Lets Talk Neo Geo Prototypes. [Archive] - ASSEMblergames.com

wheelaa

06-04-2009, 12:51 AM

I'd like to see these "boot carts" of Iron Clad you speak of, because, none exist to my knowledge.

Zintrick was assembled and released on AES/MVS and the ROM was released.

Final Romance 2 was assembled and released on AES/MVS and the ROM was released (yuck!)

I had screenshots of Iron Clad and Crossed Swords 2 in setup mode on the soft dip settings.

Also, Iron Clad MVS was seen in person way back in 1996.
I'll see if I was sent any piccies. Bear in mind I was recalling years old emails with a non-native English speaker. I think he most probably meant that they didn't look official and gave him bad vibes. I spoke with FTL about this too a while back and he offered me a similar story of scabby looking carts (innards obviously), no sound etc.

Edit..quick look and found some meh hearsay (although I trust the source explicitly)
I was in contact with those 2 japanese big collectors to try to find ironclad on MVS cart,legit SNK release.I gave up on it thought as the few pieces I found were already almost not-working or with flas boards on them(very risky parts I was told.They know a lot about rare hardwares and consoles and said the navi complete set ranks as high as one of the rarest machine to see complete.

Not sure what he means by flas board, can't seem to figure out the typo! False or flash maybe?

I'll try and dig out info from my JP contacts though. It's scary how much some of them know (or just make up) about JP gaming that collectors outside of Japan aren't even remotely aware of. (Legit jpmd warlock for example)

Re Zintrick..I've seen MVS and Homecarts of this. All without sound etc. Are those the ones you mean when you say 'assembled'? Or has a legit MVS proto now been found, dumped etc.

Re FR2 - same questions lol!

Re setup screenshots..very interesting indeed. I've seen some IC ones here
http://www.neogeoprotos.com/games/ironclad.htm
but none for CS2. If you still had them and were able to share them, I'd love to see them, as would others I imagine.

IC MVS..I'm told a Scottish big timer has one of these. Never really spoken with him myself, except for some Marty talk way back before I heard he had a copy. Typical!

TonK

06-04-2009, 05:29 AM

I'll see if I was sent any piccies. Bear in mind I was recalling years old emails with a non-native English speaker. I think he most probably meant that they didn't look official and gave him bad vibes. I spoke with FTL about this too a while back and he offered me a similar story of scabby looking carts (innards obviously), no sound etc.

Edit..quick look and found some meh hearsay (although I trust the source explicitly)
I was in contact with those 2 japanese big collectors to try to find ironclad on MVS cart,legit SNK release.I gave up on it thought as the few pieces I found were already almost not-working or with flas boards on them(very risky parts I was told.They know a lot about rare hardwares and consoles and said the navi complete set ranks as high as one of the rarest machine to see complete.

Not sure what he means by flas board, can't seem to figure out the typo! False or flash maybe?

I'll try and dig out info from my JP contacts though. It's scary how much some of them know (or just make up) about JP gaming that collectors outside of Japan aren't even remotely aware of. (Legit jpmd warlock for example)

Re Zintrick..I've seen MVS and Homecarts of this. All without sound etc. Are those the ones you mean when you say 'assembled'? Or has a legit MVS proto now been found, dumped etc.

Re FR2 - same questions lol!

Re setup screenshots..very interesting indeed. I've seen some IC ones here
http://www.neogeoprotos.com/games/ironclad.htm
but none for CS2. If you still had them and were able to share them, I'd love to see them, as would others I imagine.

IC MVS..I'm told a Scottish big timer has one of these. Never really spoken with him myself, except for some Marty talk way back before I heard he had a copy. Typical!

I might have the screens for these games.

i'm gonna dig out my old PC and see if I saved them.

EDIT: Nowhere to be found.

I'll look somewhere else - I still may be able to grab them.

REXMONDAY

06-18-2009, 08:20 PM

how much would an average AES prototype go for?

Blur2040

06-19-2009, 02:33 AM

http://digitalbullet.weebly.com/razoola-interview.html

No wonder you're so antsy for protos, Tonk, Razoola is teasing you. He can actually get Xacrow to talk to him...

...it would probably be damn near impossible to get a (any) proto off of Xacrow...part of the whole high level Japanese collecting scene that we can't penetrate at all. Well...at least we have...uh...a monopoly on Atari prototypes. :110:

Everyone has their price though. Problem is though, you know the guy is probably ridiculously rich...which means he won't be tempted even by prices that some of us would consider ludicrious. Top that off with a certain japanese tendency to keep things inside the country...Still, everyone has their price. Theres a point somewhere were it becomes absolutely moronic not to sell.

Theres always the idea of a swap too...but if you're a collector who has unreleased neo geo games...there isn't much that you can really offer.

Sigh.

REXMONDAY

06-19-2009, 03:16 PM

Thanks for the link, good article, might check out some of your other links to get my AES modded even further :dance:

Adol

06-19-2009, 04:13 PM

Also, Iron Clad MVS was seen in person way back in 1996.

Same here.
I remember seeing Iron Clad in an arcade show back at the time,so definately it was in mvs form,but maybe as a unfinished game.
The best option to get it was probably to steal it at that show back at the time :)

rod_wod

06-22-2009, 06:32 PM

I would love to see the video of bang bang busters i read on a site that someone had one and said it was goning to be on the site but never was.also iron clad would be nice to have bootleg wise.

DiamondDave

07-24-2009, 06:53 AM

People are interested in these things? ;-)
http://i915.photobucket.com/albums/ac351/NEO-AEG/P1020377.jpg

DiamondDave

07-24-2009, 12:44 PM

MAK! Japan had an Iron clad for sale a few years back, I believe.

Mak is an awesome place. It may be way smaller than G-Front, but the guys are always very nice and honest. G-front has a larger selection, but MAK definitely gets in the more rare unique items more often.

DiamondDave

07-29-2009, 03:52 PM

ooh, have a new "special" cart on the way. 7/29/2009 :thumbsup:

ASSEMbler

07-30-2009, 04:03 AM

Stop being a cocktease and just tell us. This isn't the neo geo forums.

DiamondDave

07-30-2009, 04:59 AM

Stop being a cocktease and just tell us. This isn't the neo geo forums.

The cart pictured above is a prototype of a released game. The cart that's on the way is a reviewer's sample of another released game, I can't wait to crack it open and check out the boards. It's always fun playing the games as well, and checking out the differences (if any) from the released versions.

NTM

07-30-2009, 06:10 AM

Stop being a cocktease and just tell us. This isn't the neo geo forums.

Hahaha. I was going to write the exact same thing.

For whatever reason, the Neo "community" is full of elitist attitudes. Not saying you are Dave, but if you're going to show a snip of something and not give details, don't show it at all.

DiamondDave

07-30-2009, 12:30 PM

So what was the deal with Zintrick? A known scammer had it for sale, and a neo member bought the cart. I passed it up because it didn't have SNK proto eprom window stickers. I figured, known scammer, not SNK chips, avoid. Even if he sent it, I wondered if he dumped the game and made a boot of his proto, which was the one for sale. However, Neo Pool Masters didn't have SNK eprom window stickers either.

NTM

07-30-2009, 05:55 PM

Zintrick is a CD conversion that is missing the music. I have never seen or heard of anyone having a true proto of it.

REXMONDAY

07-30-2009, 09:59 PM

Hahaha. I was going to write the exact same thing.

For whatever reason, the Neo "community" is full of elitist attitudes. Not saying you are Dave, but if you're going to show a snip of something and not give details, don't show it at all.

Agreed!

NTM

07-31-2009, 12:16 AM

People are interested in these things? ;-)
http://i915.photobucket.com/albums/ac351/NEO-AEG/P1020377.jpg

Actually, that looks like the RidingHero proto cart. The CRC of that eprom should read "2850".

DiamondDave

07-31-2009, 04:19 AM

Actually, that looks like the RidingHero proto cart. The CRC of that eprom should read "2850".

You should post a pic of your cart.

NTM

07-31-2009, 07:33 AM

You should post a pic of your cart.

Sure thing. Probably get a pic in the next few days. Only thing is it will have a watermark with my friends and I neo site. We need the content anyway :dance:

DiamondDave

07-31-2009, 09:54 AM

Sure thing. Probably get a pic in the next few days. Only thing is it will have a watermark with my friends and I neo site. We need the content anyway :dance:

Awesome, be careful not to taco the labels when you remove the boards. :thumbsup:

DiamondDave

08-01-2009, 06:18 AM

My latest addition:
http://i915.photobucket.com/albums/ac351/NEO-AEG/Sample1.jpg

http://i915.photobucket.com/albums/ac351/NEO-AEG/Sample2.jpg

http://i915.photobucket.com/albums/ac351/NEO-AEG/Sample3.jpg

ASSEMbler

08-01-2009, 10:32 AM

That's the worst fake Japanese I have ever seen.

You got ripped off.

DiamondDave

08-01-2009, 10:46 AM

http://i915.photobucket.com/albums/ac351/NEO-AEG/SamplePCBs.png

DiamondDave

08-01-2009, 10:48 AM

That's the worst fake Japanese I have ever seen.

You got ripped off.

I don't know, that Shenmue III DC GD-R was the worst I've seen.

Calpis

08-01-2009, 09:18 PM

Looks like NGF made it into a "prototype", if even... Dunno why else it'd have the game's final mask ROMs. The P ROMs could still contain unused stages/animations that were dropped from the final and the music could be arranged differently with the same samples. Even if it is a Savage Reign proto, it's still Savage Reign.

NTM

08-03-2009, 07:30 PM

As requested. Date codes on mine are June 19, 1990. From old pics I have seen of Daves, I believe they are May 31, 1990. Less than a month between the two and it was pretty much ready for final release.

http://neogeofanclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/dsc01053.jpg
http://neogeofanclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/dsc01058.jpg
http://neogeofanclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/dsc01055.jpg

drx

08-03-2009, 11:16 PM

That's pretty good EPROM label keeping for a game company.

NTM

08-04-2009, 01:07 AM

That's pretty good EPROM label keeping for a game company.

Yeah. Funny thing is SNK used these stickers from the earliest Home and MVS carts to, and including, Neo Pocket carts.

ave

08-04-2009, 01:18 AM

Why does it say Yamata on the label?

TonK

08-04-2009, 03:39 PM

Yeah. Funny thing is SNK used these stickers from the earliest Home and MVS carts to, and including, Neo Pocket carts.

Nice pics, B!

NewDump

08-08-2009, 11:55 PM

hello

Final Romance 2 was assembled and released on AES/MVS and the ROM was released (yuck!)

Final romance 2 is relased by me ( NewDump ) Kanyero and Kikexx is CD conversion :)

ASSEMbler

08-09-2009, 01:25 AM

Nice, and welcome.

NewDump

08-09-2009, 05:16 AM

another pic from proto mvs :)

NTM

08-10-2009, 05:48 AM

another pic from proto mvs :)

That's Pitt's dev cart. Unless he sold it. There is another earlier version of that as well.

DreamTR

08-10-2009, 09:03 AM

TonK

08-10-2009, 10:36 AM

I have a Ghost Pilots AES Prototype, which is very real, I'm not sure what differences it has, though.

XACROW won't speak to anyone. I know he also cares about Mega Drive unreleased prototypes, but even then he won't respond.

EDIT, after doing some research and seeing how Xacrow original communications, it looks like it is a French collector posing as a Japanese collector, so it might be someone everyone already knows, which I don't understand why anyone would do that, but oh well.

I've sent his account a few emails, no response.

Why anyone would hoard these games without testing the market is beyond me.

Someone else has to have them...

I mean, if the offer needs to be higher - I'll make an offer.

Wonder if the screens are faked anyway?

DreamTR

08-10-2009, 09:56 PM

Well, I have a great amount of unreleased protos for all sorts of cart systems and with as many as I've had dumped people still think I'm "hoarding" everything. There's a lot of ignorance out there and it's quite funny, but whatever.

As far as these screens go, honestly, that's $50,000 or more in monies for unreleased games, so it's either a scam, or a collector who just does not want to part with them, but it's not a Japanese collector. The dude is using a French hosting site and his responses on the site were always in European tone "bye" for many English "goodbyes" and such. No one from Japan does that.

To top that off, all his "sample" carts are normal Yahoo Japan auction winnings, nothing special, and he has pics of those, but not of the actual Neo carts.

To each his own, if someone offered me stupid money for most of my unreleased stuff, it would be out there more. Money ALWAYS talks, but that whole thing with XACROW is a scam in my opinion. He "may" have the games, but it's a "lie" with who he is.

Trenton_net

08-10-2009, 10:57 PM

I'd agree that money is a big factor. I mean, if someone gobsmacked me with a load of cash, I wouldn't say no. I'd have to be bill gates before I would even consider turning down that much money.

NewDump

08-11-2009, 01:25 AM

pictures from protos by xacrow, fakes?.

TonK

08-11-2009, 02:26 AM

pictures from protos by xacrow, fakes?.

Who knows.

I see emu screens that could have been faked.

I mean, he couldnt provide any info.

Why post them?

NewDump

08-11-2009, 03:30 AM

http://unibios.free.fr/xacrow/lo1.jpg

http://unibios.free.fr/xacrow/bp1.jpg

DreamTR

08-11-2009, 07:37 AM

Like I said, how does he have photos of his sample Mega Drive carts, but only screens of the Neo stuff? makes no sense.

NewDump

08-11-2009, 02:04 PM

More Pics for Xacrow

http://unibios.free.fr/xacrow/brkn1.jpg
http://unibios.free.fr/xacrow/mj1.jpg

:crying::crying::crying: never release
http://unibios.free.fr/xacrow/bbbusters.png

DreamTR

08-12-2009, 06:32 AM

New Dump, we already know. Those are old pics. A simple google search comes up with the same info.

TonK

08-12-2009, 07:26 AM

Like I said, how does he have photos of his sample Mega Drive carts, but only screens of the Neo stuff? makes no sense.

None at all.

Because he doesnt have any...?

Not hard to get emu screens.

Someone was telling me how it could have been done.

Bramsworth

08-12-2009, 04:16 PM

DreamTR

08-13-2009, 06:36 AM

Couldn't he have dumped them himself and then took shots from an emu? Seems like the likely case. I doubt he actually made perfect replicas of the titles himself in photoshop or something. And in that case, surely he owns them, these aren't freely available roms or anything either.

Then explain why he says he is Japanese but hosts on a French site, has no pics of the actual carts, but pics of some standard crap Mega Drive stuff?

Bramsworth

08-13-2009, 08:09 AM

He's just being a prick by being secretive with pics of the carts for some reason... and he's pretending to be Japanese in order to get this stuff since he knows Japanese collectors would probably be assholes about doing business with foreigners.

That's the way I see it anyway. Either way, I just don't see it being possible all those shots were faked.

Jamtex

08-13-2009, 11:21 AM

hello

Final Romance 2 was assembled and released on AES/MVS and the ROM was released (yuck!)

Final romance 2 is relased by me ( NewDump ) Kanyero and Kikexx is CD conversion :)

As there is only one websute with FR2 listed as a proto, and even then it's a bit vague as it only mentions it could have been an AES / MVS cartridge, rather then saying 'Yes I have an original MVS proto...' is this basically a dump of the CD-ROM game to work on AES and MVS?

It's a odd game to convert to MVS as it was released earlier in the year to as an arcade game, although a single board would run two machines for Vs play or 2 single player games... The arcade hardware is very similar to the Neo Geo hardware except for an additional Z80 and a higher screen resolution. So I can't see what the point of an MVS version would have been... i know that the mahjong games on the Neo Geo were some of the poorer selling games on the system, so I can see why there is no AES version.

Rawit

08-13-2009, 01:21 PM

The Xacrow screendumps always looked a bit suspicious to me. When these screendumps were first released, I was hoping that a lot more pictures would follow, but that didn't happen.
If you look at the pictures you can see they have been recompressed at least once. The "Xacrow" text is sharp, without artifacts, but the actual emu/rgb capture image has lots of artifacts. The Bang Busters one looks like it was in GIF format before. It looks like Xacrow doesn't have the uncompressed originals. He didn't release any other screendumps, so it makes me think that he got these images from somebody else. That, or he is pretty lousy with editing images.

Bramsworth

08-13-2009, 03:49 PM

Well, I've seen plenty of times in my life where people doubt the credibility of pictures and then they go on about artifacts this and compression that, only for the picture to turn out to be real. You honestly can't know for sure, ever. And no one seems to be pointing out that besides the title screens, his site also shows a shot in-game for each. Sure, he's so talented that he made 100% perfect screenshots of these games, just to mess with people.....right. Whether he owns them or not, I think it's pointless to dispute the shots, they clearly came from real games.

Since this guy isn't likely to ever give a damn about neo geo fans(of which I definitely am not, but this xacrow guys story interested me :), I say you guys should just not give a damn about him.

Unless you wanna pretend to be a Japanese collector and find him. You could probably get any info off of him that way :) Speaking of which, is there any way at all the contact him, or is his info nowhere to be seen now?

Juste

08-14-2009, 02:34 AM

Then explain why he says he is Japanese but hosts on a French site, has no pics of the actual carts, but pics of some standard crap Mega Drive stuff?

I think his Sega Mega Drive cassettes are not like that (standard crap). He has got quite common ones like the store samples, but I think some others are very rare.

Not all are sample cassettes as you described them.

I think not everybody takes pictures of all things they have got, so I think not taking pictures of the Neo Geo cassettes maybe does not really mean anything.

DreamTR

08-14-2009, 09:55 PM

I think his Sega Mega Drive cassettes are not like that (standard crap). He has got quite common ones like the store samples, but I think some others are very rare.

Not all are sample cassettes as you described them.

I think not everybody takes pictures of all things they have got, so I think not taking pictures of the Neo Geo cassettes maybe does not really mean anything.

Juste, I think you are confused. The "sample" carts he has are store sample carts. He has PHOTOS of the carts, but no screens. Why? There's no point to having screenshots of released games but he took pics of the carts.

He did not do the same for the Neo stuff, though.

