(Image credit: SNK/Plaion)

If you told me last week that we were getting a 1:1 hardware reincarnation of the ultimate '90s nerd status symbol, I would have laughed. We've seen the "mini" consoles. We've seen the arcade sticks with built-in ROMs. What SNK and Plaion just dropped is an absolute bombshell in comparison: the Neo Geo AES+ is real , it's coming this November, and it is going to completely empty our wallets.

If you're not familiar with the Neo Geo, potentially because you were born after it left the market, it was a bold idea from SNK circa 1990: what if we launch a modular arcade system with swappable games like a home console... and then sell the same hardware in a home console? Arcade operators liked it because it was cost-effective, and every single gamer in the world wanted one; the idea of "arcade games at home" was nuts in the early 1990s.…