Woo, Neo Geo. I guess now that Gamesack is showing off this hidden gem of a console the price will finally go up. For realz though, I've always wanted a Neo Geo; twice I almost bought a Neo Geo and twice it slipped through my grasp.
The first was a Neo Geo that they had in my small town, Babbages. It was the first store I'd ever seen that was solely devoted to video games. The prices were generally higher than anywhere else but they'd get stuff that other stores wouldn't have. Behind the counter on a shelf it sat: the Neo Geo AES. When I was a kid I used to mow lawns for cash that I'd spend on video games, comic books, etc. I decided I wanted that AES so I saved my money up for most of a Summer and had cash in hand to buy the sole Neo Geo they had at Babbages. I then managed to convince myself that it was just too expensive and I ended up getting a stack of games and a bunch of magic cards instead. I got some good stuff, sure, but I always kinda wished that I'd gotten that Neo Geo instead.
The other time I almost bought one from a local guy back in 2001 but ended up talking him out of selling it. Anyway, I met him at a coffee shop, asked him to tell me about it, and he did. He had won it on a video game show called Power Team or Video Power or something. After winning a trivia contest a contestant he then got to go on a toy run. Any game he got and stuck to his velcro suit he'd get to keep. There was one game that if he found it he'd get a Neo Geo. He knew how the show worked and that the game was always a Tiger handheld game so he ran and grabbed every one of those non-fun junk handheld games he could and, sure enough, was rewarded with a Neo Geo and Magician Lord. Well, after becoming a bit nostalgic, he decided that he couldn't sell the system after all. I should have just handed him the $250 we agreed on, taken the system, and left.
Not getting the first one was okay; it was like $800 with tax iirc. Missing out on the second one, however? I've been kicking myself over that one for a decade. Periodically I've looked at ebay prices and I think the AES is well out of buy-able range for me now due to the ridiculous prices of the games that I'd like to own.