Gaming Historica | Why was the Neo Geo really so expensive in 1991? (Patreon)

It is beautiful machine and everyone would like one. But when the Neo Geo released it was too expensive for most people to buy. So the Super Famicom and Mega Drive were easier for players and parents to get.. In the Neo Geo home cartridges was the exact same PCB as the arcade. No different and 100% same which is very special thing to take home. But why so expensive??

Well look at my example images. You can see the Neo Geo inside PCB and also Super Nintendo and Mega Drive. The size is only 25% or less of the Neo Geo PCB. There are many more chips on the Neo Geo PCB holding information for the game so the cost for factory making is more. Also SNK did not make as many PCB for their games in the factory as Sega or Nintendo.. one reason they are so rare to find today. Printing less in the factory actually cost more for each PCB.

But the most important reason is the memory.  The Neo Geo games have many ROM chips and these holding memory like firmware and graphics information. These were very expensive in the 1990's! If a Nintendo or Sega game like Mario or Sonic was $60 to buy then the Neo Geo game was $200.. but if now we understand the different cost to make these games we can see that actually the price for Neo Geo games to make profit was more fair.

Now you know!! 🤗