Now as far as Mega Drive "rarity" goes, my unreleased undumped protos are the equivalent of his to Neo Geo. If he wants crazy rares, I have them, if Japanese collectors want crazy undumped unreleased Mega Drive stuff, I have it, but rarely does anyone step up to the plate on those, and I can tell you, if he took PICS of the games for MEga Drive, but not Neo, he might only have ROMS of them, who knows...but it's something. The fact he is not Japanese and put together this elaborate hoax for nothing is just completely bizarre.

Chalk it up to more crazy Neo Geo collecting behavior.

hl718

08-14-2009, 11:47 PM

Chalk it up to more crazy Neo Geo collecting behavior.

Bragging rights.

Perhaps he hopes that by projecting an "image" he'll attract offers from other collectors who want to sell their stuff.

-hl718

Juste

08-15-2009, 03:02 AM

Juste, I think you are confused. The "sample" carts he has are store sample carts. He has PHOTOS of the carts, but no screens. Why? There's no point to having screenshots of released games but he took pics of the carts.

He did not do the same for the Neo stuff, though.

Now as far as Mega Drive "rarity" goes, my unreleased undumped protos are the equivalent of his to Neo Geo. If he wants crazy rares, I have them, if Japanese collectors want crazy undumped unreleased Mega Drive stuff, I have it, but rarely does anyone step up to the plate on those, and I can tell you, if he took PICS of the games for MEga Drive, but not Neo, he might only have ROMS of them, who knows...but it's something. The fact he is not Japanese and put together this elaborate hoax for nothing is just completely bizarre.

Chalk it up to more crazy Neo Geo collecting behavior.

I think maybe I look at the wrong pictures? :(

They are the pictures here:

http://www.geocities.com/xacrow_1999/rare/rare.html

Just two of them are store samples, the others are not.

I just think they are not standard crap as you said they was.

NTM

08-15-2009, 04:51 AM

Bragging rights.

Too bad the Neo "community" is full of these kind of people.

DreamTR

08-28-2009, 02:20 AM

I think maybe I look at the wrong pictures? :(

They are the pictures here:

http://www.geocities.com/xacrow_1999/rare/rare.html

Just two of them are store samples, the others are not.

I just think they are not standard crap as you said they was.

Juste: No, those are all standard store crap. Those show up on Yahoo Japan all the time. Nothing special there. Also, just off topic, but I did pick up a REAL Castlevania Bloodlines prototype in the US a few weeks ago.

HL718: He doesn't RESPOND to any offers because he doesn't have the stuff or he's pretending he's someone else. I think whoever he is "may" have ROMs, but physical proto carts, no.

Juste

08-28-2009, 03:44 PM

Juste: No, those are all standard store crap. Those show up on Yahoo Japan all the time. Nothing special there. Also, just off topic, but I did pick up a REAL Castlevania Bloodlines prototype in the US a few weeks ago.

HL718: He doesn't RESPOND to any offers because he doesn't have the stuff or he's pretending he's someone else. I think whoever he is "may" have ROMs, but physical proto carts, no.
That's not true at all. And they don't appear on YJ!A all the time. :(

It is like you only class prototypes as rare, and nothing else.

drx

08-28-2009, 04:05 PM

That's not true at all. And they don't appear on YJ!A all the time. :(

It is like you only class prototypes as rare, and nothing else.

He's right you know. They do appear all the time.

I guess our attitude comes from the fact that the stuff we buy usually appears once or twice in a decade, whereas this stuff gets relisted all every other month or so :P

Juste

08-28-2009, 05:03 PM

He's right you know. They do appear all the time.

I guess our attitude comes from the fact that the stuff we buy usually appears once or twice in a decade, whereas this stuff gets relisted all every other month or so :P
I only think that would be we the store samples, which only two are and not all of them like DreamTR said.

I agree that they might appear more than a prototype cassette would for example, but I don't think they appear enough or all the time to class them as standard store crap.

DreamTR

08-31-2009, 08:09 AM

I only think that would be we the store samples, which only two are and not all of them like DreamTR said.

I agree that they might appear more than a prototype cassette would for example, but I don't think they appear enough or all the time to class them as standard store crap.

Juste: ALL of the ones he has are store samples. Those are ALL common standard stuff. Did you not see original boxes for some of those? Believe me, if you think THAT stuff is rare....it's very shocking...it's precisely why it makes no sense why this guy has common store crap and no Neo Geo proto pictures. All of the stuff he has pictured of, NOTHING is remotely rare. If you want to see RARES, I am sure DRX or myself can show you a boatload of "rarities" for Mega Drive.

wheelaa

08-31-2009, 08:22 PM

Juste: ALL of the ones he has are store samples. Those are ALL common standard stuff. Did you not see original boxes for some of those? Believe me, if you think THAT stuff is rare....it's very shocking...it's precisely why it makes no sense why this guy has common store crap and no Neo Geo proto pictures. All of the stuff he has pictured of, NOTHING is remotely rare. If you want to see RARES, I am sure DRX or myself can show you a boatload of "rarities" for Mega Drive.

Jason, you're wrong. You know I love my MD. 'Some' of the titles in that link are very very rare indeed. Rare to the extent that I've seen legit Tetris md for sale more often. Some are very common, but the banking carts and Wonder Midi are not. Not proto rare, but to suggest they are common store crap is ignorant. I defer to your knowledge on many things gaming, but on these you are wrong. Sorry. Hell even sansan hadn't been seen for several years until 2-3 years back I unearthed a small stash.

That said, if they are store crap can you pick me some up please;-). I'm having trouble find them, so could do with the help. I'll pm the ones I'm after!

Juste

08-31-2009, 11:17 PM

DreamTR

09-10-2009, 12:58 AM

Guys, we were talking prototypes, not rarity of things that say SAMPLE.

No, I did not know that some of those things were rare, but a lot of them were not, and the point was we were talking prototypes. He has no prototypes up there pictured. Zilch.

Supergun

11-26-2009, 07:36 PM

Bragging rights.

Perhaps he hopes that by projecting an "image" he'll attract offers from other collectors who want to sell their stuff.

-hl718

Gentlemen,

I happened to stumble upon this interesting thread during a routine Google search which I was conducting one night well over a month ago and it had quite an impact on me. It made enough of an impression that I literally felt compelled to open a user account on this site just so that I could participate in the thread. However, the account process on this site is very restricted and it took forever for me to finally activate my account.

Now that I can finally post, I would like to contribute a lot of useful information to this thread both to set the record straight, as well as to ensure that misinformation does not run amuck on the internet in regards to the elusive NEOGEO prototypes.

Alright, so those interested, grab your favorite beverage, get comfortable in your seat, and enjoy this nice long read. I will address as many of the important points that were raised as I can, and I will also be willing to correspond more in the future, as well as even answer any questions that may help, but all that I ask is for your patience. It is not often that I have any spare time to get on the computer, let alone to participate and/or respond to ongoing threads. But rest assured, I will be back eventually, just give me time.

The infamous “MAK Japan / Brikinger proto rumor”
This is 100% completely false. I correspond with the owner of MAK Japan and I discussed this rumor with him at length many years ago and it is 100% false. A brikinger proto cartridge has never been bought, sold, let alone even come through the door at MAK Japan. Even though this rumor has been heard from various different sources, (most of which came from France by the way) it is nothing more then an urban legend.
Ironclad is indeed one of the most talked about NEOGEO protos, but the few stories of the game that are actually 100% true have absolutely nothing to do with Mak Japan. Feel free to read the entire article on Ironclad at my website. It will help shed some light on just how ridiculous Ironclad claims have become over the years.

The elusive Crossed Swords 2 Dip Setting screen shots
Yes Tonk, I have all of these and I will be more then happy to share them here in this thread. Just tell me how to post pics in a thread and consider it done. I will post all the pics as well as all of the information surrounding when and how I got them and where they came from.

The Final Romance 2 proto story
The FR2 proto hack never had an “official” rom release per says. It began as a rom set that only found its way into the hands of a certain select few. Granted, like all roms, eventually after months of people sending them to “close friends only”, they eventually leak somewhere and become shareware that can be found on the internet, but this always takes time. For the record, when I myself was first given the FR2 rom set, it was given to me under very strict conditions, so much so that to this day I still don’t really have “permission” to divulge who gave it to me. But of course the biggest condition was that I could not redistribute or share the rom data with anyone. So my copy just kind of sat there for several years on a shelf but the rom data eventually turned up on the internet anyhow, so someone leaked it, but it was not me.
And as a quick side note, the same thing happened to me with the “Zintrick version 2” rom set which made enhancements, corrected some bugs, etc. Again, I have it here, but I am not really allowed to do anything with it.
Also important to note here that to this day, it is not possible to find the original “un-altered” rom sets of Ghost Lop, Zintrick, or Final Romance 2 on the internet. Every time I find a website with one of the rom sets I download the data and conduct CRC checks and they never match up to the originals. I am not trying to conjure up a conspiracy theory just stating the facts. At first I was told that bytes of data were altered to control and identify whose exact copy was dumped when it happened (we all knew it always does eventually) but then when it did (as say in the case of Ghost Lop) the French Team never made known to me whose copy was the one dumped. After that, I questioned what the point of it was, but then realized that the code was altered for THEM to identify the culprit, not for “us” per say and as a result I did not want to ask any more questions.

Now, unlike Ghost Lop which is a 100% genuine proto, both Zintrick and Final Romance 2 have been hacked together and assembled by hardcore NEOGEO enthusiasts, which brings up the next mystery.

Why work on Final Romance 2 rather then Crossed Swords 2 or Ironclad?
(Why hack together a cartridge proto of a far less desirable title?)
This one, even I cannot answer!
Zintrick is simple and logical. It was a low meg puzzle game and so it was a smart choice for the first attempt to hack a CD game onto the cartridge format. It was the easiest of the lot. However, why Final Romance 2 was chosen rather then Ironclad or Crossed Swords 2 is anybody’s guess. I have the utmost respect for all the time, talent, and treasure that was put into the task, but really I think about 99% of the NEOGEO community would rather have hacks of CS2 or Ironclad sitting on their shelves then FR2. And furthermore, why still to this day, nobody has bothered with Ironclad or CS2, boggles my mind. Music or no music, I can think of dozens of collectors, myself of course included, who would happily pay $500 or even $1,000 for a hacked cart version of either one of those titles, so their hard labor would not go without credit or compensation. But hey, to the best of my knowledge it has never happened and most likely never will I guess.
Personally, I feel that the original protos (100% original versions with music intact) have better chances of being found in the wild before somebody actually puts hundreds of hours into hacking these 2 titles together on cartridge.
Granted, it is of course VERY possible that both of these titles HAVE already been assembled by either members of the French team, or some other neo geo think tanks in the world, but due to trust violations and security incidents that happened with the previous Zintrick and Final Romance 2 carts, the distribution of the CS2 & Ironclad hacks has been kept solely amongst the highest end collectors and members of the group.

Now, finally, the debate over the legitimacy of the Xacrow proto pics
I can assure everyone here that the pics provided by Xacrow to the public back in January of 2005 are 100% genuine.
First off, they are clearly pics of the game running in an emulator, so yes, this proves he has the rom “data”, but it is important to note (and was mentioned by DreamTR earlier) that it does NOT prove that he possesses the actual original proto cartridges themselves. (more on this in a minute)
Secondly, I can assure you that they are real because the actual video footage that I have of those games running in real time match up 100%. Even assuming he got his hands on a copy of the videos, no human being could or would waste hundreds of hours of time to capture an image from a frame in the video and painstakingly go through the process of photo-shopping it to look like an emulated screen grab just for a fake brag post. (and that’s assuming that it would even be possible to pass it off as real anyhow btw)

Oh and I mentioned a follow up on my first point.

Important to note guys that DreamTR is a “type-A” collector and not a “type-B”. In simpler terms, he finds and gives more “value” to an actual physical prototype cartridge then I do for example. (not that there is anything wrong with that…and let me be clear, he is actually right, and it is very true in fact) But myself (and most others out there when it comes to the NEOGEO protos) are well aware of just how absolutely unbelievably rare an actual original unreleased NEOGEO prototype cartridge is.
Put it this way…to this day, only TWO have ever been found. So when it comes to the NEOGEO protos, most of us have the philosophy “beggars can’t be choosers” and so we would be more then happy with just a reproduction of the original proto cartridge or even just the rom data itself so that we could build our own cartridges.

Now, in regards to Xacrow himself, well that is a whole other ball game. My viewpoint is simple. SOMEONE out there, whether their name is Xacrow and they live in Japan, or whether they are French and just posing as someone in Japan, got their hands on these screen grabs. Additionally, the screen grabs themselves are indeed 100% authentic and real so hence whoever made them, has at the very least, the rom data for the games. But lastly, finding that person (seemingly impossible although technically Razoola would be the first logical place to start) and then subsequently trying to strike up a “sale” or “trade” of the rom data with that person, seems so far to be at the very least improbable.

In closing I would like to say that I don’t think that I will ever 100% completely forget about and/or lose interest in trying to track down the elusive NEOGEO protos, but I will say that over the last several years I literally had to force myself to stop thinking about them. From time to time, this post right here being an example, I do get a little excited about them, but for the most part I can no longer give them the same attention anymore as I used to give them because they became a serious cancer for me that I could not control and although I am currently in remission, a recurrence could happen at anytime.

It is so sad that the NEOGEO community is so different then all the others. The manner in which prototypes are discovered, discussed, and distributed for the Atari, Sega, and Nintendo communities is absolutely astounding. The level of cooperation could serve as a model. Even the few and far between games that happen to fall into the hands of serious high end non sharing collectors, are at the very least photographed, documented, and discussed in detail. The concept of a collector not even sharing something as silly as a product number is plain ludicrous. Get over it man!

caren103

11-27-2009, 05:38 AM

Very interesting reading, Supergun.

I can understand one collector who wants not to leak the software of a very exclusive and hard to find cart/rom, but sharing some footage of the item, hell, it does not hurt anyone.

Some pictures, some videos, some comments... all we "poor beggars" like to watch and to read to.

mrmark0673

11-27-2009, 05:48 AM

Wow, Billy Pitt coming out of nowhere! Excellent read, thanks so much for the information.

Dr.Wily

11-27-2009, 06:01 PM

interesting reading too !

michal99

11-27-2009, 08:56 PM

Why work on Final Romance 2 rather then Crossed Swords 2 or Ironclad?
(Why hack together a cartridge proto of a far less desirable title?)

It's quite simple answer. These games are small and simple then it's easy to hack them to cartridge version. CS2 and Ironclad are huge games and with lot of features and that's why they didn't choose them.
Or maybe they start with the small one for test, but then they discover that it's to much effort and didn't go for the big games. And to be honest the whole game industry change from the time when only few people have been able to get hand and have equipment to dump games/proto. Not even mentioned that with powerfull home console the arcade sector lose the potential and interest of people, because they can enjoy the games for "free and anytime" at home.

NTM

11-27-2009, 09:08 PM

Guys, do yourselves a favor.

http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/profile.php?do=addlist&userlist=ignore&u=50105

You'll be glad you did.

Bramsworth

11-28-2009, 08:20 AM

You might explain why before just telling everyone to do that for no reason at all.

NTM

11-28-2009, 08:44 AM

You might explain why before just telling everyone to do that for no reason at all.

I have a long time dislike of the Pitt. I believe he epitomizes what is wrong with the Neo community. He has always been about inflating his ego and I truly believe he has never owned a real prototype cartridge. With the exception of the Dev board he got off of yahoo.jp. For the record, I do not consider owning a COPY of a prototype is the same as owning a legitimate prototype cartridge.

I think the thing that pushed me over the edge, and it has been discussed over and over again, is how he handled Ghostlop. He had the opportunity to do something extremely positive for the community, but he chose to go the path of greed.

For someone to call themselves "Proto King" and not have a single proto, is probably the most retarded thing I have ever heard. I cant stand attention whores, I cant stand elitists, and I cant stand Pitt. So, I choose and I encourage others to just ignore him. He has zero creditability in my book.

caren103

11-28-2009, 10:02 PM

_SD_

11-29-2009, 01:09 AM

:dance:

I have to say that's new to me. And what fabulous news it is! :dance:

After all these years the game finally shows up on the Wii's Virtual Console and gets reverse engineed back to MVS ROM format. Awesome. I'm trying to find it now, but my Google-Fu is failing me. Anyone have any idea what board types will be required for AES and MVS conversions please?

ASSEMbler

11-29-2009, 03:34 AM

jhonny_d

11-29-2009, 03:24 PM

I love it, 900wii points ftw

hell yeah, I'm a neo geo fan and collector, that's really awesome news

never undestood nor liked all the "show off" drama surrounding the neo geo scene

Supergun

11-30-2009, 11:35 PM

Anyway, probably you all know now that "IRON CLAD" MVS Rom has been extracted from the Wii's VC file, and apparently now is spreading through the world.

All these years keeping Rom prototype's from be leaked, and now 900 Wii's points have ruined all that: awesome.

Let's see if other Protos will be released on the VC...

Well, absolutely, it's great for all of us, but it's lesson learned for the individual(s) who have been hording the rom data all these years. As I said many times in the past, better to sell, trade, or "controlled community release" one of a kind unreleased roms because sooner or later they will be found someplace else and get released anyway and once that happens, you and your data are about as useful as an empty beer can.

My only concern is that in order to "convert" each game from "virtual console download" to "actual rom file ready to burn and assemble on cartridge", many people have to be contacted for their help throughout various channels on the internet. This in turn leaves a large digital paper trail exposed on the internet which if seen by the wrong people,could accidentally result in biting the hand that feeds us, should the reaction be to no longer provide those games.

