon, however due to what it represented, which for me, was a machine constructed to ship arcade-perfect artwork and gameplay into the house, uncompromised, and people impossibly detailed sprites nonetheless really feel hand-touched immediately.

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