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Minnesota Vikings players in the 90s buying lots of Neo Geo games, anyone g


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Just heard on the radio today (I Live in North Minneapolis) one of the dudes on the radio worked in a Funcoland in the 90s in Eden Prairie, MN real close to the Minnesota Vikings training camp at the time. He said when the Neo Geo released and cost like $500 and games were around $300 a piece, he said he had some Vikings players that came in and casually bought a Neo Geo and one copy of every game and blew several thousand or tens of thousands of dollars all at once as if it was nothing.

Thought this would make for a cool topic. Anyone got any similar stories of working in a place that sold games at any point (Whether the 70s or 80s or 90s or now) and people coming in and spending a massive amount of money at once as if it's nothing? It'd be cool to hear!

Edited by Pink
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Just heard on the radio today (I Live in North Minneapolis) one of the dudes on the radio worked in a Funcoland in the 90s in Eden Prairie, MN real close to the Minnesota Vikings training camp at the time. He said when the Neo Geo released and cost like $500 and games were around $300 a piece, he said he had some Vikings players that came in and casually bought a Neo Geo and one copy of every game and blew several thousand or tens of thousands of dollars all at once as if it was nothing.

 

Thought this would make for a cool topic. Anyone got any similar stories of working in a place that sold games at any point (Whether the 70s or 80s or 90s or now) and people coming in and spending a massive amount of money at once as if it's nothing? It'd be cool to hear!

 

Many of the players made MILLIONS! A few thousand dollars for a bunch of millionaire bachelors in their 20s is nothing.

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300 dollars for 1 game?

 

Never knew Funcoland ever sold Neo Geo... Only place I ever seen one for sale retail-wise was Babagges.

 

I know they had a few games as well: Magician Lord, Ghost Pilots and King of the Monsters were the ones I recall.

 

Were Funcoland and Babbages seperate companies back then? I know at some point they were all merged/bought out/swallowed by GameStop along with EBGames/Electronics Boutique, and Software Etc.

300 dollars for 1 game?

Just going by what I heard on the radio. I was only born in 1992 so I would of been like a toddler when it came out, but I do know Neo Geo consoles and their games were astronomically expensive.

Giantbomb.com says games were $100-300

https://www.giantbomb.com/neo-geo/3045-25/

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Shame they were so expensive. It's a great console.

 

Those two things are related, for sure. It was great because it was beefy, and it was expensive because it was beefy. Faster and more capable than the Genesis in every way while still using somewhat-related hardware. 68000, Z80, a Yamaha synth...but the Neo Geo graphics hardware was super impressive. SNK probably could have sold it a BIT cheaper, but they had their arcade business to protect.

 

Those cartridges had to be pricey to manufacture considering the ROM size and the crazy dual-connector PCBs.

 

Also don't forget that NFL contracts are not guaranteed, generally speaking. Lots of players made millions, but many (MANY) more made nothing or close to it because they'd get cut.

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You nailed it, the price is right, and the price was high because they couldn't allow themselves to get under cut by ruining their own arcade MVS side of operations which made far more. Even in design the things were the same so they changed the pinouts on AES vs MVS so arcade operators couldn't catch wise and buy the 'cheap' home game since they were the same on both. I don't know how far back it was when eventually some started making the MVS to AES converters so they knew they had to at some point ride a line before profit and misery.

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Many of the players made MILLIONS! A few thousand dollars for a bunch of millionaire bachelors in their 20s is nothing.

 

Not to be pedantic, but unless they were rockstar players, or on their second or third contracts, they probably didn't make as much as you're imagining. Players in the early '90s didn't make anywhere close to what they get now.

 

(Fun anecdote: the Green Bay Packers' quarterback held out of training camp in 1990 for a new contract after a Pro Bowl '89 season in which he led the league in several passing categories; he wanted something like $1.2 million and people went nuts. Most starters in the NFL, at any position, don't even get out of bed for that today. :lol: :o)

 

Regardless, even an average-tier player at the time could swing a complete NeoGeo collection and not sweat it too much. Would be pretty cool if it turned out to be Cris Carter or Chris Doleman or somebody! Jim McMahon played for the Vikings in '93, but I think I remember reading he was a Sega Genesis guy. :P

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Not to be pedantic, but unless they were rockstar players, or on their second or third contracts, they probably didn't make as much as you're imagining. Players in the early '90s didn't make anywhere close to what they get now.

 

(Fun anecdote: the Green Bay Packers' quarterback held out of training camp in 1990 for a new contract after a Pro Bowl '89 season in which he led the league in several passing categories; he wanted something like $1.2 million and people went nuts. Most starters in the NFL, at any position, don't even get out of bed for that today. :lol: :o)

 

Regardless, even an average-tier player at the time could swing a complete NeoGeo collection and not sweat it too much. Would be pretty cool if it turned out to be Cris Carter or Chris Doleman or somebody! Jim McMahon played for the Vikings in '93, but I think I remember reading he was a Sega Genesis guy. :P

 

 

Minimum wage was $3.80 in 1990 and now it is $15 ! So take those NFL salaries and multiply by 4X for current dollars. So a million dollar contract is roughly a 4 million in today's dollars.

 

Chis Doleman was on high end but a $8.75 over 5 years is making MILLIONS (ie more than a million). Chris Carter got $11.5 million for 3 years! Note Chris carter is very likely one of those Vikings referenced as he has mentioned being a video games fan many times on the air with ESPN.