It's ironic though, because it will actually end up costing us way more then whatever 900 wii points are worth in real money. The cost involved with the donor cartridge, the eproms, and all the time and labor involved in assembling it will far outweigh it. Shows just how crazy we all are. If only the idiots at 5nk p7aym0r3 were humans who actually talk to us, we could arrange faster, easier, and more profitable for them ways of getting the games we want on the format we want them in the first place.

michal99

12-01-2009, 12:14 AM

Well, absolutely, it's great for all of us, but it's lesson learned for the individual(s) who have been hording the rom data all these years. As I said many times in the past, better to sell, trade, or "controlled community release" one of a kind unreleased roms because sooner or later they will be found someplace else and get released anyway and once that happens, you and your data are about as useful as an empty beer can.

My only concern is that in order to "convert" each game from "virtual console download" to "actual rom file ready to burn and assemble on cartridge", many people have to be contacted for their help throughout various channels on the internet. This in turn leaves a large digital paper trail exposed on the internet which if seen by the wrong people,could accidentally result in biting the hand that feeds us, should the reaction be to no longer provide those games.

It's ironic though, because it will actually end up costing us way more then whatever 900 wii points are worth in real money. The cost involved with the donor cartridge, the eproms, and all the time and labor involved in assembling it will far outweigh it. Shows just how crazy we all are. If only the idiots at 5nk p7aym0r3 were humans who actually talk to us, we could arrange faster, easier, and more profitable for them ways of getting the games we want on the format we want them in the first place.
Sorry, but you have no idea what you're talking about. First the game is released WW and cost nothing in development (ok a week assembly and test). Second how many Wii are WW ? 50 mil ? So if only 100 000 people WW buy the game then they earn 900 000 USD.
On the other hand if you have to make a cart then it will cost you time and money and how many copies you could sell ? 100 ? even if 500 and if they have 100 USD a piece then they'd earn 50 000 USD and have to deal with the order's, shipment etc. So which way you choose ?

To the trace point, same story. Nobody from Nintendo care if a few people on the internet download this game and do what ever they want to do with it as the % of that people compare to buying customers is so tiny that if they care it would cost them to much money and effort then the actual lost.

Supergun

12-01-2009, 12:46 AM

Sorry, but you have no idea what you're talking about.

Yes I understand the cost of production involved is not worth it to them. That's why they stopped doing it on cartridge long ago. What I meant was just the DATA itself. AFTER they release it on the WII, and AFTER they sell as much as they can on the WII, then the game (the data only) could be sold on their website (just like people sell music songs online) with a button to buy the data for what? $9? whatever 900 wii points is worth? I would have happily paid ten times that amount for that matter.

I would be more then happy to buy a wii system, and pay for the ironclad virtual console download, and then just toss it all in the back of a closet to keep as my "legal ownership" of the data just so that I could build my own cartridge for personal use in my home guilt-free.

ASSEMbler

12-01-2009, 01:21 AM

I guess whoever was hoarding ironclad is a bit peeved? :dance:

michal99

12-01-2009, 01:31 AM

Yes I understand the cost of production involved is not worth it to them. That's why they stopped doing it on cartridge long ago. What I meant was just the DATA itself. AFTER they release it on the WII, and AFTER they sell as much as they can on the WII, then the game (the data only) could be sold on their website (just like people sell music songs online) with a button to buy the data for what? $9? whatever 900 wii points is worth? I would have happily paid ten times that amount for that matter.

I would be more then happy to buy a wii system, and pay for the ironclad virtual console download, and then just toss it all in the back of a closet to keep as my "legal ownership" of the data just so that I could build my own cartridge for personal use in my home guilt-free.

See that's the problem. From the point of the developer there is nothing like selling rought data to you to make your own copy. There is a whole lot of copyright and trademarks in this world. So nothing from your dreams happen as long as there is a company or someone who own the rights and the possibility to profit from the data in a future (port to another console, phone etc.).
And on top of that 99% of people never ever even know that they would do such a thing. Or know there is a neo geo community or any other who want this or that.

_SD_

12-01-2009, 01:53 AM

I guess whoever was hoarding ironclad is a bit peeved? :dance:

Oh I'm sure someone was a bit more than just 'peeved' :dance: Suicidal maybe? :crying::noooo::evil:

Considering a released title such as Euro Kizuna can go for $12.5k, I really can't imaging what an unreleased Neo Geo game on cart would be worth. Ok, so this did see a CD release so it's not like discovering Karate Ninja Sho or whatever, but it is still a highly sought after title.

Say that a legit Ironclad MVS cart had appeared on eBay in the last 5 years. What do you estimate that it really would have gone for? I reckon it would have easily beaten Kizuna and gone for a good $15k.

caren103

12-01-2009, 05:30 AM

Oh I'm sure someone was a bit more than just 'peeved' :dance: Suicidal maybe? :crying::noooo::evil:

Considering a released title such as Euro Kizuna can go for $12.5k, I really can't imaging what an unreleased Neo Geo game on cart would be worth. Ok, so this did see a CD release so it's not like discovering Karate Ninja Sho or whatever, but it is still a highly sought after title.

Say that a legit Ironclad MVS cart had appeared on eBay in the last 5 years. What do you estimate that it really would have gone for? I reckon it would have easily beaten Kizuna and gone for a good $15k.

Then, why the "protos" owner have not released the rom?

I guess because even while the proto would achieve a big amount on a bidding, it probably would not be as big as if the game remained totally unreleased... I guess.

Because if the proto value were not affected by the rom release, then somebody would have been a very nasty person all these years, no?

hl718

12-01-2009, 06:17 AM

High value protos will never show up on eBay.

Why?

The folks who sell them usually don't want other people to even know they had them in the first place.

Low level stuff, yeah, no problem. But you're not going to see high profile/high value items just pop out of the blue and be put up for bid.

-hl718

caren103

12-01-2009, 08:03 PM

You're right, although when I spoke about bidding I was thinking about private bidding and not Ebay.

Supergun

12-02-2009, 01:57 PM

Oh I'm sure someone was a bit more than just 'peeved' :dance: Suicidal maybe?

Considering a released title such as Euro Kizuna can go for $12.5k, I really can't imaging what an unreleased Neo Geo game on cart would be worth.

Say that a legit Ironclad MVS cart had appeared on eBay in the last 5 years. What do you estimate that it really would have gone for? I reckon it would have easily beaten Kizuna and gone for a good $15k.
Oh yes, I can assure you that had any NEOGEO proto shown up on EBAY or any other auction house or sellers market in the past 5 years it would have fetched many thousands.

But here is the real irony in this whole thing. And this will totally force everyone to rethink the entire subject from now on. As I mentioned earlier, the individual who was holding onto Ironclad has been very badly burned, I’m talking seriously scorched. What was worth thousands of dollars is now worthless. Yes, granted, the actual physical original one of a kind cartridge will always hold a high value with the elite collectors, assuming one even exists. But the emulated screen shots were the only proof that was ever provided to us. So all they really had was the data, and the data is now shareware!

So guess what? Now we have no choice but to accept the fact that ANYTHING can happen at ANYTIME in regards to these NEOGEO protos. Therefore, anyone hanging onto a neogeo proto right now should be shaking in fear. In my honest opinion, it's like holding onto a ticking time bomb at this point. The first domino has fallen and the rest will inevitably follow. Just the possibility itself that SNK could release any of those games for a mere 900 Wii points at any time creates an unstable and unpredictable environment. No one really knows what might happen or when? So it would behoove those out there who may have these games to begin working on a community release if they want to get their money back on whatever astronomical price they may have paid for the game when they first acquired it.

So the real significance in this whole thing is not just that we got A neogeo proto, but that we may very well have opened the flood gates towards eventually getting ALL of the neogeo protos.

One additional thought…we want to make sure that we don't bite the hand that feeds us! We need SNK to cough up everything, and the best way to ensure that is to make Ironclad a huge mega success on the virtual console. As a result, Crossed Swords 2, Zintrick, and others will follow. So to make sure that happens, we should encourage the purchasing of Ironclad by absolutely everyone we know who has a Wii once it gets released in the USA.

michal99

12-02-2009, 04:26 PM

Oh yes, I can assure you that had any NEOGEO proto shown up on EBAY or any other auction house or sellers market in the past 5 years it would have fetched many thousands.

But here is the real irony in this whole thing. And this will totally force everyone to rethink the entire subject from now on. As I mentioned earlier, the individual who was holding onto Ironclad has been very badly burned, I’m talking seriously scorched. What was worth thousands of dollars is now worthless. Yes, granted, the actual physical original one of a kind cartridge will always hold a high value with the elite collectors, assuming one even exists. But the emulated screen shots were the only proof that was ever provided to us. So all they really had was the data, and the data is now shareware!

So guess what? Now we have no choice but to accept the fact that ANYTHING can happen at ANYTIME in regards to these NEOGEO protos. Therefore, anyone hanging onto a neogeo proto right now should be shaking in fear. In my honest opinion, it's like holding onto a ticking time bomb at this point. The first domino has fallen and the rest will inevitably follow. Just the possibility itself that SNK could release any of those games for a mere 900 Wii points at any time creates an unstable and unpredictable environment. No one really knows what might happen or when? So it would behoove those out there who may have these games to begin working on a community release if they want to get their money back on whatever astronomical price they may have paid for the game when they first acquired it.

So the real significance in this whole thing is not just that we got A neogeo proto, but that we may very well have opened the flood gates towards eventually getting ALL of the neogeo protos.

One additional thought…we want to make sure that we don't bite the hand that feeds us! We need SNK to cough up everything, and the best way to ensure that is to make Ironclad a huge mega success on the virtual console. As a result, Crossed Swords 2, Zintrick, and others will follow. So to make sure that happens, we should encourage the purchasing of Ironclad by absolutely everyone we know who has a Wii once it gets released in the USA.

I like how you speak. It's sounds that you know everything and it's all true (no offense). Probably your problem is that you were closed in NG community for so long that you can't see the real world.

If the rom is released it doesn't change the price of the proto/beta if the game isn't shit. Look at the prices of FF, GT, Pokemon, Zelda, ICO, SoC or any Jaguar game they all have been released and every time they show up somewhere they go high. Or even Darxide for 32x which I discovered and donate for release and a single copy of this game go for 1000 Euro or more every time it shows up.

Alchy

12-02-2009, 07:25 PM

If the rom is released it doesn't change the price of the proto/beta if the game isn't shit. Look at the prices of FF, GT, Pokemon, Zelda, ICO, SoC or any Jaguar game they all have been released and every time they show up somewhere they go high.Those are all retail games. Betas devalue when the ROM is publicly available. End of discussion.

As far as the rousing speech given by Supergun... meh. My experience of NeoGeo collectors is that they'll take the fingers-in-ears "LA LA LA I can't hear you" approach and things will stay exactly as they were. Or, conversely, one unreleased game is out - that means that there are even less remaining protos to find and hoard, so prices go up. It's all speculation, and you're speculating over the minds of people with more money than sense.

hl718

12-02-2009, 11:00 PM

I like how you speak. It's sounds that you know everything and it's all true (no offense). Probably your problem is that you were closed in NG community for so long that you can't see the real world.

If the rom is released it doesn't change the price of the proto/beta if the game isn't shit. Look at the prices of FF, GT, Pokemon, Zelda, ICO, SoC or any Jaguar game they all have been released and every time they show up somewhere they go high. Or even Darxide for 32x which I discovered and donate for release and a single copy of this game go for 1000 Euro or more every time it shows up.

Yes, but those new betas aren't released when they're found.

Look at Dreamcast Half-Life -- the beta was in huge demand until it got leaked. Now the beta disc itself holds little value.

Or look at Sonic X-treme -- the beta disc commanded a few thousand before it got leaked. And that's even with video and descriptions of the limited gameplay. Now the beta disc itsn't worth much as the ROM is out.

It's the same story all the time. Betas loose value once dumped. And it is something of an unknown. If you have a valuable collection you aren't guaranteed to have the only copy of said game. And if someone else leaks a version before you then your disc just became massively devalued.

For a more recent example, lllsondowlll just leaked a beta build of Forza 2 in the Unreleased Games section of this board. It's an awesome thing for him to do from the perspective of the masses, but for the other collectors out there with copies of the disc the value (either sale or trade) of their discs just bottomed out like a rock.

-hl718

alphagamer

12-02-2009, 11:14 PM

all what counts is the data on the disc, not the disc itself.

when the data is released, the disc is "just another copy" give or take collectors craze.

_SD_

12-02-2009, 11:52 PM

There's a few Dreamcast and NGPC games I'd be willing to take the financial hit on just so we could play them. Honestly, find me a GD-R of Geist Force and you'll all be playing it within a week.

hl718

12-03-2009, 12:29 AM

There's a few Dreamcast and NGPC games I'd be willing to take the financial hit on just so we could play them. Honestly, find me a GD-R of Geist Force and you'll all be playing it within a week.

The only collector that I know of who had a Geist Force disc only wanted one thing in trade for it -- Propeller Arena.

When this board dumped the PA GD-R he decided he wasn't interested in trading it off anymore.

I've since lost touch with him, but for what it's worth, I can verify that there is a copy of the GD-R in collector hands and the guy who had it lived in the UK. So it is quite possible for it to be found if you either:

1) Have lots of cash
2) Can figure out some other rare title that he'll take in trade

-hl718

michal99

12-03-2009, 01:18 AM

Yes, but those new betas aren't released when they're found.

Look at Dreamcast Half-Life -- the beta was in huge demand until it got leaked. Now the beta disc itself holds little value.

Or look at Sonic X-treme -- the beta disc commanded a few thousand before it got leaked. And that's even with video and descriptions of the limited gameplay. Now the beta disc itsn't worth much as the ROM is out.

It's the same story all the time. Betas loose value once dumped. And it is something of an unknown. If you have a valuable collection you aren't guaranteed to have the only copy of said game. And if someone else leaks a version before you then your disc just became massively devalued.

For a more recent example, lllsondowlll just leaked a beta build of Forza 2 in the Unreleased Games section of this board. It's an awesome thing for him to do from the perspective of the masses, but for the other collectors out there with copies of the disc the value (either sale or trade) of their discs just bottomed out like a rock.

-hl718

You are speaking about something else. I don't talk about common games or crapy disc games as you can see. All of the games I mentioned the roms can be found on internet and the price of the betas/proto didn't change. Try sometimes look at any pokemon/zelda or jaguar demo/beta and you'll see for how much they sell. In the fact cartridge as neogeo is still have the value even the data are dumped. Disc based games not as you can easily make a few extra copies.

Alchy

12-03-2009, 02:44 AM

You are speaking about something else. I don't talk about common games or crapy disc games as you can see. All of the games I mentioned the roms can be found on internet and the price of the betas/proto didn't change. Try sometimes look at any pokemon/zelda or jaguar demo/beta and you'll see for how much they sell. In the fact cartridge as neogeo is still have the value even the data are dumped. Disc based games not as you can easily make a few extra copies.And you're still plain wrong. A proto cartridge will still be worth something, but it will be worth less than if the ROM was not publicly available.

There's no argument here.

Bramsworth

12-03-2009, 07:00 AM

alphagamer

12-03-2009, 01:28 PM

I find it funny the owner of the only known proto of this now dumped game would care so much. After all, these guys only store these things in a closet and have no intention of ever sharing or even looking at the thing, who cares if others have it suddenly. If the monetary value meant anything to them they would have sold it long ago.

Drama queens lol

That is all hoarders care about, if they wouldn't care, they would share the data in the first place.
They sit in their homes, holding their protos, Gollum style "my preciousss".

Bramsworth

12-03-2009, 01:45 PM

By all means lets see more protos be released then. It's fun to watch.

ASSEMbler

12-03-2009, 02:43 PM

By all means lets see more protos be released then. It's fun to watch.

Literally and figuratively

NewDump

01-06-2010, 09:00 PM

Hello, Supergun on the release of Final Romance 2 title I'll do this with a friend from another forum (NewDump & Kanyero) to port it to CD NeoGeo MVS / AES using a hex editor. the reason for that do not end romance 2 and crosses sword2 is simple, when working on the conversion of CS2 are graphics problems that we could not solve. The final romance 2 as we release was a ruling which could not get credit lines to score a single game play. and one week of being released in the anonymous form of work to fix that bug.

Although prototype could not be considered real if we can say that is a conversion of a possible prototype, such information was also published in these groups and forums at the date as the information posted on its day of CS2

http://www.1emulation.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=6210 (http://www.1emulation.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=6210)

rod_wod

01-11-2010, 08:43 AM

Was neo pool ever made it sounds like it would of been a cool game for the neogeo i like to think their is a proto somewhere.

Serantes

01-11-2010, 12:35 PM

Well, i know this is not the right thread, but i saw the dreamcast stuff here, so i am going to bug :P
I got a beta of Outrun 2 Chihiro Arcade, and more betas of sega gd based games may be there, game plays as shit compared with final rls, pretty bad controll and framerate, its also missing some music tracks, those are there but with an X over it on the music selection menu.
Game has also multilang selector on test mode, i tried spanish language but unfortunally it still plays in english, final release dosent has the language menu on the test mode

cyberguile

03-02-2011, 07:13 PM

epic topic.
first Pitt and now, the ressurection of Dion Dakis himself :p

Anyone saved Xacrow's website ? Seemed it disappeared with geocities closing their hosting service.
And btw, same question goes to Mr Dakis: your AOL hosted website disappeared. Do you have any save of it ? (and do you know if any new items will appear for sell on http://www.ngfusa.com/ ?)

Dion

03-02-2011, 07:24 PM

I just found out about this place yesterday and I joined today.

My aol site is gone because, who in the world still uses aol?? But I do have it all saved on an old cd. Maybe I should upload it to neogeofreak.com for nostalgia and kicks. I don't even remember what was on that site. That was back in 1996-1998/99.

As for your question on items for sale:
We've been selling quite a bit of cartridges and collectibles lately, but it hasn't been like that since I left the scene back in 2005 or so.

For a long time I didn't sell much, nor did I get many inquiries. It seemed like the neo market had collapsed like the rest of the world-wide economy. But all of a sudden, about November of 2010, I had 5 people email me and purchasing games and collectibles. Of the 5 people, 3 of them are collectors from overseas (two of them are known collectors).

Mostly I get contacted by private collectors looking for a rare cartridge or some type of neogeo collectible. Usually it's the more serious collector looking for some really rare or specific item of interest.

