NEO GEO MVS... What's it all about :)

[cavein2000]

Hey... I've been curious about this system and such that is often brought up in forums.  My question is - what exactly is it?  The carts seem to be dirt cheap on ebay with very few bidders.  I'm not at all fluent in the NEO GEO scene anyway.  I'm sure there is a ton of info, but could I get the skinny on this.

[rolins]

Neo Geo AES is the home console. Games are identical to their arcade counterparts with the exception of getting fewer continues and a practice modes in some games. The cartridges for this system is very expensive.

Neo Geo MVS is what you find at the arcades. The older games are cheaper than their AES counterparts and cartridge itself is larger.  These can only be played on an AES with a converter.

In the long run MVS is easier on your coffer, but the AES cartridges do have cool artwork and packaging.

[D-Lite]

Yep, the MVS is the arcade counterpart of the AES.  One thing to note is that the game ROMs inside the carts are completely identical between the MVS and AES versions, BUT the carts themselves are different.  When you read about "converted" or "conversion", it means that someone physically removed the ROMs from the MVS cart and placed them in a sacrificial AES cart.  

The reason you see the MVS carts cheap is that, as rolins mentions, the AES is the one with the cool artwork.  MVS carts were never designed to be pretty and frequently were abused in the arcades due to swapping between machines and maybe between arcade ops through distributers.

When comparing AES to MVS, the difference is in longterm vs shortterm costs.  With AES, the system can be had for $150-200, but many of the best games will easily cost you $200+.  With MVS you pay more upfront for a supergun+board or consolized system, but the carts are dirt freakin' cheap.  Even the best games can easily be had for $20.

[cavein2000]

that makes sense.  Thanks guys.

[Michael Helgeson]

Time for the shameless plug of a ebay auction:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6255392138

[cavein2000]

I think I'd be more into getting the AES console, but am not even thinking about adding more systems into the mix right now.  That looks nice though - and affordable!!

[Keranu]

I'd definitely stay away from AES if you aren't planning on just buying the cheaper games (which can still be expensive), MVS is undoubtley superior if you want to say up to 8x or so for the price on games.

[TR0N]

I'd definitely stay away from AES if you aren't planning on just buying the cheaper games (which can still be expensive), MVS is undoubtley superior if you want to say up to 8x or so for the price on games.

Ditto i started with, AES in the end it was too expensive for me

Then i sold it all and switch to a cmvs 2 slot. So pretty much... i can aford to play the games that i want

Realy i would rethink about the whole, AES thing cavein2000

[Michael Helgeson]

I third that.I have had a AES too many times,even tried to be happy with  a Phantom 1 converter,bu tthat thing was a pain in the ass to use,and caused a crack in my Rage of the Dragons cart I used to have.If you really wanna play,MVS you should go all the way.

[TJ]

I dunno, I like my AES for older titles (I'm actually a bigger fan of some of the earlier Neo-Geo games than the later ones) like Nam 1975, Riding Hero, or Cyberlip. Those games are cheap even for the AES. And I just think it's a cool console.

But an MVS is definitely the way to go for later games -- any game that goes for over $50-100 on the AES, you might as well look into the MVS version, because the same game that goes for $500 on the AES can probably be had for under $80 on the MVS.

I have a 1-slot MVS arcade cabinet with a 19" monitor. It was a conversion from what appears to have been a Data East game in its former life (it has the distinctive curved marquee). When I bought it, the place that converted it had set up the right-side player with the joystick on the right and the buttons on the left, so I ended up scrapping the control panel and building a new custom control panel myself (with the proper layout of course). It came out pretty good too