Neo Geo X Gold System details and price announced!

[Mattroid]

Initial impressions so far (not much [if anything] that hasn't already been said):

• The handheld is larger than I expected, even after seeing comparison images and knowing the size of the screen. I'd definitely say the widescreen makes the whole unit unnecessarily wide. Regardless, it's overall comfortable to hold, I only wish it was a bit smaller for portability purposes.
• I can see what people mean about the screen. It's far too dim and only washes out the colors the brighter you set it.
• Volume seems fine to me, but maybe I just don't play my games a loud as some of you guys. Also, I'm playing it at home in my office where it's quite. Though if I were anywhere else, I'd have headphones anyway.
• Shoulder buttons and volume/brightness essentially being across from each other seems to be a mistake. I tend to hit both with them laid out like that. Not a big deal though.
• Speaking of the buttons, the shoulder buttons are way to clicky, though they're not really used much anyway, so I suppose it's not a big deal, they just don't "feel" like you'd expect.
• The stick is pretty great from the little I've used it so far. Perhaps too clicky for my tastes, but still much better than any "nub" or "disc" we've seen on other handhelds.
• As others have said, the whole system seems cheaply made, though not so much so that I'm disappointed in it.
• Changing the aspect ratio doesn't appear to 'stick' - you have to change it from widescreen every time you start a game. It'd be nice to have a 'default' setting someplace.

Other notes:

• Mine is version 370, as expected.
• The plastic sleeve the handheld came in somewhat reminds me of the sleeves the old memory cards came in. I'm not sure if that was on purpose or not, but I thought it was neat. It's nowhere near as thick as those, but it still reminded me of them for some reason...
• I haven't tried the dock yet, though I at least think it looks nice sitting with the rest of my Neo stuff. Could have been better and could have been worse.
• Though my packaging was terrible due to BB's brilliant thought to wrap the thing in a bag and send as-is, the box and all that was sort of neat to see and open up.

Overall, I'm happy I have one and will probably carry it with me from time to time, especially if hacking continues to go as well as it has.

 

[StealthLurker]

Stealthlurker: I believe what you are seeing is your 480i monitor trying to interpret a 480p signal. My TV did the same thing, except I only got a double black and white image.

By the way, what kind of camera settings are you using for those screen shots? I've got a decent camera, but I'm too much of a noob photographer to take a decent picture. On the pics I took, the composite video actually looks better than the s-video, and it really, really doesn't in person.

Hmmm that sounds like that could be it.

Oh I'm just using my cellphone for pics. Yeah it's tough to get a picture that accurately reflects what on a screen.

.

 

[GohanX]

Sat down for some serious play time with the svideo converter, and as far as I can tell it has little/no lag. I got 198 in League Bowling, my second highest score ever. I also hit a home run on my first bat on Baseball Stars 2, played almost all of Metal Slug, and a bit of Last Resort and various fighters. The slight lag in the audio is still there. Speaking of audio, the converter does have a little noise in the audio, although I can really only hear it when the Neo is silent and I'm wearing headphones. It doesn't help that since the audio output is so low I have to turn the stereo amp up really high.

 

[Mattroid]

Not sure if anyone would want it, but I made an xpadder controller profile for the NGX stick: http://tinyurl.com/NGXXPCP

 

[bcfczulu]

mine should be arriving today, hopefully!! i was thinking about getting a hdmi to scart converter to play it on my sony trinitron crt; do you think it would make much difference to the picture quality?

 

[Jonmkl]

Not sure if anyone would want it, but I made an xpadder controller profile for the NGX stick: http://tinyurl.com/NGXXPCP

I most certainly do! Thanks, you magnificent bastard.

 

[Professor Denim]

so all happy people. can you sell me some of you're Home Carts. I still need Slug 2 and X. I'll pay 300 USD for both.

 

[Tron]

What lukemorse1 thinks,i think he had expectations to high for this clone.

 

[OMFG]

What lukemorse1 thinks,i think he had expectations to high for this clone.

I think Luke needs to go home and be a family man.

 

[Tron]

I think Luke needs to go home and be a family man.

Most likely it's some thing he bother to buy one,since he has a mvs&aes all ready.

 

[rcantor77]

Thats very dissapointing to hear... but I would liek to know how it looks and sounds through HDMI.

I see it has intros missing, so that in itself is a bit of a show stopper for me... .I would want the full game on it which I would get with any other kind of emualtion.

Damn shame.

 

[Yodd]

What lukemorse1 thinks,i think he had expectations to high for this clone.

LOL

Luke never has anything bad to say about anything, yet he disses the hell out of this thing.

 

[GohanX]

mine should be arriving today, hopefully!! i was thinking about getting a hdmi to scart converter to play it on my sony trinitron crt; do you think it would make much difference to the picture quality?