 

See some of the larger contracts: https://www.nytimes.com/1995/04/12/sports/sports-people-football-carter-is-highest-paid-in-viking-history.html

Edited by thetick1
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Chis Doleman was on high end but a $8.75 over 5 years is making MILLIONS (ie more than a million). Chris Carter got $11.5 million for 3 years! Note Chris carter is very likely one of those Vikings referenced as he has mentioned being a video games fan many times on the air with ESPN.

 

Two of those aforementioned rockstar players. ;)

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  • 2 weeks later...

I worked at an EB for a year or so in 1990 in a high-end mall in Atlanta and we sold NeoGeo.

 

Personally, I never sold a system, but I think maybe, once, someone bought a game. Maybe...

And isn't it any wonder with such fond memories why you see AES games go for not just hundreds but thousands of dollars and it's so toxic people are not not just resorting to flash kits but also more newly made converters and jacking up MVS prices to use on their AES too. They never were big movers, I saw the stock shift around and very slowly get chipped away at the local Software Etc where I lived in that time. They had a dedicated small space for it and some systems left out in their box along it to draw some attention since SNK wasn't exactly market genius level types in trying to get attention (which again kicked them in the nuts years later on NGPC sadly and that one should have had a chance.)

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Back in the 90's I recall frequent comments online that a lot of gamers were in MN. Not sure if it holds true anymore. Perhaps in the retrogaming community.

 

I lived in Minneapolis in the late 90's. There was an independent used game store I frequented that had a loose Neo-Geo AES on the back shelf, but they wouldn't sell it because it had no power supply. Seemed odd it was essentially on display if they didn't want to sell it.

 

Same place I bought my Jaguar CD, new in box, for like $80. :D

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Those two things are related, for sure. It was great because it was beefy, and it was expensive because it was beefy. Faster and more capable than the Genesis in every way while still using somewhat-related hardware. 68000, Z80, a Yamaha synth...but the Neo Geo graphics hardware was super impressive. SNK probably could have sold it a BIT cheaper, but they had their arcade business to protect.

 

Those cartridges had to be pricey to manufacture considering the ROM size and the crazy dual-connector PCBs.

 

Admittedly, Neo Geo games up to 1995 would be quite pricey to make, but as time moved on, the price should have dropped. Which never happened.

Bullshit marketing using megabits when the standard is the byte/octet, a 330 MEGA cartridge is really 41 MegaOctets. Stil la huge lot in 1991, sure. But by 1995, it was no longer impressive. The N64's "lage cartridges" were 64 Mo.

Sure in the meantime, SNK improved the cart capacity with ban switching, upping them up over 1000 megabits (160 Megaoctets).

At this point there were no reason than a Neo Geo game would cost more than a regular console, and yet it kept at this price.

 

Also, while still powerful, the Neo Geo was no longer the amazing power house it was.

Certainly, the Neo Geo CD show that SNK was aware that something needed to change, but they probably lacked the experience of Sega/Nintendo and even Sony in mass marketing medias/games.

From what I've read, the family at the head of sNK at the time had in fact little idea of what the market was and how, especially with CD and 3D, it shifted drastically, and were simply lost in what to do.

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Megabits were the standard for measuring game sizes at the time in marketing for all consoles. Anyone who thinks kids were going to get excited about the number of "megaoctets" or megabytes didn't live through the 90's.

 

Neo Geo games were expensive because of the direct rom access. The amount of masked roms on the two pcb's of each cartridge far exceeded anything available to consumers at the time, and the chips weren't cheap. The limited runs of the niche product kept the games expensive as the system aged.

Edited by DJ Clae
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Megabits were the standard for measuring game sizes at the time in marketing for all consoles. Anyone who thinks kids were going to get excited about the number of "megaoctets" or megabytes didn't live through the 90's.

I lived throuh here and that annoyed me, because I didn't knew the difference, except it was less.

But bits didn't conveyed any meaning to me unlike octects that were standard on computers. I dunno about you but we had computer education at school so it was something we were familiar with, and when you wanted to share games with your buddies on a floppy, you really learned quickly how an octet was precious... removing that pesky read.me file from a game could mean being able to have 3 games on one floppy instead of two!

Edited by CatPix
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Were Funcoland and Babbages seperate companies back then? I know at some point they were all merged/bought out/swallowed by GameStop along with EBGames/Electronics Boutique, and Software Etc.

Just going by what I heard on the radio. I was only born in 1992 so I would of been like a toddler when it came out, but I do know Neo Geo consoles and their games were astronomically expensive.

Giantbomb.com says games were $100-300

https://www.giantbomb.com/neo-geo/3045-25/

 

 

 

Pink, they were separate entities swallowed up by Gamestop.

 

 

Interesting hearing other stores carrying Neo Geo as well besides the Babagges I mentioned especially Toys R Us.

Anybody recall seeing Neo Geo games being sold at brick and mortar stores around the mid to late '90s? Reason I asked, the release date for the Metal Slug was in '96 - one of my favorites and up there for priciest. If I had a Neo around then, I would've gave that some serious thought purchasing one.

 

My only Aes Neo knowledge at this time frame came from Die Hard Gamer periodical and the one trading ad where you can purchase Neo Geo games in this era.

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