NewDump

03-03-2011, 05:07 AM

Are the creator or webmaster ngfusa?.

cyberguile

03-03-2011, 06:29 AM

actually, I was looking for the mahjong controller page you had on your aol site :)
Got another question, on some pictures on the ngfreak site, you have a box with 5 copies of pal kizuna encounter. ( http://www.neogeofreak.com/stock2/6Kizunas.jpg )
How many copies passed in your hands during the years ?
I've been in contact years ago with Daine, the australian collector who sold one copy on ebay for more than 10k$ (can't remember the exact price) and he told me by the time that he knew of at least two fellow australian collector that bought their copy (like him) in australia. When I asked him why he did sell his, he made me understand that maybe he had another one but never confirmed.
With the three copies discovered by Adol and the 5 on the picture, that makes 11~12 but I'm sure there's more out there. It's very difficult to keep track of them though as the neo-geo collecting scene is so "special".

As for the topic, I just remembered about this 2001 picture from shawn's collection on neo-geo.com:

http://www.neo-geo.com/gallery/collections/Shawn/collection/2-15-01/proto.jpg

Can someone explain me what are those ?

NewDump

03-03-2011, 09:54 AM

It would also be helpful to know if you still have Neo Pool since about 2004, talk to you by Email and I confirm that I had it.

http://www.bizarrechan.com/DeBuGKit/pr.jpg

I remember years ago you buy 2 prototypes and SNK Takara

Dion

03-03-2011, 12:29 PM

Are the creator or webmaster ngfusa?.

Yes, it is me.
Websites at www.NeoGeoFreak.com (http://www.NeoGeoFreak.com) and www.NGFUSA.com (http://www.NGFUSA.com)
It has been a long time with no updates to the sites. Maybe soon I will add new photos and add new pages.

actually, I was looking for the mahjong controller page you had on your aol site :)

Ahh... I remember that.
I will add new pages to NeoGeoFreak and I will do mahjong page in your memory. ;-)

Got another question, on some pictures on the ngfreak site, you have a box with 5 copies of pal kizuna encounter. (http://www.neogeofreak.com/stock2/6Kizunas.jpg)
How many copies passed in your hands during the years ?
I've been in contact years ago with Daine, the australian collector who sold one copy on ebay for more than 10k$ (can't remember the exact price) and he told me by the time that he knew of at least two fellow australian collector that bought their copy (like him) in australia. When I asked him why he did sell his, he made me understand that maybe he had another one but never confirmed.
With the three copies discovered by Adol and the 5 on the picture, that makes 11~12 but I'm sure there's more out there. It's very difficult to keep track of them though as the neo-geo collecting scene is so "special".

When we received our second huge rebirth stock shipment, http://neogeofreak.com/stock2/stock2.htm the 5 English Kizuna cartridges, both Chris and myself already owned one copy each, and we had already sold three previously (one was an english cartridge, english insert, with a japanese manual). So 5+5=10. So it is a minimum of 10 sold by NGF. Probably 100-500 English Kizuna exists.

At a minimum,at least 100+ copies of the English Kizuna Encounter cartridges exist. There is no way SNK would have made any less. I will never understand how some people take the words of that other neo site on numbers count.

English Kizuna is rare and never for sale, but the same for the some other english titles. Double Dragon, Real Bout Special, Metal Slug, Ultimate 11, Mark of the Wolves, Neo Turfmaster, KoF2000. It is the same rarity, and never sold. Can you think of the last time you saw the English KoF2000 for sale? Have you ever seen English KoF2000 in person? I think the English KoF2000 is THE RAREST aes cartridge cause I KNOW and CONFIRM ONLY 100 EXIST. The last one sold for $5000.00 (soon much higher).

As for the topic, I just remembered about this 2001 picture from shawn's collection on neo-geo.com:

http://www.neo-geo.com/gallery/collections/Shawn/collection/2-15-01/proto.jpg

Can someone explain me what are those ?

I normally don't speak of personal sales, but most people already know these details.
That is a photo of the NGF official conversions we sold to shawn.
We did many deals with him over the years and it was me who pretty much got him going. I even sold him his first english Metal Slug. After he got started he wanted the unreleased aes games, so Chris and myself sold him every mvs conversion in his collection.
We also provided him with most of his AES and CD stock for his online sales.

_SD_

03-03-2011, 01:01 PM

Jamtex

03-03-2011, 01:44 PM

Are the creator or webmaster ngfusa?.

Surely the question should be, are you the person who got a permenant injunction slapped across them by SNK Playmore...

Dion

03-03-2011, 01:50 PM

Bang Bang Busters is about to see the light of day. A group called Neo Conception International has secured the rights from Visco to release a highly limited initial run of 100 AES carts.

http://www.bang2busters.com/

Interestingly, this is to be the first of four planned releases from NCI.

Oh and Dion, I've seen the pictures of your Pocket Dev Kit, I don't suppose you'd be in possession of any unreleased NGPC games or have any information?

It will be interesting.
Are you sure it's licensed through visco? Very interesting if it is and I would love to see more games.

We did something similar with a previously unreleased game, Zupapa, in 2001. http://www.ngfusa.com/zupapa/zupapa.htm

We showed our contracts and paperwork, plus we showed all the arts, negatives, positives, MOs, and files we were provided with.

I'm always happy when more games are released for the neogeo.
I wish neo conception all the best luck and I hope to see more games.

Surely the question should be, are you the person who got a permenant injunction slapped across them by SNK Playmore...

Yes and no.
Playmore took us to court for "allegedly" selling infringing items. Key word, ALLEGEDLY. They didn'ty know that we made an agreement with Aruze/SNK-Japan.

Playmore took us to court and we reached a settlement. It was a very lucrative settlement for NeoGeoFreak/NGF-USA.

The settlement states that we can not sell any infringing items (but that applies to everyone, including you). Since we never sold any infringing items, we were never worried.

As part of tour settlement agreement, Playmore had to issue a press to clear our name NeoGeoFreak/NGF-USA. Playmore issued a press release in magazines and on their web site stating that all the games that NeoGeoFreak/NGF-USA were offering for sale were 100% official and authorized by SNK-Japan for sale and repackaging by NeoGeoFreak/NGF-USA.

The court papers are available for anyone to see/read.

cyberguile

03-03-2011, 02:18 PM

Thanks for the answers.
To be honest, I've never really been into neo-geo collecting but had some interest for the historical part of it coz it's full of incredible stories :) Big money, international stories and all the stuff.
I've always thought that producing less than a thousand copies of a videogame was nonsense economically talking so be sure I know there's probably still a handful copies of kizuna out there :) Fun part being trying to track them (like I mostly do with sega rarities).
As far as I'm concerned, my lurking around the internet made me find more copies of kizuna than any of the other english games you talk about (I'm not sure I've personnaly seen more than one copy of Ultimate 11...)

Kof2000 was the game you bought the whole stock ? That's right ?

retro

03-03-2011, 04:57 PM

Dion, what's the cartridge DiamondDave showed us a long time ago in this thread?

http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/showpost.php?p=367671&postcount=28

Didn't you have The Warlocks of the Fates? What happened to that?

NewDump

03-03-2011, 05:11 PM

Have you noticed the difference Proto Bang2Buster menu and you will sell?.

In one dated 2000, C, and another 1994 C

Dion

03-04-2011, 12:23 AM

Thanks for the answers.

I've always thought that producing less than a thousand copies of a videogame was nonsense economically talking so be sure I know there's probably still a handful copies of kizuna out there :) ...

As far as I'm concerned, my lurking around the internet made me find more copies of kizuna than any of the other english games you talk about....

Kof2000 was the game you bought the whole stock ? That's right ?

English KoF2000 was a special release by SNK-Japan and NeoGeoFreak.

As for English Kizuna Encounter:
Here I am back in January 2002, for the rebirth of stock shipment holding a 6 pack of Kizuna Encounter cartridges.

http://www.neogeofreak.com/stock2/6Kizunas.jpg

As I said before, I personally think the English Kizuna Encounter had a production run of closer to 500, but for sure a minimum of 100+. Other aes releases (common games) had runs in the 1000s-5000s.

To put it into perspective, the official NGF Zupapa had a production run of 500 copies. Yet it is impossible to find. When was the last time anyone has seen one for sale or in person? Extremely rare title at only 500 produced.

Same for NGF releases of:
Bang Bead
Bust-a-Move
Diggerman
Irritating Maze
ZedBlade

The official Zupapa!
http://www.neogeofreak.com/carts/aes/english/Zupapa.jpg

So if Zupapa is extremely rare with 500 copies, I think it is safe to presume that titles such as Kizuna Encounter have way more than only 10-20 copies (as posted by other silly neo sites). No company would waste the time, effort, and money to do anything less than 100-500, and/or possibly more.

First big stock shipment: http://neogeofreak.com/stock/stock1.html
Second "Rebirth of Stock" http://neogeofreak.com/stock2/stock2.htm
Zupapa FAQ: http://www.ngfusa.com/zupapa/zupapa.htm

ASSEMbler

03-04-2011, 01:26 AM

You think the neo cart factory was just three people in some industrial shed in Japan?

cyberguile

03-04-2011, 05:47 AM

NewDump

03-04-2011, 06:01 AM

If prototypes, including conversions have been sold to MVS CD you long time ago in Yahoo or Ebay

Dion

03-04-2011, 04:05 PM

"The games they sent us to evaluate were Zupapa, Bang Busters, Last Odyssey, Crossed Swords 2, Warlocks of the Fates, Zintrick, and Ghostlop. Of all those titles, the strongest were Zupapa, Zintrick, Ghostlop, and Last Odyssey (in that order). So our first recommendation was for Zupapa."

So you have prototypes of all those games ?

Yes.
Of those 7 unreleased games, 4 are now released.

Bang Busters - soon released
Ghostlop - released
Zintrick - released
Zupapa - released

Plus we had Ironclad many years ago and Bang Bead, and both have now been released.

So a total of 6 previously unreleased games have now been released. The neogeo is still alive, albeit on life support. Who knows, maybe with me back in the mix and making some posts, the system and collectiblility will really start to pick up again. ;-) I always do my best to promote and spark people's interest in the neogeo.

There's still a handful of unreleased games that need to be found. With the good work of interested people, and with the help of the internet, we may all be lucky to eventually see/find all the unreleased games.

NewDump

03-04-2011, 05:59 PM

I tube in my hands in the "FER" Dance madrid RhythMix version. That sold a supplier called "PedroTovar" days after asking the phone and contact form never heard of Dance RhythMix, and I lost track forever and can not remember which was the game.

_SD_

03-04-2011, 07:32 PM

So what happened to the Last Odyssey and Warlocks of the Fates protos; do you still have them or were they returned to SNK?

Dion

03-04-2011, 08:09 PM

So what happened to the Last Odyssey and Warlocks of the Fates protos; do you still have them or were they returned to SNK?

We still have all our games, including those two and a few more.

We did offer an interesting aes cartridge for collectors back in 2002,
The Irritating Maze: Standard Joystick Version. It is exactly the same as the trackball version, but had a revision to the programming and was made for use on a regular mvs system with a standard joystick. No bios upgraded needed. This was never released by SNK.

I never understood why certain games were never released. Many of the unreleased games are much, much better than games that did get released.

The Irritating Maze: Standard Joystick Version
http://www.neogeofreak.com/carts/aes/english/IM3.jpg

_SD_

03-04-2011, 08:28 PM

Well that leads to the inevitable question of are you willing to release these games? Either by securing the rights from Monolith/Astec (or whoever currently holds those IPs) or selling the ROMs to us lot for a community release?

If the previously unheard of Neo Conception International can secure release rights for Bang Busters from Visco, I'm sure your reputation and contacts in the Neo Geo scene could manage to get the official ok to release whatever unreleased protos you happen to hold? I completely understand that you'd want financial compensation for releasing these games. But I believe you'd make more money from making these games available to everyone than you ever would from selling the individual prototype cartridges/ROMs.

I'd also be very interested in any Pocket protos you may have. Metal Slug 3rd Mission, KoF R3, Windjammers Pocket, etc...

Oh, and I've always been intrigued by NGF Irritating Maze. Never seen one for sale, but it's certainly an interesting release.

_SD_

03-04-2011, 09:14 PM

Does anyone know for sure that Neo Conception acquired rights from visco for the release of Bang Busters? Not that I really care, but people seem to take their word for it without any proof.

Someone over at Neo-Geo.com contacted Visco directly and received confirmation that NCI acquired the rights and this is totally kosher. No licence has been obtained from SNK/P, which is why their logo isn't on the packaging, only Visco's.

Personally, I'm quite happy to have decent conversations with yourself and Chris. All this shit that happened in the past at N-G.com can stay over there. I think there's a lot of people here that would be very interesed to hear about your adventures at SNK Japan, and be very grateful for any insights into Neo Geo development hardware/software.

Dion

03-04-2011, 09:37 PM

I forgot to address the first part of your question....

We have sold Warlocks, Crossed Swords 2, Last Odyssey, Bang Busters, to our select group of private collectors. And it is a special select few.

As for a mass release, it's pretty much not in the cards for a full NGF release (with insert, sticker, and full manual). We simply don't have the stock or the time for the conversions (all releases need a cart case, boards, and outer box).

Back when we had over 5000 NOS cartridges, we could/would/did do mass releases of unreleased games. But there is no place to find the quantities needed (in new/like new condition). Plus most of the collectors these days have a hard time spending $500 per cartridge.

To make it worthwhile and worth our time/effort, we would need a sell a minimum of 100 units at $500 each, and would only gross $50,000. Now if you subtract rom costs($50X100=$5,000), sac cart cost($50x100=$5,000), labor ($5,000), printing costs, the net profit on 100 units is only $32,000 (estimate). ($16K for Chris/$16K for Dion)

We can sell 5 at $10,000 each and gross $50,000.($25k/$25k)
We can even sell 10 at $5,000 each and still gross $50,000.($25k/$25k)
Either option is much easier. But, this method only applies to certain unreleased games.

And as I said, even if we wanted to do a mass release, we don't have the stock anymore.

Someone over at Neo-Geo.com contacted Visco directly and received confirmation that NCI acquired the rights and this is totally kosher. No licence has been obtained from SNK/P, which is why their logo isn't on the packaging, only Visco's.

Personally, I'm quite happy to have decent conversations with yourself and Chris. All this shit that happened in the past at N-G.com can stay over there. I think there's a lot of people here that would be very interesed to hear about your adventures at SNK Japan, and be very grateful for any insights into Neo Geo development hardware/software.

Someone contaced visco? Someone did?
The problem with the internet is one person can say something and people begin the trend (I know from first hand experience with all the negative talk about Chris, myself, and NGF).

If you want, you can email pr phone visco and see for yourself. I only say it since you brought it up. As I said, I personally don't care if they have the rights. I'm happy when I see people making homebrew inserts and/or releasing games (less work for me). lol

As for ng.com, nothing ever happened. It was just the moderator and a few of his "friends" making posts and spreading lies. All because he thought or wanted to compete with us. We always said, it was NOT a competition. Chris and myself are neogeo collectors first and foremost. What we did as NeoGeoFreak/NGF-USA was out of passion for the neo. Not for SNK, and certainly not to start arguments with immature people/gamers.

If you want to know anything, just ask. I wil always do my best to answer and i try to make everything interesting (usually with photos).

All I ask if that you start a different thread so we won't disrupt this NeoGeo prototype discussion.

_SD_

03-04-2011, 10:17 PM

Dion

03-04-2011, 10:38 PM

Yeah, well it'll be nice to have a decent conversation with yourselves without the 100+ posts of name calling and bitching that Chris seems to receive at 'that other forum' every time he posts something relevant to the topic at hand. It really is quite pathetic and childish to be honest.

Anyway, I'm actually quite interested as to whether you collect anything other than Neo Geo or arcade games in general. Do you have a NES, Saturn, Dreamcast etc. collection? I'd love to see some photos over in the Member Collections section. Some of the stuff you brought back from Neo Geo World is quite awesome.

Back on topic, do you have any unseen video footage or screen shots of these unreleased games that you'd be able to share with us? Out of interest, how were the original NGF AES conversions made; did you do them by hand or employ persons/a company to do them? NG:Dev Team over in Germany seem to have developed new secure AES boards for Fast Striker that may be able to host your games with a little reprogramming if you could obtain the relevant rights.

That other site is silly, and that's why I'm not a member there. The moderator wanted me to make a few posts, as part of our deal when we were selling him neo games for his collection and for his store. That alone should tell you something.

I have and grew up with Atari and ColecoVision and I have most of the games for those systems. I also have a TurboDuo with tons of games. Super Nintendo and a Nintendo 64 (goldeneye/shadows of the empire fan). Other than that I have the original xbox (modded with hard drive and 6000+ roms). I haven't played a video game in over 5 or 6 years.

Unreleased Game Footage
The footage you see floating around the internet of Fun Fun Brothers, Mystic Wand, Bang Busters, Last Odyssey, are all from me, from many, many years ago.

Before there was a youtube, we offered NGF Promo Video's for people. This way people could see a game in action and decide if they wanted to invest. The first promo tape I made was in 1996, NeoGeo Collectors Tape, and the last was Zupapa, Bang Busters, Last Odyssey back in 2001. I really did my best to inform the neo fans.

(I just uploaded a photo for you)

Arts/Video shelf:
http://www.neogeofreak.com/videos/shelfvideoarts.jpg
<<Folder and folders of original neogeo arts:
original hand sketches/drawings, full color drawings, digital arts, every neo promo flyers, Every MVS arcade sheets/marquis(english and japanese), snk contracts and order receipts, magazine and advertisement proofs, and much more.

NGF Promo Videos:
NeoGeo Collectors Tape, Diggerman, Fun Fun Brothers, Last Odyssey, The Irritating Maze, Bang Busters, Ganryu, NitD, Sengoku 3, Zupapa, Prehistoric Isle 2, Strikers 1945 Plus, Hyper NeoGeo 64, Neo Pocket Collection. >>

NGF Conversions
As for the conversions, for one off orders we would do them by hand. But for the mass releases, both chris and myself, along with other fans, all chipped in to help. Each person did 20 conversions per release and would received their copy free. It was great how everyone came together and helped out.