Probably, it made a significant difference with my s-video converter, but it would have to convert the signal to 480i to work. Do you have a link? I didn't know such things existed, but there isn't scart anything here in the states.

 

[Yodd]

Thats very dissapointing to hear... but I would liek to know how it looks and sounds through HDMI.

I see it has intros missing, so that in itself is a bit of a show stopper for me... .I would want the full game on it which I would get with any other kind of emualtion.

Damn shame.

It has already been mentioned several times in this thread that it looks like shit even through HDMI.

 

[GohanX]

mine should be arriving today, hopefully!! i was thinking about getting a hdmi to scart converter to play it on my sony trinitron crt; do you think it would make much difference to the picture quality?

I did some quick Google searching, and it looks like most of the common HDMI to scart converters would work, but they convert to composite video instead of RGB, so the picture quality improvement wouldn't be that great. It would be better though, since the NGX's composite output is shit.

 

[Lee Gray]

Mine arrived today, the box has blaze printed on the back.
My first impressions, love the quality of the games on the hand held, nice and crisp picture, was pushing the screen that feels pretty plasticy.
Sound is great too, only prob is, I hope you can change the button layout because my left hand feels much more comfortable resting on the top buttons rather than the 4 basic buttons.

Controller is pretty neat and responsive, Dock looks ok too, first thing I did was push where the slot is hoping it would open
playing on the TV though, some games looked alot better than others and some didnt look that good at all, its a nice extra to play on the TV but I think the main playability will be through the hand held, had slight flashing at top of the screen too. I
All in all though im very happy with it.

Edited like the feel of the hand held more now, really a missed opportunity was to put a couple of usb slots on the handheld itself as then you could stick it on the table and use a controller for it or even two for 2 player action. Screen might be small but would still be a decent option.

 

[OMFG]

LOL

Luke never has anything bad to say about anything, yet he disses the hell out of this thing.

I stopped watching his videos when the only thing keeping me interested is that closet of his collapsing down while the camera is rolling. That "goodbye" video was a joke and didn't need to be made public. As for this turd of a video, I love how he starts to rip on the audio when comparing the NGX to a home cart system (mono cable to 1 speaker on that little crt, Vs. the LCD with stereo). To each their own with opinions, but my only suggestion to him is to to clean up his room. It's a shame and alarming to see that test closet in such disarray.

As for the NGX, I accept it for what it is. Originally, I didn't want to go for the system until I played a few games of RB Fatal Fury, Nam 1975, and Baseball Stars 2. I was hooked to play some fun games on the go. Playing Neo games on my GP2X can be a pain with the click joystick. The PSP collection has its own faults (noticeably with Samurai Shodown's shit audio). This system even reignited my interest in Magician Lord to the point of me looking up 1CC videos of the damn game.

If the system stands the way it is now, it's a great gateway into the Neo scene. Should they upgrade the software or tweak something in the handheld, even better.

 

[Mattroid]

I most certainly do! Thanks, you magnificent bastard.

No problem! Cool project - I saw you mention it in here someplace but hadn't seen that thread yet. I will be watching to see what comes of it So far I think my favorite thing about this is the stick, at least now that I know it'll work on my PC. As others have said, it feels a bit cheaply made compared to the originals, but my originals are so worn these days that this one feels pretty damn nice and responsive. I've always wanted a good fighter stick for my PC but never had the desire to go out of my way and buy one. I couldn't be happier that what I ended up with is about as close as you can get to a real Neo stick without converting or modding an original one.

 

[Dragon76]

I most certainly do! Thanks, you magnificent bastard.

 

[Lee Gray]

I just plugged in my HDMI cable and the picture is so much clearer, before it was even hard to read the world heroes writing
a message on the screen appears before it plays 480p (720 x 480) 60 hz .

 

[mungrin]

If anything,owning this thing has made me want an AES more than ever.

 

[SNK_Pro]

Lee, any chance you can take a photo of it running through HDMI? (Or anyone for that matter?) Would be nice to see some comparisons of the unit running on various TV's.

 

[Mattroid]

If anything,owning this thing has made me want an AES more than ever.

Amen. I've always wanted one, but can't justify the premium on carts. I wouldn't mind having the system though, even if it's mostly just for collection's sake. I prefer MVS anyway, but I'd still like an AES one day anyway, and having this has only made me want one more, like you said.

 

[Lee Gray]

Lee, any chance you can take a photo of it running through HDMI? (Or anyone for that matter?) Would be nice to see some comparisons of the unit running on various TV's.

I filmed a few seconds of it
Not too bad compared to the regular cables

 

[SNK_Pro]

That doesn't look as bad as some of the footage i've seen of it running, definitely better than the Luke Morse video.