Lets Talk Neo Geo Prototypes.

[Neo-Alec]

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]

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]

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]

So, do you still have the ROM dumps?

Or are you going to continue to lie?

[Flavor]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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

[wheelaa]

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]

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]

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

http://replay.waybackmachine.org/200...n_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]

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]

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]

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

Wondering if Dion has any comment on this image.

[wheelaa]

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]

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]

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/d...os/protos.html

Have you something else ?

[Xian Xi]

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?