Why the new NEOGEO AES+ console changes everything about retro gaming

The announcement of the new NEOGEO AES+ piqued my interest, not because it’s another retro console launching into a crowded market dominated by Evercade’s excellent EXP-R and VS-R consoles, but because of what it’s claiming to be – a remake of the original hardware at a silicon level, no emulation or simulation, with all the bells and whistles that means for fans of classic games.

Plaion's pitch leans hard on ‘re-engineered ASIC chips’, a phrase that sounds dry until you realise what’s being implied here: this isn’t emulation, not even the increasingly accepted FPGA route some of the best retro game consoles take, such as Analogue, but something closer to a physical reconstruction of the original hardware, its behaviour, quirks and personality. It also means the NEOGEO AES+ supports backwards compatibility with original game cartridges from the '90s.

Why does this matter to me personally? I loved the original console. I chose to buy a NEOGEO AES back in 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 always been a reverence that follows the SNK’s premium console, not just because it was expensive or rare, but because of what it represented, which for me, was a machine built to deliver arcade-perfect art and gameplay into the home, uncompromised, and those impossibly detailed sprites still feel hand-touched today.

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NEOGEO AES+ is rebuilding the old tech rather than emulating it, and the distinction matters, especially if you care about how retro games actually play and look. I loved NEOGEO games because they were peak 2D animation, designed around specific output quirks, scanlines, timing, even the way colours bloom on a CRT. Strip that context away, and you don’t just lose accuracy; you lose the intent and feel of those classic games like Samurai Shodown II, Pulstar and my personal favourite, King Of Fighters '95.

The NEOGEO AES+ is, at least on paper, trying to step past the FPGA tech offered by Analogue and the emulation of Evercade and Ant Stream, offering another tier of authenticity where the retro tech can be remade and re-released, as I owned and played it back in ‘94. Whether that holds up under scrutiny is another question entirely, because this “hardware-faithful reimplementation” is the kind of phrase that invites as much scepticism as intrigue, and rightly so, but I’m ever the optimist, and frankly, the NEOGEO AES+ looks fantastic.

The old-as-new approach includes everything from the ‘90s, including the original arcade sticks, game pad and memory cards as well as launch games on cartridge, including: Metal Slug, Garou: Mark of the Wolves, Pulstar, The King of Fighters 2002, Big Tournament Golf, Shock Troopers, Samurai Shodown V Special, Twinkle Star Sprites, Magician Lord, and Over Top.

This doesn’t feel like nostalgia exactly, and not preservation either, but rather an insistence that the way retro consoles were made matters just as much as what they ran, that the design, circuitry, and all are part of the art. And the new NEOGEO AES+ won't be cheap either, which continues the old console's reputation. The difference now over then? Backwards compatibility, which means there's a catalogue of carts to dip into, and they won't cost $300 / £200 as they did back in the '90s.

The new NEOGEO AES+ launches on 12 November for $249.99 / £179.99, the white NEOGEO AES+ Anniversary Edition costs $349.99 / £269.99 and comes with Metal Slug. A 10-game Ultimate Edition will sell for $999.99 / £899.99 (as well as NEOGEO AES+ Arcade Stick, wireless NEOGEO AES+ Arcade Stick, wireless NEOGEO AES+ Gamepad, NEOGEO AES+ Memory Card).