NewDump

03-05-2011, 01:54 AM

Great! Nice history :)!

ASSEMbler

03-05-2011, 03:48 AM

If you don't have stock, why not build them in china?

Eproms, some new mvs style pirate case, and such.

But then neo people are really specific in what they want, no?

cyberguile

03-05-2011, 08:13 AM

As far as I know, there was a French super nintendo game that never made it to the shops for commercial reasons: Nightmare Busters.
The game was 100% finished, got the nintendo seal of approval but finally, the society decided not to send it to the factory because they thought the game wouldn't sell enough to make at least what it cost.
(Fortunately, the game will soon be released by the Super Fighter Team)
It's probably the same thing with neo geo games.

Dion: I have a couple of Pony canyon and Gamest SNK games VHS (I need to find my VCR and upload them on youtube). Do you know of any japanese brands that would have made SNK related VHS in Japan ?
Also, do you have any other videos like the one that was posted on ngfreak a couple of months ago (sofmap13) ?
Would love to see a video of the neo-geo world park.

Dion

03-05-2011, 02:20 PM

Dion: I have a couple of Pony canyon and Gamest SNK games VHS (I need to find my VCR and upload them on youtube). Do you know of any japanese brands that would have made SNK related VHS in Japan ?
Also, do you have any other videos like the one that was posted on ngfreak a couple of months ago (sofmap13) ?
Would love to see a video of the neo-geo world park.

Both Chris and myself are so upset for not taking more video footage and/or more photos of various sites when we were in Japan.

I do have plenty of photos of NeoGeoWorld that I need to scan and upload (tons of photos).

Too bad I didn't take photos of SNK-Japan and SNK-America to have for our archives, and for everyone to see. I was in the offices and warehouses so may times, but I never thought to take photos. Back then it wasn't a big deal and I never thought they would close or disappear. (lesson learned, always take photos!!)

NewDump

03-05-2011, 03:42 PM

Always take pictures friends:)!

http://www.bizarrechan.com/NG.png

Dion

03-05-2011, 07:37 PM

If you don't have stock, why not build them in china?

Eproms, some new mvs style pirate case, and such.

But then neo people are really specific in what they want, no?

It's just too expensive and not worth it unless you're selling thousands and/or have many games to release.

To have a cartridge built would be as follows:
1. Pay for cartridge mold and pressing.
2. Pay for cartridge program boards to be designed, molded, pressed.
3. Pay for rom/eprom chips.
4. Pay to have rom chips programmed.
5. Pay to have rom chips installed.
6. Pay for cartridge case/box mold and pressing.
7. Pay for massive shipping from China, and pay duties.

Now you can see it's just not worth the big money layout to have molds of cartridges, boards, cases made.

It is much easier and more cost beneficial to use a sac cart and do the mods. Some of those japanese Samurai Shodowns, Fatal Fury3s, etc.... were made in the 10s of thousands. No one will miss a few here and there.

And as long as we add more games to the neo, it's actually all for the better of the system and better for the fans/collectors. So when we had over 5000 NOS aes cartridges, it was perfect for doing our mass releases of the 6 titles, plus our one off conversion orders.

I can't see other people finding and paying for 100+ sac carts to do a release. I just can't see anyone investing in the time and effort to actually find 100 carts that will be needed. PLUS, if someone tried to buy 100 FF3 carts at $50+- each, plus $10 shipping per cartridge, that will be over $6000 just for the sac carts, and they probably won't be in new condition.

Other people didn't have the resources and the stock like we did, which allowed us to do mass releases. NGF did 6 full conversion releases. Zupapa had a production run of 500 units. The other releases ranged from 100 to 400 units. And all that combined didn't even put a dent in our NOS aes inventory.

http://neogeofreak.com/stock2/stock2boxb.jpg http://neogeofreak.com/stock2/stock2boxa.jpg

thank you,
Dion Dakis

synbiosfan

03-05-2011, 08:35 PM

Thank you for being so open and sharing Dion.:thumbsup:

I wasn't really on the net during NGF's heyday but I find your story very interesting!

Xian Xi

03-05-2011, 10:02 PM

Yes.
Of those 7 unreleased games, 4 are now released.

Bang Busters - soon released
Ghostlop - released
Zintrick - released
Zupapa - released

Plus we had Ironclad many years ago and Bang Bead, and both have now been released.

So a total of 6 previously unreleased games have now been released. The neogeo is still alive, albeit on life support. Who knows, maybe with me back in the mix and making some posts, the system and collectiblility will really start to pick up again. ;-) I always do my best to promote and spark people's interest in the neogeo.

There's still a handful of unreleased games that need to be found. With the good work of interested people, and with the help of the internet, we may all be lucky to eventually see/find all the unreleased games.

thank you,
Dion Dakis

Zintrick wasn't released. The only Zintrick floating around was CD to MVS conversion without music. Ironclad as well at the time was a CD to MVS conversion. Recently thanks to the Nintendo VC, Ironclad was coded for cart by SNK for the VC since the code for the emulator is that of a cart.

Xian Xi

03-05-2011, 11:14 PM

I can't see other people finding and paying for 100+ sac carts to do a release. I just can't see anyone investing in the time and effort to actually find 100 carts that will be needed. PLUS, if someone tried to buy 100 FF3 carts at $50+- each, plus $10 shipping per cartridge, that will be over $6000 just for the sac carts, and they probably won't be in new condition.

Forgot to say that Bang Bang Busters is a very small game and can be made using an AOF cart. But like you said it's probably easier for them to just have the PCBs made as well as the snaplock case.

When I say released, I mean found and/or made available on cartridge format.

Zintrick....I didn't know about Zintrick not having music. So all the other copies floating around have no sound? or just no music? Wow, I learned something new. Thanks. What other info do you have on that?

As for Ironclad, it's a pretty well known fact that I had the cartridge from years ago. People have seen it and played it at my house on cartridge and they've posted and verified it. But that's history now.

My interests are to find more information on what neogeo trackball games might have been under development. If anyone has any information on neo trackball games please enlighten me.

thank you,
Dion Dakis

Zintrick has sound but no music. It plays perfectly fine but without music it's boring especially since the music in the CD is pretty catchy.

Sounds like Ironclad was converted to cart by SNK a while ago like you said and decided last year to release it on VC. Hopefully they release a version of Crossed Swords 2 as well.

As for trackball games, IM is the only one I know of but I think Nam-1975 could be done as a trackball game as well of course I'd prefer a gun instead.

Dion

03-05-2011, 11:24 PM

Sounds like Ironclad was converted to cart by SNK a while ago like you said and decided last year to release it on VC.

As for trackball games, IM is the only one I know of but I think Nam-1975 could be done as a trackball game as well of course I'd prefer a gun instead.

All neo games are coded/programmed for cartridge format first. Ironclad was shown at a arcade show, but never released. It was later released for the neo cd.

As for the neo trackball games, Irritating Maze was the only title released.
There was also a part two called "The Irritating Maze Returns" or "Ultra Denryu Ararabu Returns." I have photos of the game logo, but nothing on the game itself. But SNK staff mentioned Maze Returns, and many trackball games coming: bowling, golf, and of course "Neo Pool Master."

Nam 1975 on trackball sounds like a great idea!! Thanks for that idea.

"Last Run" is another rumored title that was never made/or released.

Xian Xi

03-05-2011, 11:30 PM

I wish Neo Pool Master was a real game because NTF was a great title plus I love billiards.

IM2, I wonder if it became Irritating Stick for the PS1. Great game btw.

SNK was also dipping into the 4 player game scene as well. Right now on ng.com they are cracking the Kizuna 4 player wide open, Neo Bomberman also has a 4 player capability that needs to be figured out. in game you can see places for the 3rd and 4th player on the screen bar makes you wonder what other games they planned for 4 players.

Dion

03-05-2011, 11:50 PM

I thought Irritating Stick is the PS version of Irritating Maze.

Here is an interesting thought/question for everyone.... I always wondered what other games were in development for the Hyper NeoGeo. Surely there must be plenty of titles that were planned and/or possibly completed but never released. THAT is something worth looking into.

Forgot to say that Bang Bang Busters is a very small game and can be made using an AOF cart. But like you said it's probably easier for them to just have the PCBs made as well as the snaplock case.

No. It would cost much more to have pcbs, cartridges, and boxes made.
The big price is the mold to create the cartridges, boards, and boxes/case. After that, everything is relative. But in order to bring the cost down per unit, a person/company would need to make thousands and thousands (good if someone was doing mass released of more than one title).

Also, Bang Busters is from 1994 and belongs in an old/original style box. It does NOT belong in a snaplock case. If it's released in the wrong style box, it will show the people are not true Neo fans.

Zupapa was released by NeoGeoFreak/NGF-USA in 2001, but since it was an original 1994 game, we used the correct box for the time frame.

http://www.neogeofreak.com/carts/aes/english/Zupapa.jpg

Zupapa FAQ: http://www.ngfusa.com/zupapa/zupapa.htm

Xian Xi

03-06-2011, 03:19 AM

neogeocdworld

03-06-2011, 04:59 AM

hello

very interesting for the HNG64, i apreciat it too
Where have you find these informations ?
Do you have some screen ?

For Dion Have you something on the neogeo CD proto
I try to list them here
http://www.neogeocdworld.info/html/dossiers/protos/protos.html

Have you something else ?

ASSEMbler

03-06-2011, 05:58 AM

Dion

03-06-2011, 02:25 PM

Dion as a businessman I can't see how your monthly carrying costs of rent and such aren't eliminating any profit you might make on that dead stock.

You must be paying at least 12K rent a year on storage.

At what point do you just cut your losses if it's not worth making new carts?

As I said before, we have no extra stock and that is why we aren't offering any more mass releases. We basically sold out many years ago. I now have less than 100 carts available, and maybe 100 cds, and that's it. Now I just answer the occasional email I get when people contact me looking for something.

**To elaborate on office/storage**

OFFICES

At first we had a small office front. We had 2 desktop computers, a huge laser printer, separate over-sized scanner, separate fax machine, 2+2 line phones, a few desks, file cabinets, and made phone calls, brokered deals, and made various sales from that space (not just neogeo). As computers and the new "all-in-one" printers got better, smaller, cheaper, and as the internet came of age, we didn't need the office anymore, as we mostly worked from our home offices. But most our overstock was always in a storage unit.

STORAGE

Storage was only costing less than $2000 per year ($150 per month), but I was also storing other items (arcade cabinets, etc...). It was nothing fancy, we just rented out one of those self storage units to house all of the stock we had. Once most of the stock (especially the big arcade cabinets) were sold, both Chris and myself moved our stock into our garages (half in vegas and the other half in denver). So at that point there was no rent/storage fees. It was just taking up a portion of the garage (we each had 3 car garages).

I'll start another thread to discuss the buyout we did, and to show some costs (people will freak out at the deals we got).

Rawit

03-07-2011, 10:38 AM

All neo games are coded/programmed for cartridge format first. Ironclad was shown at a arcade show, but never released. It was later released for the neo cd.

Did you ever see a Samurai Spirits RPG cartridge? I wondered if development started as a cartridge or that it was developed directly for CD. The only dev hardware I saw for Neo Geo is all cartridge based. I think a lot of people would like to see a Samurai Spirits RPG cartridge.

It's nice to read about the NGF history. I became interested in Neo Geo in the period some members of another forum were giving their opinion on your business. Curious about your experiences with SNK Japan. Never understood how they could create a profitable business with the home consoles.

Dion

03-08-2011, 07:17 PM

Coding for the aes/mvs and cd are generally the same, minus the music. So, someone should be able to reverse program Samurai rpg and convert it to cartridge format. (that was supposedly what happened with zintrick).

Feel free to ask any questions about NeoGeoFreak in the "NGF History" thread.

As for you wondering if/how SNK could make money on the aes market... they made quit a bit!! AES cartridges in japan sold 10s to 100s of thousands units each!! Even at a small number like 10,000 units, the NET profit would be $1,500,000+ per title. Larger releases (KoF, Samurai, Fatal Fury series sold over 100,000 units each. HUGE net profits. And those profits were just bonuses to the net profits from the mvs sales. So it was basically free/extra money without much upfront/extra investment.

_SD_

03-09-2011, 04:23 PM

So is this a one-off you made for yourself, or are there collectors out there with this in their possession, and how many?

http://www.neogeofreak.com/carts/aes/english/Warlocks.jpg

Dion

03-09-2011, 05:59 PM

So is this a one-off you made for yourself, or are there collectors out there with this in their possession, and how many?

http://www.neogeofreak.com/carts/aes/english/Warlocks.jpg

For sure we sold many copies. These were not a mass release issue, and we only made them one at a time as a special order.

I don't know exact numbers, but I would say 50+- collectors own this title.

One such collector is the biggest video game collectors I've ever met. He has self storage units filled with video games. He also owns Fun Fun Brothers, Bang Busters, Crossed Swords 2, as well as Warlocks.

cyberguile

03-09-2011, 06:45 PM

do you know about any neo geo collector that have a huge collection similar to yours ?

TonK

03-09-2011, 07:33 PM

Also, when we released Zupapa, we showed documents, artworks, negatives, positives, etc.... and once again, "some people" questioned it.

Because it was not an official release.

IIRC, Richard Hilton purchased a cart from you and opened it to find a sacced World Heroes 2 cart with EPROMS.

Having held and owned a NGF KOF2K, I know its the real deal. Although it wasnt printed by SNK Japan.

For sure we sold many copies. These were not a mass release issue, and we only made them one at a time as a special order.

I don't know exact numbers, but I would say 50+- collectors own this title.

One such collector is the biggest video game collectors I've ever met. He has self storage units filled with video games. He also owns Fun Fun Brothers, Bang Busters, Crossed Swords 2, as well as Warlocks.

Releasing such titles, one would assume you kept the original ROM dumps of the above mentioned games?

Dion

03-09-2011, 08:28 PM

Because it was not an official release.

IIRC, Richard Hilton purchased a cart from you and opened it to find a sacced World Heroes 2 cart with EPROMS.

Having held and owned a NGF KOF2K, I know its the real deal. Although it wasnt printed by SNK Japan.

Come on Mike, go back a few pages and read what I wrote.

Everything we did was 100% official (remember that frivolous attempt at a lawsuit and the settlement agreement whereas playmore issued a press release stating we were 100% official and fully authorized).

Anyway, if you go back and read my replies, I tried to explain that since we had over 5000 new old stock AES cartridges, we made mass releases of 6 games. Zupapa was one that had a production count of 500.

We had agreements and received the art files from aruze/snk-japan/face. We made the Zupapas from our new old stock and mvs roms. Even our zupapa page says "Made in the USA."

Good to see you're still in the mix.

do you know about any neo geo collector that have a huge collection similar to yours ?

Chris and myself had the exact same collection with the same rarities, arts, sketches, and collectibles. Whenever we received art files, and when we cleaned out snk, we split any items and artworks evenly between us.

I have met many people that have complete neogeo aes/cd collections, neogeo freak magazine full runs, and various collectibles. But I've never met anyone that has items that Chris and myself acquired., and I wouldn't expect anyone to only because of the direct connections we had with snk-japan and snk-america.

_SD_

03-09-2011, 08:50 PM

So if I wanted to purchase Last Odyssey and Warlocks of the Fates AES carts, would that be possible? Would Chris or yourself be up for doing a couple of conversions if it was worth it financially?

TonK

03-09-2011, 09:19 PM

O.K., I overlooked that, about the ROM dumps?

TonK

03-10-2011, 02:37 PM

Anything is possible.
How is your personal neo collection? Do you have all titles?
Why are those two games so important?

These are some of the questions we ask, as should the person looking to buy such a big ticket item.

So you still have the ROM dumps?

Flavor

03-10-2011, 09:42 PM

Hey Dion and all. I remember reading about all the drama back in the day. I have to say that it seemed overblown. I'm not concerned about insert shredding or any of that, though. Your willingness to discuss things finally brought me out of lurker status here.

So, the thread is about Neo prototypes, but I'm interested in Pocket stuff. I know that you're not as interested in the Neo Geo Pocket side of things, but I do think that you have possessed proto carts and such. Are you just not interested in it as a gaming platform? Were you still a collector there?

For some reason, information about unreleased Neo Geo Pocket games is very scarce. You have already mentioned a list of unreleased MVS/AES games that you own/owned. Do you own any unreleased games? Have you ever seen any NGP(C) games that were never released? What info can you give about the Pocket that might not be known?

As for rights that NGF still has, are you able to produce games? People have already asked about releasing AES/MVS carts (sac, new builds, etc). What about the potential to do this for the NGPC? If you had an unreleased game and a way to put it on a cartridge, could you sell it?

What about a game that was never officially translated to English? Could you secure the rights to translate it and release a cartridge version if you wanted to?

Neo-Alec

03-11-2011, 01:38 AM

Hi Dion. I wasn't active in the Neo community when most of the drama involving NGF occurred.

I just want to say I am stunned to hear you mention the possibility of around 50 people owning The Warlocks of the Fates.

When Ironclad got dumped thanks to the Wii I eagerly made a cartridge of it for my personal use. I have every Neo release on MVS, including the dumped prototypes and homebrew games. As a hardcore Neo fan, I treasure every game made for the system and want to have them all in some form on my shelf. I think it's really important that the other prototypes you've mentioned having in your possession see the light of day with fans like myself.

As always, I'm willing to contribute and help organize a group buy of prototypes if necessary, as well as getting proper license from the powers that be. Cartridges shouldn't necessarily have to be sacced and overblown prices charged just to distribute lost games to a select few. Unreleased prototypes like the games in question should be dumped if possible so that Neo fans have an opportunity to do as they will with the games, whether that be play them on an emulator or real hardware. Some of these games may even be considered abandoned now for all I can tell.

