During Tokyo Game Show 2026, we finally got some information on Neo Geo AES+ Plaion’s retro console is designed to be a perfect recreation of the SNK original, obviously. She “almost died” a few months ago Thanks to one person, she was saved Changes also caused long delays.
The machine was expected to arrive in November of this year, but as we saw some time ago, it was delayed until September 2027, apparently due to production issues and also related to the increase in scale required for a large number of pre-orders compared to expectations, but some other details have emerged in recent days.
One of the decisive factors leading to the delay appears to be the inability to obtain certain hardware components in large quantities, as the well-known Memory and chip crisis This is affecting the entire technology market.
Instant changes
Plaion hardware and software director Ben Jones explained in an interview with VGC on the occasion of Tokyo Game Show 2026 that just a few months ago, the entire project seemed close to a catastrophic shipwreck, and Save last minute project changes.
“After we announced AES+, we received an overwhelming response and a large number of pre-orders,” said Jones, “so I immediately entered the procurement phase and communicated our requirements to our partners in Asia.”
Apparently, this is the first time the company has ever Discovering in the face of rejection: Due to the current severe situation and the diversion of artificial intelligence market resources, an indispensable element of Neo Geo AES+ was found to be unavailable.
New details of Neo Geo AES+ are revealed in the video through official FAQs
this is about Parallel NOR Flash, a component that has become “nearly unobtainable” During this period, though, research prompted Jones himself to travel to Taiwan to see if a supply deal was possible.
This situation led to a serious risk of canceling the entire project, until a solution was adopted, taking into account that some elements had already been produced, forcing retroactive modifications to insert a system for converting signals From serial to parallel.
“With this in mind, we started investigating whether it was possible to find alternative solutions using the so-called Serial NOR flash memorybasically the same as parallel; however, since NeoGeo only uses parallel flash, it needs to be converted to use serial flash, which is easier to find and actually available on the market. ” Jones explained.
Plaion ultimately deemed it necessary Redesign the chip The tape cassette functionality is achieved by adding a technology that converts serial signals into parallel signals. This work, combined with further testing, is the reason for the ten-month delay in NeoGeo AES+.
Meanwhile, four more games were announced at TGS 2026 that will be part of the official re-release with the console, and other games may be announced as well, as Plaion intends to expand the Neo Geo AES+ project with more re-releases.
