Metal Slug, the jewel of the Neo Geo

Metal Slug, by SNK and Nazca, reached the arcades first: the MVS board came out in Japan on 19 April 1996. The home version, the AES cartridge for the Neo Geo console, came out on 24 May 1996 in Japan and North America, and reached the Neo Geo CD in July. It was a huge game for a very expensive console, and the AES print run was tiny.

The numbers

Be careful with the second: it was a one-off sale by a specialist shop, not a market price. Guides with few recorded sales give very different figures, and a loose copy, without the box, changes hands for a few thousand dollars.

Why it’s so rare

• The AES print run was tiny: unofficial estimates put it at between 500 and 1,000 cartridges for the United States.
• Many of those offered for sale are MVS arcade boards converted to AES.
• People who own a complete copy rarely sell it.

Before you pay

• Ask for photos of the board: an MVS conversion is not an original AES.
• Check that the box, manual and cartridge are from the same region.
• Be wary of price guides when there are only one or two recorded sales.
• With figures like these, buy from sellers with a track record and get an expert to verify it.

If you just want to play it

PLAION REPLAI and SNK are preparing the NEOGEO AES+, at $249.99, with a Metal Slug cartridge re-release at $89.99. It was due on 12 November 2026 and has been delayed to 16 September 2027 because of demand and the global shortage of memory chips. The image in this article is, in fact, that re-release. When it arrives, searching for “Metal Slug AES” will mix listings for the re-release and the original.

Other AES jewels: the European version of Kizuna Encounter, with around ten confirmed copies according to Racketboy, or Neo Turf Masters, which sold for $13,750 in 2018.