If hardcore Neo fans like yourself have access to these games, there's got to be a way for others like me to be able to play them as well. The Neo is basically dead now, and I hope the time comes when these games can be made available.

Dion

03-11-2011, 01:55 AM

Hey Dion and all. I remember reading about all the drama back in the day. I have to say that it seemed overblown. I'm not concerned about insert shredding or any of that, though. Your willingness to discuss things finally brought me out of lurker status here.

Most of the rumors/stories were inaccurate and untrue. Some of the stories were completely made up.

I've always been willing to discuss the neogeo and I've always been willing to meet people coming to vegas, coming to the cge, or when I go to other towns. I'm always open, honest, and upfront. (and I ALWAYS use my real name in any/all sites I join, even yahoo clubs, amazon, youtube, etc...)

So, the thread is about Neo prototypes, but I'm interested in Pocket stuff. I know that you're not as interested in the Neo Geo Pocket side of things, but I do think that you have possessed proto carts and such. Are you just not interested in it as a gaming platform? Were you still a collector there?

For some reason, information about unreleased Neo Geo Pocket games is very scarce. You have already mentioned a list of unreleased MVS/AES games that you own/owned. Do you own any unreleased games? Have you ever seen any NGP(C) games that were never released? What info can you give about the Pocket that might not be known?

Pocket paraphernalia
I wish I could help out, but I know nothing of the neopocket scene or the games. I can tell you that we did have 2 pocket games that were unreleased/proto. Chris would know more since he had/sold them. I don't know the details other than that.

I do have a neopocket station (picture in my albums on this site). It's a very unique and insane rare item.
I also have every single neogeo pocket promo flyer in english. Full color/full size (8.5x11) collection (i love collecting flyers, magazines, arts, and various paper goods). Also I have a neo pocket linker (new/unopened). I'd be willing to part with them for the right person/right price.

As for rights that NGF still has, are you able to produce games? People have already asked about releasing AES/MVS carts (sac, new builds, etc). What about the potential to do this for the NGPC? If you had an unreleased game and a way to put it on a cartridge, could you sell it?

What about a game that was never officially translated to English? Could you secure the rights to translate it and release a cartridge version if you wanted to?

Selling/Producing/Packaging
We can still sell any games we want, be them original or repackaged, but unfortunately(fortunately for us) we sold out almost 10 years ago. We sold AES and CD stock to many retailers nationwide in the states, and even to europe, australia, south america.

You have to consider that we had 5000+ aes cartridges, 5000 neo cds, and the fact that we were exclusive distributors, that people and many of the retailers we sold to thought we were in fact snk-america (something I loathed) when they spoke to and placed orders with us.

Even during our first showing at the CGE conventions in Vegas, people and camera crews kept calling our booth the "snk booth." I was always quick to correct them and say, we were the NeoGeoFreak (NGF) booth.

We loved the neogeo and all games for the neogeo. It didn't matter which company made the game, snk, face, saurus taito, video systems, etc....
All that mattered to me was if it was on the neogeo aes.

Hi Dion. I wasn't active in the Neo community when most of the drama involving NGF occurred.

NO WAY!!
Neo-Alec??
Is this the same Neo-Alec from years ago? (like 10-12 years ago)
I thought you were living in Japan? (do you still watch the simpsons)
(I have a pretty good memory sometimes)

Man, I'm making everyone come out of the woodwork. I feel honored that I have spurred a resurgence amongst all the diehard neo freaks and fans. Now watch the neo market start picking up again. lol (just kidding everyone)

I just want to say I am stunned to hear you mention the possibility of around 50 people owning The Warlocks of the Fates.

Warlocks
Around 50 is how many NGF sold or traded away. There could be more collectors that received copies via the trickle down effect from the people we sold to. There could also be people that got the game from other sources (collectors in japan)(we haven't sold too much to the japanese market).

When Ironclad got dumped thanks to the Wii I eagerly made a cartridge of it for my personal use. I have every Neo release on MVS, including the dumped prototypes and homebrew games. As a hardcore Neo fan, I treasure every game made for the system and want to have them all in some form on my shelf. I think it's really important that the other prototypes you've mentioned having in your possession see the light of day with fans like myself.

Ironclad
You downloaded the roms and made a cartridge yourself? Shame on you. People at children sites like ng.com will say you're a bad person for downloading roms and sacing a game to make an unofficial/bootleg copy for your own personal collection. lol

Anyway, no one believed that NGF had Ironclad. See how silly the name calling can be? Now it's available and it's no big deal.

As always, I'm willing to contribute and help organize a group buy of prototypes if necessary, as well as getting proper license from the powers that be. Cartridges shouldn't necessarily have to be sacced and overblown prices charged just to distribute lost games to a select few. Unreleased prototypes like the games in question should be dumped if possible so that Neo fans have an opportunity to do as they will with the games, whether that be play them on an emulator or real hardware. Some of these games may even be considered abandoned now for all I can tell.

Fans and unreleased games
The majority of the people online aren't real neogeo fans. They just like to rant and rave. The real fans have a totally different demeanor, and those people already own the unreleased games.

Rights
As for rights...at this point I don't care if anyone gets the rights for a game. The system is no longer supported. Anyone laying claim to getting rights to a certain game or from snk for the neogeo aes isn't being 100% truthful.

You currently don't need rights to make a game for the neogeo. You would only need rights to use the original "neogeo" logo.
If you don't use the logo, you don't need the rights.

Look at NG Development (First Striker, Last Hope, etc...) All it has to say is "For use on the neogeo system" without the use of a logo. Or you one can even say "neogeo is a trademark of snk, aruze, playmore, or whoever else owns that name today." And that's exactly how I would say it on the back of an insert.

NGF and the NeoGeo logo
The great thing is, NeoGeoFreak can still legally create inserts and use the original NeoGeo logo. Playmore had to settle with us and admit that we had the rights, and they can never go back on the settlement or court order. BUT... we have no desire and no stock to do mass releases. But we can still offer inserts if anyone wants to do a joint project.

Great to hear from you Alec.

Neo-Alec

03-11-2011, 03:32 AM

Good to hear from you too, Dion. Thanks for telling us about your experiences. I actually live in Seoul, Korea at the moment. I still watch the Simpsons.

By the way, I own an official Neo Geo CD of Ironclad and I paid for the Virtual Console release, so I feel that I've done my best to pay for the game. If Ghostlop was ever released for anything, I'd gladly pay for it as well.

Actually most of the people at n-g.com seem fine with making carts of unreleased games for personal use. These include Ghostlop and Ironclad at the moment. The cartridge music for Zintrick, Crossed Swords 2 and Final Romance remain unreleased. I hope I have a chance to play the other unreleased games you mentioned.

TonK

03-11-2011, 08:05 AM

So, do you still have the ROM dumps?

Or are you going to continue to lie?

Flavor

03-11-2011, 09:50 AM

Pocket paraphernalia
I wish I could help out, but I know nothing of the neopocket scene or the games. I can tell you that we did have 2 pocket games that were unreleased/proto. Chris would know more since he had/sold them. I don't know the details other than that.

I do have a neopocket station (picture in my albums on this site). It's a very unique and insane rare item.
I also have every single neogeo pocket promo flyer in english. Full color/full size (8.5x11) collection (i love collecting flyers, magazines, arts, and various paper goods). Also I have a neo pocket linker (new/unopened). I'd be willing to part with them for the right person/right price.

I looked at the pictures of your pocketstation. What was that originally used for? What sort of people got those (I mean officially)?

I did a little looking, and I came across this picture.
http://www.ngfusa.com/sales/images/01250136.JPG
Can you explain what those carts are, by any chance?

Flyers are interesting to me, but they aren't something that I'm interested in investing in. As for the unopened pocket linker, that could tempt me.

The thing you mentioned that I would be quite interested in investing in is the 2 unreleased Neo Geo Pocket games. It sounds like you may not have those in your possession, though. If you could get me any more info on those (or other Pocket protos), that would be great!

TonK

03-11-2011, 10:20 AM

What TonK said.

I personally find it beyond belief that 50 copies of this are supposedly out there, yet confirmed information is next to nothing. Would you please be able to show us some proof, make a video or take some TV shots of the game running? It's not hard.

The majority of the people online aren't real neogeo fans. They just like to rant and rave. The real fans have a totally different demeanor, and those people already own the unreleased games.

A real fan would share information at least. Why? Because a real fan would rise above the BS, and realise that any information out there helps fill in the blanks, helps uncover and understand the history. To a real fan is that not far more important than trying to restrict knowledge only to those persons who said 'fan' deems worthy?

Hell, you only have to look at this forum. There are many collectors with CONFIRMED protos, many of whom, whilst not sharing the actual game (which is totally cool by me and most here (although there's always the crowd that whinge about the 'hoarders' in their eyes),) do share info, makes vids, screenshots etc.

All I've ever seen from you is the same dicta repeated ad nauseam. But never any proof! You've even been asked numerous times in this thread, but avoid giving direct answers (as you appear to have done for 10+ years)

Forum rant incoming....

...If I'm being brutally honest I find this 'let's be nice to Dion here' attitude fucking disgusting. Leaving aside all the 'corrected inserts', 'stickered manuals', 'stamps' issues which are very well documented and off limits here (which in itself is a pathetic turn of events for the forum) it is very well documented that during the course of Dion's business he scammed / stole / ripped off numerous people. Do we now welcome theives at AG? Seems so, bring on Japhei, CYWong and all the other notorious gaming thieves. :banghead: :dammit:

This is what Kevin needs to hear.

Allowing a scamming piece of shit to post here and silencing members like you for asking what really matters.

Kevin can get all the info he wants from me, Shawn, Billy Pitt and whoever.

wheelaa

03-11-2011, 10:26 AM

I deleted that post btw, not Kevin or another mod, as part of me can't be arsed to get into a slanging match. But the points are valid nonetheless.

I asked Dion about it in the other thread, in a more civilised manner though.

Ok, further to your pm, here are some proto questions I'd be grateful if you could answer, definitively and directly, thanks.

Do you have the rom dumps for any unreleased protos?
Do you have working copies of any unreleased protos?
Can you provide recent videos / photos of the games in action?
Can you provide any further information regarding unreleased protos other than what you have oft repeated?
Why, back in the day, and perhaps now, are you seemingly reticent to share information on these?
Can you provide any proof that you actually did make and distribute 50 Warlocks? (I still find impossible to believe that something so high profile, and with such alleged numbers, is completely unheard of except through you.)
Can you release some protos onto the web for all to enjoy? (That one's a joke btw!)

Dion

03-12-2011, 12:31 AM

Ok, further to your pm, here are some proto questions I'd be grateful if you could answer, definitively and directly, thanks.

Do you have the rom dumps for any unreleased protos?

I don't, but Chris does. I'm not too involved in the tech side of anything.

Do you have working copies of any unreleased protos?

Yes, sir. Email me anytime you're vacationing in vegas. I'm always willing to meet people and invite them to my home to see my neo collection and play games.

Can you provide recent videos / photos of the games in action?

Not really, I'm not too much in tech stuff. Chris can/has done it for our big collectors. I made a vhs video of the unreleased games about 10 years ago. The videos all all over (even on youtube)

Can you provide any further information regarding unreleased protos other than what you have oft repeated?

I can't really prove anything other than what I've shown in terms of photos and videos.
There is sworn testimonies from playmore and NeoGeoFreak, and US court recorded documents that are 100% THE BEST VALIDATION and PROOF imaginable. That amount of documentation and proof is unheard of in the gaming community.

Why, back in the day, and perhaps now, are you seemingly reticent to share information on these?

Too much proof = people stuck in a loop
When I first said I had "game x" people wanted game number proof.
When I provided game number proof, they asked for photos.
When I provided photos, they asked for videos.
When I provided videos, the demanded more proof.
When playmore testified under oath and with a sworn affidavit, and when US court records were shown, some people still doubted it.

There's nothing I can do, say, or show at this point. Some people will always have a doubt on certain things, because those people are empty inside, have no life, and are miserable.

Can you provide any proof that you actually did make and distribute 50 Warlocks? (I still find impossible to believe that something so high profile, and with such alleged numbers, is completely unheard of except through you.)

Serious collectors will always stay quiet

As for not knowing of people with the unreleased games, do you know all the neo collectors with Fun Fun Brothers? Bang Bead? Last Odyssey? Bang Busters? Crossed Swords 2? etc... No one believe that we had Ironclad, Bang Bead, and a few other titles. It's the same 3-5 people who have brought about the doubt, so I just step back and let them fantasize about these unreleased carts.

Look at how people attack Chris and myself over the unreleased games.
I have thick skin, so I can handle it. When someone mentions they have an unreleased game, they get harassed and blasted by a group of idiot doubters. Not just with the neogeo, but any game system (3DO, turbo, 2600, colecovision etc...)

Instead of other people just saying "kool" and maybe asking a few questions, the first thing most online idiots want to do is flame, call names, and attack the person. That's why a lot of games never trickle down to the community till many, many years later.

I don't blame the true collectors from dealing within an even tighter "sub-culter" of nothing but other serious collectors. All of us do trades within our cirlce (I'm using the word "our" in general).

Unbelievable
If you come to vegas and we meet up, and you decide you want to buy or see my neo items, you'll be welcome to come to my place to see for yourself. You'll be pleasantly surprised at what is all in my neo collection. That is a guarantee. (people have no idea)

TonK

03-12-2011, 12:40 AM

I don't, but Chris does. I'm not too involved in the tech side of anything.

Yes, sir. Email me anytime you're vacationing in vegas. I'm always willing to meet people and invite them to my home to see my neo collection and play games.

Not really, I'm not too much in tech stuff. Chris can/has done it for our big collectors. I made a vhs video of the unreleased games about 10 years ago. The videos all all over (even on youtube)

I can't really prove anything other than what I've shown in terms of photos and videos. There is also sworn testimonies and US court recorded documents that are 100% THE BEST VALIDATION and proof imaginable.

You can believe me and/or you can believe playmore's testimony and the court records.

As for not knowing of people with the unreleased games, do you know all the neo collectors with Fun Fun Brothers? Lst Odyssey? Crossed Swords 2? etc... No one believe that we had Ironclad, Bang Bead, and a few other titles. It's the same 3-5 people who have brought about the doubt, so I just step back and let them fantasize about these unreleased carts.

Unbelievable
If you come to vegas and we meet up, and you decide you want to buy or see my neo items, you'll be welcome to come to my place to see for yourself. You'll be pleasantly surprised at what is all in my neo collection. That is a guarantee. (people have no idea)

You mean like the time Mike Rubin came to your house and you didn't show him any protos?

Mikhail asked to see the protos at your house, denied.

The best part was you guys saying Last Odyssey was running at CGE and it turned out you had a VCR playing behind the T.V.

PWA.

ASSEMbler

03-12-2011, 02:04 AM

People need to ask questions and not flame, we are here to have discussion not
yell at people.

wheelaa

03-12-2011, 04:04 PM

Lots

Cheers. I'll definitely drop you a line if I'm in Vegas! Been meaning to go again, want to catch a big fight next time as well.

Any chance you could ask Chris to make a video or two? So many people are interested in just seeing these titles in action.

I'm looking forward to Bang Busters, not too long to wait now.

Question to you and everyone.

What official media for unreleased ng is out there. So not mags, previews, but flyers, artwork, manual proofs, posters, plates, dev docs etc.?

Another one.

The other site says the following for Pair Pair Wars

This game was designed by Sunsoft, a well known software publisher from the 1990's. Sunsoft released 2 titles for the Neo-Geo system; Galaxy Fight in 1995 & Waku Waku Seven in 1996. This game was most likely intended to be released around 1996, but was canceled. It is a memory match concentration shanghai/puzzle type game. The games theme is based on one of Sunsoft's characters, Hebereke, who has been featured in other releases on other systems. Bad luck has struck us twice when it comes to this title! The first MVS cartridge we found was sadly damaged in a flood back in 1998. Then, a second one surfaced in 2002, however this one was an earlier beta version & so it is "incomplete" (the game's ending was not yet programmed). Three times the charm? Hope survives as in February 2003 the arcade promo flyer was discovered! This marks the third lost proto game flyer to be found! A scan has been provided below.Can anyone fill in the details on those two carts?

TonK

03-12-2011, 05:02 PM

Mike rubin did play ironclad and he posted about it.
Only you and 3 other people said it was a vcr. You guys are so simple.

Court records, videos, nothing is good enough proof for you.

No he didn't.

Waiting on case numbers so we can look up the documents.

lol @ 3 or 4 people.

cyberguile

03-12-2011, 06:08 PM

Waiting on case numbers so we can look up the documents.

http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20050208171535/http://www.snkplaymore.jp/information/en_press15.html

Is that the supposed snk playmore press release Dion has been talking about and everyone is willing to see ?

Now, I'm no law expert or so, but when I read, on the official Playmore website:

"These games were sold by Neogeo Freaks/NGF USA with the corrected English AES inserts with the permission of SNK Corporation Japan."
With a list that says:
"12. Bang Bead
13. Bang Busters
44. Ironclad
169. Warlocks of the Fates"
I tend to believe something must have happened with those games and ngfreak.

The link brings another question though: why Zupapa isn't on the list ?

TonK

03-12-2011, 06:50 PM

In an email from SNKP around that time, they verified that none of those games were actually authenticated.

They just wanted to stop the fake game selling.

He has been riding that list forever.

Maybe Billy Pitt can chime in here.

Another post from Mikhail:

This is just replying based on what Tonk has texted me, since it seems that Dion's memory has more holes than swiss cheese.

Stealing: He clearly stole $150 dollars from me. You can ready the complete story in the NeoGeo thread, just Google search: Dakis Neo Geo Thief. You gotta love how this sequence of words links to the top of Google rankings.

