Lets Talk Neo Geo Prototypes.

[Dion]

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.




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!


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]

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

[cyberguile]

"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 ?

[NewDump]

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

[Dion]

"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]

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_]

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]

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

[_SD_]

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_]

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]

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_]

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.

[Dion]

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:

<<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]

Great! Nice history :)!

[ASSEMbler]

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]

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]

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]

Always take pictures friends:)!

[Dion]

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.




thank you,
Dion Dakis

[synbiosfan]

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!