Visiting Dion: I met Dion twice, he clearly seems to have forgotten that. CGE2001 was where I asked him to show me the protos, and other materials, and was denied as posted earlier. I was vacationing in Vegas with my ex-gf and she was nice enough to let me have half a day to visit the CGE. NGF was of course late getting to the show and I had fun taking a few pictures on request from my friend Billy Pitt for his and others entertainment.

http://www.shockmatrix.com/shock/neogeo/cgebooth1.jpg
http://www.shockmatrix.com/shock/neogeo/cgebooth2.jpg

People still crack up seeing these pictures. I do myself as well, I was so young back then. At least I'm fairly young still, and not some 40yo still obsessed over ancient video games.

http://www.shockmatrix.com/shock/neogeo/DionMookie.jpg

People don't laugh so much though when they see the picture of Dion assaulting Mookystains, something he is very lucky didn't result in a lawsuit from Mooky who had every right to sue. I find it hilarious though that Dion loves keeping pictures of people he hung out with and keeps asking other people for pictures. Like he has a glory wall with everyone on it, pretty disconcerning.

This was the visit when Dion took me to his house and asked me to open the SUV back door and put in some boxes. He didn't tell me there was a hatch that was barely popping up from the back and opening the back door too wide put a small dent on it from the hatch. Acting on a verbal request from Dion, I am not liable for any dent put on his car, he should have removed the hatch. He never mentioned anything about it for the duration of that half day.

The second visit occurred a little less than a year later when I was in Vegas at the AVN show, as an exhibitor. My coworker and I were partying and I called Dion at which point he, Chris, myself and my coworker hung out that night at the Red Square bar and a few other places. I don't remember where else we went since the rest of the week was so busy with other AVN parties that I have much better memories of, so they kind of blur out a single night of drinking. He never mentioned anything about the car or anything else at all.

Actual theft: the game transactions described in my Neo Geo thread all occured in 2003, a year following the second visit and two years after I originally met Dion. He took advantage of my generosity, as I am known to giving out great deals and sending items out in advance of payment to people I have met, and blatantly stole money from me via PayPal just as described in the NG thread. Thief, liar, scammer = Dion Dakis.

Trenton_net

03-12-2011, 07:59 PM

I just read the "Dakis Neo Geo Thief" post and it baffles me. If someone is unhappy with the goods received, the simplest thing to do is to voice your concern immediately, return each others items (in the same condition you received them) and part ways.

Why it took over 2 months to figure that out or why the items returned were not the original goods (or at the very least, they were original, just defaced) is beyond me. If I bought something from a store and came back 2 months later with the item all beat up and broken, I have every right to assume they won't take it back.

What's even more irritating is that the items were sent on good faith without any upfront payment. Holding them hostage after you got everything and the seller has nothing is just kicking them in the teeth.

Alchy

03-12-2011, 08:12 PM

http://www.shockmatrix.com/shock/neogeo/DionMookie.jpgWondering if Dion has any comment on this image.

wheelaa

03-12-2011, 09:55 PM

Cheers. I'll definitely drop you a line if I'm in Vegas! Been meaning to go again, want to catch a big fight next time as well.

Any chance you could ask Chris to make a video or two? So many people are interested in just seeing these titles in action.

I'm looking forward to Bang Busters, not too long to wait now.

Question to you and everyone.

What official media for unreleased ng is out there. So not mags, previews, but flyers, artwork, manual proofs, posters, plates, dev docs etc.?

Another one.

The other site says the following for Pair Pair Wars

This game was designed by Sunsoft, a well known software publisher from the 1990's. Sunsoft released 2 titles for the Neo-Geo system; Galaxy Fight in 1995 & Waku Waku Seven in 1996. This game was most likely intended to be released around 1996, but was canceled. It is a memory match concentration shanghai/puzzle type game. The games theme is based on one of Sunsoft's characters, Hebereke, who has been featured in other releases on other systems. Bad luck has struck us twice when it comes to this title! The first MVS cartridge we found was sadly damaged in a flood back in 1998. Then, a second one surfaced in 2002, however this one was an earlier beta version & so it is "incomplete" (the game's ending was not yet programmed). Three times the charm? Hope survives as in February 2003 the arcade promo flyer was discovered! This marks the third lost proto game flyer to be found! A scan has been provided below.

Can anyone fill in the details on those two carts?

Ahem.

Of course I know about some flyers.

Flavor

03-14-2011, 03:21 PM

I have to say that I decided to come out of the woodwork just to ask some serious questions. I knew that it was a long shot to get any real info, but I'm not unhappy with what I heard. It seems that the rumor is that there is some collector(s) out there that have at least a couple unreleased NGPC games. If nothing else, there's a spark of hope that we will see them surface someday.

I am, however, disappointed in how everything else turned out around here. Frankly, it's been fairly annoying to see how things went down here. I understand that people hate Dion. He understands that. That's why he's here and not there.

Don't think that you're doing the community a service by following him everywhere he goes to turn all his threads into a bash fest. Credibility is lost when when you take it to this level. If you really think he's a cheat/liar/horrible human being, then voice it in a constructive way. If you're trying to protect others from getting burned by him, then it will be appreciated.

The way it has worked, it actually matters very little who is in the right here. Dion comes off as calm and collected. The haters come off as unstable name callers and bullies. My actual guess is that this is far from the truth, but it's the perception that matters when you can't determine reality.

I'm sorry that I feel the need to say this here in the entirely wrong thread. I wish this was all about Neo Geo Protos. Maybe it's possible to steer it back now.

What can you tell me about Neo Geo protos (especially pocket) that we don't already know? What do you think the chances are that anything will be relased (for sale or otherwise) to the community in the near future?

neogeocdworld

03-15-2011, 05:54 PM

Hello i try again my question ;D

For Dion Have you something on the neogeo CD proto
I try to list them here
http://www.neogeocdworld.info/html/dossiers/protos/protos.html

Have you something else ?

Xian Xi

03-16-2011, 01:38 AM

King of Athletes would have been a cool party game for the AES especially if it did a 4 player multitap.

Was Warlocks of Fates a complete game with ending and everything?

neogeocdworld

03-16-2011, 01:34 PM

Hello

like i said in the text (in french) Samurai Shodown RPG 2 and Crystalis 2 are probably mystake of journalist, and not real

retro

03-16-2011, 06:45 PM

Dion, what's the cartridge DiamondDave showed us a long time ago in this thread?

http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/showpost.php?p=367671&postcount=28

I think this question was one that got missed. Can you shed any light on what this cart was, Dion? Here are the pics again:

My latest addition:
http://i915.photobucket.com/albums/ac351/NEO-AEG/Sample1.jpg

http://i915.photobucket.com/albums/ac351/NEO-AEG/Sample2.jpg

http://i915.photobucket.com/albums/ac351/NEO-AEG/Sample3.jpg

WTF is that on the back?!?!

So it's a Savage Reign prototype with a floppy disc label?

Dion

03-16-2011, 08:08 PM

I think this question was one that got missed. Can you shed any light on what this cart was, Dion? Here are the pics again:

WTF is that on the back?!?!

So it's a Savage Reign prototype with a floppy disc label?

I don't know why everyone loves the term "prototype" for an unreleased game. The only prototype neo games that I know of are Diggerman and Neo Pool Master. Those two games are not finished/incomplete.

Yes, that was a pre release of Savage Reign.
It's a final/finished product that was sent to NeoGeoFreak for play/screen photos.

I think Chris sold that to a collector sometime in 2002/2003. I don't remember all the details, as I wasn't the one that handled the sale.

My Ironclad had the same label back in 1998/99.

retro

03-16-2011, 08:47 PM

I don't know why everyone loves the term "prototype" for an unreleased game. The only prototype neo games that I know of are Diggerman and Neo Pool Master. Those two games are not finished/incomplete.

Well, technically a prototype is a pre-release cartridge. It doesn't assume that the game is unreleased, as the term prototype would have been used at the time of distribution by some. Others used terms such as 'Lab Loaner', 'sample', 'evaluation' or 'demo'. Oh, and they often say 'not for sale', of course. I would say that a prototype is a pre-release cartridge (or disk, but they tend to be just called alphas, betas or promos) used either to test an alpha/beta, or to demonstrate a game (e.g. to the media, so it could well be the final build still).

I guess the term comes from prototyping PCBs. Note that Atari's Lab Loaner carts had the address of the Prototype Lab ;-) Admittedly, very few actually have prototype on them.

So this is a prototype (or sampler if you prefer) as SNK would have sent it out, then?

I would call the other two games betas (or even alphas), personally. Yes, they're still prototypes, but that's what I think most of us would say to distinguish.

retro

03-16-2011, 09:38 PM

Wow.
I learned a great deal in your reply. How did you learn so much about unreleased games? Were you an ataru 2600 or colecovision collector too?

So is your main hobby unreleased games (i don't know if I should say unreleased/proto/alpha/beta/demo/sample/prerelease. Lol.)

My first console was a 2600. I had a halfhearted attempt at collecting Atari games when I was younger. Well, I collected games in general. I had a fondness for the obscure - rare retail games, promos, prototypes etc. Oh, and anything that could be bought on a budget! Atari games were considered old hat, so you'd get them for next to nothing ;-)

I used to hang around in the local import shop, then became friends with the owner of a new games shop, and later worked for them. They often got offered interesting things - promos from distributors etc.

When space became an issue, I settled down and concentrated on Sega Saturn. I have some prototype hardware for that, and a few betas. I probably have a few Nintendo prototypes left, too.

Oh yeah, and I had THE prototype English Barcode Battler. The only one. The machine differed from a Japanese import shown on television, and I still have the English proof manual, with corrections annotated.

Buyatari

03-17-2011, 12:26 AM

Well, technically a prototype is a pre-release cartridge. It doesn't assume that the game is unreleased, as the term prototype would have been used at the time of distribution by some. Others used terms such as 'Lab Loaner', 'sample', 'evaluation' or 'demo'. Oh, and they often say 'not for sale', of course. I would say that a prototype is a pre-release cartridge (or disk, but they tend to be just called alphas, betas or promos) used either to test an alpha/beta, or to demonstrate a game (e.g. to the media, so it could well be the final build still).

I guess the term comes from prototyping PCBs. Note that Atari's Lab Loaner carts had the address of the Prototype Lab ;-) Admittedly, very few actually have prototype on them.

So this is a prototype (or sampler if you prefer) as SNK would have sent it out, then?

I would call the other two games betas (or even alphas), personally. Yes, they're still prototypes, but that's what I think most of us would say to distinguish.

Views do very slightly but yes typically any game that isn't in the final stages of production from the data to the board to the cart label and packaging would be considered pre-production and of interest to those who collect prototypes. Released games with differences are more exciting than released games with no data differences but chances are someone out there will want it all the same. Now unreleased titles are clearly the most desirable and always of interest to collectors.

mrmark0673

03-17-2011, 09:22 AM

And when you do find a copy and manage to become an owner, you really can't tell anyone because a lot of the people will complain and/or call you a liar and want all sorts of proof of ownership. As if they demand and have a right to see what you own.

Err, what? I have (what I think to be at least) the 2nd largest NES prototype collection around and have never experienced what you're talking about. Claiming to have something without snapping a pic is usually viewed as dick waiving, doesn't really help the cause at all, and can be avoided with about 5 seconds work and a digital camera.

Yeah, having 100+ protos come through my hands across many platforms, I can definitely say I have no idea what you're talking about.

cyberguile

03-17-2011, 06:13 PM

That's the big difference between neo-geo collectors and other videogame collectors.

mrmark0673

03-17-2011, 06:50 PM

That's the big difference between neo-geo collectors and other videogame collectors.

Naw, not really. There isn't a major proto collector, past or present, that gets hung up on people calling them out on owning a game that needs to spend more than a minute trying to defend themselves. Dreamtr, TheRedEye, Wonder007, Tempest, TRM; none of these guys get accosted for alleging to own something that few people believe they own. They have all shared pics, video, ROM dumps, etc.

Protos are protos, pretending the Neo is anything different just seems silly.

Xian Xi

03-17-2011, 06:54 PM

That's the big difference between neo-geo collectors and other videogame collectors.

The individual is the difference. Pictures are pictures, posting a pic is not the same as dumping the rom and giving it away. People just wanted to see pictures, that is all.

Whenever I have a proto I always snap pics for others to see, it's no problem. Protos are never pretty to look at, it's usually an ugly cart with a homemade looking label.

Xian Xi

03-17-2011, 08:09 PM

I took videos of the game in action (vhs videos years before youtube)

Please tell me you still have those VHS tapes. Anyway you can upload them or have someone upload them? I'd love to see them in action.

Alchy

03-17-2011, 09:55 PM

So other proof could I possibly provide?
No matter what I say, show, or even if YOU played the games at my house and posted about your findings, a group of silly people would still doubt it.It's pretty simple. Post pictures of what you have or don't bother talking about it.

I don't think there's anything controversial about this process.

Alchy

03-17-2011, 10:11 PM

This is such a strange debate. You're saying that you have certain things. People are requesting, as a favour, that you to show them your stuff. You're saying "we did it lots in the past on VHS tape". I'm wondering what relevance that has in 2011.

Alchy

03-17-2011, 10:23 PM

Proof has always been provided/shown/verified
The relevance is that we've provided tons of proof.
photos. videos.So presumably it's no biggie for you to post those again?

Neo-Alec

03-18-2011, 09:30 AM

Xian, many people have copies of those tapes.
I would sell NGF Promo Tapes to collectors all over the world. Some people have posted copies of the videos on youtube. Fun Fun Brothers, Last Odyssey, Mystic Wand, Bang Busters, etc...
I'm the one who put the games on your old collector's tape on youtube. Fun Fun Brothers, Mystic Wand and Dunk Star. Nobody else had bothered to post them for some reason. Last Odyseey is not on youtube. I've yet to see that game running.

cyberguile

03-18-2011, 09:58 AM

Nobody here is asking for proofs.
We just want to see pictures of neo-geo prototypes (on a topic called "lets talk neo geo prototypes", I tend to believe that such request is relevant)

_SD_

03-18-2011, 10:45 AM

I've yet to come across a single person online that claims to have played one of your protos. Normally, I would expect playing an unreleased Neo game would be something for most people to boast about on t interweb.

Did someone from the US District Court sit there with an AES and MVS set-up and test each individual cart to make sure it was what it appeared to be? Or did some random clerk just list what it said on the pile of game boxes they were given? Anything could have been on the cart that was in the Warlocks of the Fates box.

Nobody here is asking for proofs.
We just want to see pictures of neo-geo prototypes (on a topic called "lets talk neo geo prototypes", I tend to believe that such request is relevant)

I think this is a totally reasonable request.

And as for VHS tapes. V. H. Fucking. S! Seriously. I haven't owned a VCR for at least 12 years and that makes me feel old. Considering how much you love taking pictures of yourself, I don't think it's going too far to assume you have a half decent camera, HD Camcorder or phone with a decent camera.

Why not make some new HD videos of these unreleased games and finally put the argument to rest?

DarthCloud

03-18-2011, 11:10 AM

Considering how much you love taking pictures of yourself, I don't think it's going too far to assume you have a half decent camera, HD Camcorder or phone with a decent camera.

Why not make some new HD videos of these unreleased games and finally put the argument to rest?

+1

Dion

03-18-2011, 12:12 PM

Nobody here is asking for proofs.
We just want to see pictures of neo-geo prototypes (on a topic called "lets talk neo geo prototypes", I tend to believe that such request is relevant)

The title is "Let's talk about neogeo prototypes." Keyword being TALK.
As I've said countless times, I have posted photos and videos of these games.

Did someone from the US District Court sit there with an AES and MVS set-up and test each individual cart to make sure it was what it appeared to be? Or did some random clerk just list what it said on the pile of game boxes they were given? Anything could have been on the cart that was in the Warlocks of the Fates box.

Why not make some new HD videos of these unreleased games and finally put the argument to rest?

SD, you bring up a good and very valid point.
But since playmore took NeoGeoFreak on "Alleged Copyright Infringment" they actually had one of their technicians check each game. Playmore did the same to Arcade Infinity and DAX on their mvs games (they found DAX and Arcade Infinity KoF2002, MS3 to have reproduced boards and chips).

A technician from playmore tested and opened the games to verify the boards and/or roms were authentic, as would be the circumstances in any alleged copyright infringment case. Also, our Ironclad had no insert/no cart sticker, and the only way to label that game in the discovery process was to plug the cartridge in and see the title.

Part of our settlement was my claim that our NGF games were damaged during the discovery process and handling. But our settlement was so lucrative I would have let them keep everything.

So now you're saying if I take more videos, of higher quality, people will now believe it?? So my photos, previous videos, playmore's testimony, and US District court's validation is not enough, but one more video will be??

I don't really want people asking me for more photos or proof on a game that is my property and especially since there is already tons of proof and validation on.

In this thread, lets keep talking and discussing unreleased neo games. Let's not harass anyone over photos. And if people are going to ask myself, or anyone else for photos, please try to be cordial about it.

_SD_

03-18-2011, 12:42 PM

In this thread, lets keep talking and discussing unreleased neo games. Let's not harass anyone over photos.

I really don't see what further discussion can be had.

It would appear that you're the only person in the world (along with Chris) who allegedly owns these last few unreleased Neo Geo prototype games. Considering your relationship with SNK this makes sense and really isn't surprising.

So unless you're willing to post screen shots or videos I really can't see how much further this thread can go. There's nothing more to talk about: You allegedly have these games. We don't. You're basically refusing to post pictures or take any new video footage of said games. We'd like to see photos and videos considering the nature of this forum.

This is going to continue going round in circles. Might as well close the thread.

Alchy

03-18-2011, 01:29 PM

As I've said countless times, I have posted photos and videos of these games.Where?

mrmark0673

03-18-2011, 01:47 PM

Where?

Haven't seen them myself, though I can't really say that I care. When it comes to proto discussion, a few Neo protos with little available info are pretty irrelevant to most proto collectors, so I'm not going to hold my breath ;-)

In other news, I tossed new pics of 9 NES protos I got in not too long ago on my collector's page: http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24441

Only took me a minute and it'll give some people something to talk about while waiting for updates in this thread. Enjoy!

*Edit for grammar

Dion

03-18-2011, 06:20 PM

In other news, I tossed new pics of 9 NES protos I got in not too long ago on my collector's page: http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24441

Only took me a minute and it'll give some people something to talk about while waiting for updates in this thread. Enjoy!

mrmasrk, very nice pictures. Since you were so kind to show some photos, I'll do the same.
(I never respond well when people attack and DEMAND that I do something).

Here are some photos that I have (I'll add more soon)

neo collector holding two unreleased titles:
Crossed Swords 2 and Warlocks of the Fates
http://www.neogeofreak.com/protos/fancs2w_b.jpg

Last Odyssey by Monolith 1995
http://www.neogeofreak.com/protos/protoLO1.jpg

http://www.neogeofreak.com/protos/protoLO2.jpg

Neo Pool Master by Saurus 1997
http://www.neogeofreak.com/protos/protoNPM1.jpg

http://www.neogeofreak.com/protos/protoNPM2.jpg

.

n64coder

03-18-2011, 09:44 PM

Wow, those are huge carts. It's amazing how electronics get smaller and smaller over time.

cyberguile

03-19-2011, 09:58 AM

great pictures ! first time ever I see those IC flash memory

Dion

03-19-2011, 12:36 PM

great pictures ! first time ever I see those IC flash memory

Thanks jonathan.

Stories and photos
Also, people have NO IDEA the neogeo collection I have. Art files, sketches, unreleased titles, brochures, printouts, negatives, positives, etc... Check my photo albums on this site and you'll see the photos I've already uploaded.

I have always been willing to share all the information with everyone. I always share information with interesting stories and my unique writing style. Plus I provide photos to spark the excitement.

Proof has always been provided
As I said many times, people need to stop demanding things and I'll eventually post photos. People should know I always back up everything I say with documented proof and/or photos.
.

guwange

03-19-2011, 12:55 PM

Dion

03-19-2011, 01:09 PM

Thank you Dion for sharing with us this information.
For example, I didn't know that Saurus had developed Neo pool master in 1997.
What I know is that Saurus was a good developer and I think Neo pool master must be a good game.
In this link, Neo Pool master is not mentioned.

http://www.neogeoprotos.com/puzzle.htm

Not everyone is an expert. lol

Most of the information on that person's proto page came from me. The person who created that page used to send me emails and he would phone me to speak on neogeo information.

Trackball Games
Neo Pool Master and the Irritating Maze Returns were under development for trackball games. I always wondered and I am reasonably sure more trackball games were being made, such as a bowling and a golf game.

I have an snk promotion sheet stating that the trackball cabinet was to provide operators with the same easy mvs cartridge system that would allow arcade operators to buy specialty trackball games with the ease of cartridge format and it mentions
"bowling, golf, pool, and more titles on the way."
.

ShovelThumb

03-19-2011, 03:56 PM

More in from TaoBao!
http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=2624756803
http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=3400291961
http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=2624668853
Trust TaoBao! Buy with confidence!

guwange

03-19-2011, 07:34 PM

Games that interest me the most are Mystic Wand, Last Odyssey and Karate Ninja Sho . Dion, I rarely read your opinion on games. You gotta know Devil's Crush. Last Odyssey is it as good as devil's crush?

guwange

03-19-2011, 09:20 PM

Translation of neo geo freak 1996 vol 10, this game was announced on neo geo .

http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/8198/imgiss.jpg (http://img8.imageshack.us/i/imgiss.jpg/)

--- START PAGE 1 ---

True to its name, the just recently founded Yumekobo is a company that
produces dreams!!

This time in our "Neo-Geo-Related Producer-Interview" we talked to
Yumekobo which was just founded in August 1996 (Heisei 8). They are currently developing the software Karate Ninja Sho for Neo Geo. We asked mainly about the foundation of the new company and the new software. Mr. [Nobuyuki Okuide], Representative Director of Yumekobo, kindly answered our questions.

Founding a strong Thirdparty-Company

- As it is a new company, let's start with the presentation of the company.

# Well, SNK founded this company together with Mr. [Teruo Inoue] (before Representative Director of Eicom), me (before CEO of Takara) and others under joint investment and it is game developing company.

We started with 80 employees of which a part comes from Eicom. As it is a new company that was just founded on August 2nd we are hoping for support (from the community).

- What is exactly your business plan?

# That is mainly the development of original software concentrating on the Neo Geo but also for PS and Sega Saturn. [Besides we are also planning to port Neo Geo Software to the other two platforms.]

At the moment there are 4 titles under development including Karate Ninja Sho and from now on as a core of SNK's thirdparty we want to enhance the lineup for the Neo Geo.

Fun-Action-Game Karate Ninja Sho

- Well then, please tell us something about the title you are currently developing, Karate Ninja Sho.

# I'll just start with the story: the earth is attacked by the [Snayker]-invaders and with the first attack America and soon the whole world is invaded.

Mankind already has no light of hope. But right when everybody thinks, that there is nothing else than waiting for death, the main characters of the game appear on the scene.

They are masters of the "Hishoryu Ninjutsu", a secret fighting technique that has been handed down since the Warring States period in Japan, and are the 4 "Karate Ninja Sho", "Karate Ninja Ai", "Karate Ninja Gun" and "Karate Ninja Shin[..]".

These 4 take actions to put an end to the world of war. That's the story.

- This sounds like a severe development of the story. Let's come then to the most important point, the concept of Karate Ninja Sho.

--- END OF PAGE 1 ---

http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/9611/img0001wy.jpg (http://img205.imageshack.us/i/img0001wy.jpg/)

--- START PAGE 2 ---

# This game is an orthodox action game but its selling point is that small
characters bring down huge and strong enemies.

There are also a lot of special techniques and other flashy stuff but for example it can be controlled using only one button and I hope that not
only game enthusiasts but a large group will be playing it. Of course it does also feature a two player coop mode.

- How many special attacks does each character have?

# We prepared 12 kinds of special attacks per character. Each of those
makes use of the fighter's characteristics. You can also expect some [polished] graphics.

_With the release set for autumn there's something to wait for!_

- When will it possibly appear in game centers?

# Right now "Karate Ninja Sho" is on location test and we are fixing
some details. Next will be to [straighten] it a little more and we are
planning to release it in autumn, so please wait just a bit.

- Let me ask you about Yumekobo's next developments.

# As I already said in the part about the company we are putting all our
efforts into "Karate Ninja Sho". After that we will concentrate on porting SNK software for the Neo Geo to PS and Saturn although we don't have a particular title in mind yet. But of course we will also be developing original titles.

- What message do you have for our readers?

# We will now start making games for the Neo Geo and want to develop the
production of new and fun games. Please support Yumekobo, the company that makes dreams.

_Very unique main characters - The 4 Karate Ninja_

- Before, you kindly explained the basics of the story. Now, please tell
us more about the 4 main characters.

# This time each appearing main character is accompanied by a protecting god/spirit. This also defines the fighter's character.

Sho has a blue dragon and is balanced both in attack power and speed.

(...)

traps in each stage, some of them can also be used to the advantage of the fighter

10 different endings

(...)

---

I don't want to over compare because Alien Crush and Devil's Crush are awesome games (I have them both on the turbo). But it's safe to say that Last Odyssey is damn close.

The most important is that you confirm Last Odyssey as a good game .

Dion

03-19-2011, 09:50 PM

Translation of neo geo freak 1996 vol 10, this game was announced on neo geo .
.

Freak magazines are awesome
I'm familiar with that interview (I have all issues of neogeo freak magazines) and I provided most of the proto information that available online. The two pages that are from that issue are pages 84 and 85.

Ported over
Yes it was announced for neogeo.
But those screen shots are not for/from a neogeo.
They were going to be porting over/translating some of their popular game series to the neogeo.

Yumekobo may have made and started KNS on different jamma style arcade hardware, or maybe for another home console all together, and maybe later they intended on making it/porting it for the neogeo.
But those screen shots in particular are not neogeo.

Those screens seem to be from snes, turbo, or early jamma arcade.
.

Xian Xi

03-19-2011, 11:12 PM

mrmasrk, very nice pictures. Since you were so kind to show some photos, I'll do the same.
(I never respond well when people attack and DEMAND that I do something).

Here are some photos that I have (I'll add more soon)

neo collector holding two unreleased titles:
Crossed Swords 2 and Warlocks of the Fates
http://www.neogeofreak.com/protos/fancs2w_b.jpg

Last Odyssey by Monolith 1995
http://www.neogeofreak.com/protos/protoLO1.jpg

http://www.neogeofreak.com/protos/protoLO2.jpg

Neo Pool Master by Saurus 1997
http://www.neogeofreak.com/protos/protoNPM1.jpg

http://www.neogeofreak.com/protos/protoNPM2.jpg

.

Exactly what I wanted to see Dion, thank you for that. So Neo Pool Master is made by Saurus? Shit, I was thinking Nazca/SNK this whole time. Now it makes me wonder how the game would far because we know Nazca is a great game developer and NTF was a smash hit but Saurus, hmm. I love irritating maze but makes me wonder.

How does NPM play, is it a pretty good billiards game? How complete percentage wise would you say it is?

Dion

03-19-2011, 11:46 PM

Exactly what I wanted to see Dion, thank you for that. So Neo Pool Master is made by Saurus? Shit, I was thinking Nazca/SNK this whole time. Now it makes me wonder how the game would far because we know Nazca is a great game developer and NTF was a smash hit but Saurus, hmm. I love irritating maze but makes me wonder.

No problem Xian.
I said I always back up everything I say with documented proof and/or photos. I've been in the neo business since the beginning and thus I've been lucky to have the connections I did at the right time. Sometimes people just contact me and tell me that they have a game that there is no information on. That is how we found Fun Fun Brothers.

Neo Pool Master by Saurus
I made posts on it years ago telling everyone it's from Saurus. You may be able to find old archived news section on the "way back machine" from www.neogeofreak.com (http://www.neogeofreak.com) from 1999-2001, I made announcements of these games.

How does NPM play, is it a pretty good billiards game? How complete percentage wise would you say it is?

Neo Pool Master is a true proto.
The game's not complete and the gameplay isn't polished. (think how diggerman is unpolished)
No music either. Title screen looks good, but there is no attract mode programmed.

It looked to be a pretty interesting trackball game. Very unique in the way the shoot system works.
.

neogeocdworld

03-20-2011, 04:51 AM

do you know if Neo Pool Master should be edit on NeoGeo CD too ?

guwange

03-20-2011, 07:09 AM

do you know if Neo Pool Master should be edit on NeoGeo CD too ?

Kuk, c'est sengoku 2 .;-)

Neo Pool Master is a true proto.
The game's not complete and the gameplay isn't polished. (think how diggerman is unpolished)
No music either. Title screen looks good, but there is no attract mode programmed.

It looked to be a pretty interesting trackball game. Very unique in the way the shoot system works.
.

No music . I think that many games of Saurus have good music .

Another question for Dion .
Do you have beta versions of games where it's more interesting than the officially released version ?
For example in a French magazine ( 1993 ), we can see that in sengoku 2, we can fight without swords . ( bare hands )

http://img850.imageshack.us/img850/827/preview24yk.jpg (http://img850.imageshack.us/i/preview24yk.jpg/)

neogeocdworld

03-20-2011, 12:06 PM

Kuk, c'est sengoku 2 .;-)

:thumbsup:

leslie collins

03-26-2011, 06:39 PM

were can i find it at

_SD_

03-31-2011, 09:00 AM

NCI's Bang Bang Busters

http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/6488/18977416053349733672112.jpg (http://img268.imageshack.us/i/18977416053349733672112.jpg/)

http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/8399/19798616053256400348112.jpg (http://img191.imageshack.us/i/19798616053256400348112.jpg/)

vectrex_rox

04-04-2011, 07:51 AM

wow how sweeet that mvs flashcart pcb reminds me so much of the MGD2 Neogeo Adapter cart ;) ;) ;)

_SD_

04-05-2011, 01:33 PM

Found some pictures of the Japanese version:

http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/3742/sakura33jpimg600x450129.jpg (http://img153.imageshack.us/i/sakura33jpimg600x450129.jpg/)

http://img835.imageshack.us/img835/949/sakura33jpimg548x600129.jpg (http://img835.imageshack.us/i/sakura33jpimg548x600129.jpg/)

http://img863.imageshack.us/img863/1117/sakura33jpimg600x375129.jpg (http://img863.imageshack.us/i/sakura33jpimg600x375129.jpg/)

amobile

04-06-2011, 10:50 AM

Bang Busters : artworks are horrible :fresh:

Juste DeSadec

04-08-2011, 05:15 PM

The copyright in this Release of Bang^2 Buster is 2000, not 1994. I'm talking about the on-screen copyright. The game was completed or at least revamped in 2000, possibily having been considered for a late release just as Zupapa!, in those dark crisis days when SNK tried to push any title on the market to cash in as much as possible to avoid bankruptcy, and not having anything new or under developement, tried to hunt for former abandoned yet nearly completed titles.

Considering that, the snaplock case is the most appropriate, just as for Zupapa! Both game in their 'final' form has to be considered 2k titles/releases.

Xian Xi

04-11-2011, 03:50 AM

You can change copyright date with a simple hex edit.

Juste DeSadec

04-11-2011, 07:32 PM

That's for sure, yet the facts that 1) game is officially licensed by Visco, and 2) if 1994 was the original and the game has been released in 2010/12 don't lead you to think the '2000' copyright just isn't likely to be a nonsensical hack?

Dion

04-24-2011, 07:49 PM

do you know if Neo Pool Master should be edit on NeoGeo CD too ?

I'm sure it could be ported, since most of the neo games were ported to the neocd. But the end problem is that Neo Pool Master is not complete.

Pac-Man on the NeoGeo
I mentioned many years ago that there was a licensed version of Pac-Man scheduled for the neogeo mvs. Most people argued with me about it and called me names. Years later, Pac-Man was released on the NeoGeo Pocket, proving my inside information that Namco and snk were indeed working together.

If anyone else has any information on the official Pac-Man release for the neo, please join the discussion. I'm sure we would all love to see that game be found and/or released.
.

wheelaa

04-27-2011, 09:48 AM

So, impressions of Bang Bang anyone?

wheelaa

05-01-2011, 07:26 PM

Noone else got it?

Fun little title from a quick play. Will do a mini review in a day or two.

Alchy

05-01-2011, 08:06 PM

I mentioned many years ago that there was a licensed version of Pac-Man scheduled for the neogeo mvs. Most people argued with me about it and called me names. Years later, Pac-Man was released on the NeoGeo Pocket, proving my inside information that Namco and snk were indeed working together.That doesn't even vaguely constitute "proof" of your original claim, though I won't call you names for making it.

guwange

05-02-2011, 06:42 AM

Last blade 3 ?
Heavy glove boxing ?
Real voltage ?

News from neogeofreak .
Usually, when we play a new game like last blade 3, we give more details, is not it Dion?

September 24, 2000
NeoGeo Forever
Games galore
While other online sites will only talk about the "TGS" toy show, we at NGF want to be the FIRST to confirm the complete success of the NeoGeo at the JAMMA show. The JAMMA show is not accessible by regular fans, magazines, and/or PRESS. It is only open to a select special group. The special show invites are for ARCADE INDUSTRY INSIDERS and OPERATORS and special "WELCOMED GUESTS." And there are no pictures or video footage allowed, even though pictures are sometimes taken. :) (we will post some pics in the next day or two - keep checking back for updates)
SNK in partnership with Aruze has pumped out some incredible Pachinko and Slot machine games (as we first reported back 4 months ago in May 1, 2000) to be introduced to casinos around the world. Also, in NeoGeoFreak news, we are extremely happy to once again be the FIRST to announce the new releases of Nightmare in the Dark, Ghostlop, and Last Blade 3. When we saw and played these games, we were in utter amazement. Last Blade 3 is truly incredible and it was only 50% complete at the show. As for Nightmare in the Dark, you just have to see it to believe it. It is one of the older games that will finally be released. We at NGF have known about this game for 2 years, but we never thought it would finally be released. It is a action platform game long the lines of Ghouls and Ghosts, but Neo style! Aruze seems to have the trend on releasing older games. This has been happening with Ganryu, Captain Tomaday, Flip Shot, and most recently with Diggerman, Nightmare in the Dark and Ghostlop. Hopefully this trend will continue and we will see more classic original titles for the NeoGeo. We have our list ready and we want to be able to check off the titles that we are waiting for.
King of Fighters 2000 was also shown on 6 machines and is still highly ranked in the arcade charts. When we asked about MotW2, a spokesman said they have not yet decided on a set release date, but the game is "in the works and ready." SNK/Aruze will no longer offer to support the consumer market end of the NeoGeo, but we at NGF will continue to provide ALL of these future Neo titles on AES cartridges for the TRUE NeoGeoFreaks!!!!

June 22, 2001
Real Excite Boxing
Back in the early Neo days, there was an announcement of a boxing game titled "Heavy Glove Boxing" and there was also a rumor of a game called "High Voltage 12+1." These games were never released or confirmed as really existing. Some speculated that "High Voltage 12+1" was the working name for "Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer," which was always questioned. But there is a new game that may be coming to the Neo titled "Real Voltage," and it is a BOXING game, which may be based on those other 2 titles. The interesting aspect is that the developer is "ARUZE." The game will feature rendered graphics with a view type as the original "Punch-out" games. Aruze is planning on bringing "Real Voltage" to the PSX2, DC, and even to their slot machines, as they did with Samurai Shodown (the SS slot machines with LCD screen have been a complete success, and Aruze will be using the same type slot cabinets with LCD screen for their upcoming "Real Voltage" slots). Aruze has confirmed with NGF-USA directly about this upcoming game. They told us that so far there are 6 characters (boxers): Ryuji, R3KO, Fujio, Shark, Gody, and Rudolf. They plan on adding another 6 characters to that line up, possibly more, bringing the total to 12+ boxers. If all goes well "Real Voltage" will be released on the NeoGeo MVS by March/April of 2002, and hit the PSX2 and DC shortly there after. We'll have to keep our fingers crossed and hope that this game will be released on MVS and not passed or "lost."