Where is it all coming from? Speculations welcome.

I'm sure everyone has been following these Lik-Sang/Lan-Kwei/Play-Asia drama for a while. The fact that they are moving the games at these ridiculous prices is just baffling. Maybe there just aren't demand in Hong Kong, although there seems to still be a steady interest in Japan for the rare titles and in Neo-Geo.com (let's face it, we're doing all the buying here). I've been formulating some theories, and here's the only things that I came up with:
1. Playmore succesfully bid on SNK's property, and are stuck with these games for a console that is no longer produced and has little chance for competing now against The Big N (Big N, Big N, Big N, Big N!) but yet they must recover the capital that went into producing these carts, so they were sold through the Hong Kong internet sites.
Counter argument against 1: Who would bid on some property with such a low profit margin, the way these companies are selling them? Though Lan-Kwei is the exception, they actually had Faselei for 29.00.

2. The recalled stock of US NGPC games were in fact headed for SNK NeoGeo Hong Kong, not Japan. Japan already had a Best Collection series being published, there were perhaps plans for a best collection in Hong Kong too, with the renewed packaging but the same carts from the US, hence none of these carts had the original US packaging. Makes sense, because all the packages had US addresses and US warranty information.

Counter argument against number 2. At the time of the recall, was SNK NeoGeo Hong Kong still in operation?

3. Recalled NGPC games were in stock at some warehouse. Like in America, if the lease expires and the person who signed the lease does not claim his property before the expiration, the group that leased out the warehouse can seize the property and auction the contents.
Counter argument against 3. Same as counter argument against 1. Who's going to bid on this stuff with such a low margin of profit?

Discussions welcome.

Remember the SNK stock was all recalled to Japan long before the bankruptcy of SNK and the actual death of the system.

This was right when Aruze bought SNK (and subsequently ran them into the ground with mismanagement, even with ex-SNK exployees and shareholders suing Aruze for doing so).

The story at the time from the main SNK USA press was the American games were being recalled to Japan for relabling for sale on the Japanese market. This was months before the death of the NGPC and they would have had ages to refit and put these games on the market.

However, games like Card Fighters are single-language and I don't think they can just erase the ram chips on the games unless they flash them or something. Maybe these games were sold to the Hong Kong gaming companies? Golden Mall in Hong Kong (where basically ALL these companies have their main shops) is a very strange grey/black market place that seems to get their hands on and in everything.

Faselei and Last Blade were very close to American release but the face that they are cart only could signal that packaging wasn't ready for their US incarnations yet. Afterall, they couldn't use the UK clamshells and had to design cardboard versions. The question is if they even made it to US shores. The packaging is printed in Japan right? Sometimes it's printed in Hong Kong. Maybe these shipments were in SNK Asia in Hong Kong and didn't make it?

I really don't know. It's all conjecture on my part. There were demo carts however that were released for shops only that had generic labels on them. This really has nothing to do with this though although they fetched a pretty penny on ebay. I'm sure American Faselei and Last Blade carts would be in high demand also. Just imagine if they had packaging. The nutty collectors would go banal.

I don't know where they came from either, but it's rather creepy that they are in fact true originals that were never meant to exist. The fact is that u.s. offices for videogames type companies are just for shipping and to preserve the public image. nothing else at all goes on there(no creation,no fixing, nothing but distribution it's nothing but a big wherehouse) these prototypes/full versions must've been coming from japan. I figure when snk died it was gone for about 2 weeks before it was sold off to playmore. during these 2 weeks there crap was into dumpsters out there for anyone who wanted it. and many took it! somehow this garbage made it's way to hong kong and the rest is history

edit:

Golden Mall in Hong Kong (where basically ALL these companies have their main shops) is a very strange grey/black market place that seems to get their hands on and in everything.

Click to expand...

I want to hear more of this golden mall of which you speak. are there any shops from this reigion with websites up? also is there any website with info on this region?

<small>[ March 15, 2003, 12:07 AM: Message edited by: zorro ]</small>

Golden Mall is just a two story mall in a commercial district.

Lik-Sang, Goldenshop, Lan Kwei, Gamechoiceclub, NCSX, etc. All the famous Hong Kong internet shops maintain shops here. Their headquarters are invariably in other places though like high in old apartment buildings with metal gates and lotsa locks (yes, I've been to Gamechoiceclub, it's in a wierd building, you have to call first, and they have to unlock all these things. Then it's shabby little place with a few things on shelves).

Invariably, many of them have warehouses in the New Territories district of Hong Kong and not the mall as Golden Mall has been raided by police a few times. It's a very big and popular place. I bought my first Game Doctor (copies SNES games and dumps them onto discs that can be played on the system through the Game Doctor or on an emulator. That's where roms come from). This is the hotbed for all the illegal or 3rd party gaming devices (including the NGPC flash carts) as well as many bootleg movies, etc.

I'm making it out to be a wierd trading den sort of place but it really isn't. It's just like a normal mall but full of cool stuff like electronics, movies, etc. all in a jumble like you would dream of. It's not like a black market. Even the subway has a sign for it:

<img src="http://www.gamechoiceclub.com/mis_gc_locate_mtr.gif" alt=" - " />


Here's a crude map I stole from the gamechoiceclub website. It shows their showroom's proximity to the mall.
<img src="http://www.gamechoiceclub.com/mis_gc_lo_map.gif" alt=" - " />

<small>[ March 15, 2003, 12:20 AM: Message edited by: Comic-Kaze ]</small>

Comic-Kaze:
Golden Mall is just a two story mall in a commercial district.

Lik-Sang, Goldenshop, Lan Kwei, Gamechoiceclub, NCSX, etc. All the famous Hong Kong internet shops maintain shops here. Their headquarters are invariably in other places though like high in old apartment buildings with metal gates and lotsa locks (yes, I've been to Gamechoiceclub, it's in a wierd building, you have to call first, and they have to unlock all these things. Then it's shabby little place with a few things on shelves).

Invariably, many of them have warehouses in the New Territories district of Hong Kong and not the mall as Golden Mall has been raided by police a few times. It's a very big and popular place. I bought my first Game Doctor (copies SNES games and dumps them onto discs that can be played on the system through the Game Doctor or on an emulator. That's where roms come from). This is the hotbed for all the illegal or 3rd party gaming devices (including the NGPC flash carts) as well as many bootleg movies, etc.

I'm making it out to be a wierd trading den sort of place but it really isn't. It's just like a normal mall but full of cool stuff like electronics, movies, etc. all in a jumble like you would dream of. It's not like a black market. Even the subway has a sign for it:

<img src="http://www.gamechoiceclub.com/mis_gc_locate_mtr.gif" alt=" - " />


Here's a crude map I stole from the gamechoiceclub website. It shows their showroom's proximity to the mall.
<img src="http://www.gamechoiceclub.com/mis_gc_lo_map.gif" alt=" - " />

Click to expand...

I know exactly the kind of place you're describing. I come from Taiwan and my hometown Taipei had exactly the same type of place, all these electronics and music and games retailers squeezed into a district, and it's blatantly illegal but various reasons like Taiwan hadn't signed the international copyright, it's a nonviolent crime etc etc, and the dollars that come from purchases keep supporting them so these business keep on flourishing, in fact as recent as these few years you can still buy Japanese drama on VCDs, but they are like really crap qualities.

Yeah, and they probably pay protection money to triads who can bribe the police.

But the Taiwan copyright law thing is funny...it's like bootleg music city capital of the world with Son May, etc. because it's not illegal!

now back to the topic at hand. Who else thinks they got them from a dumpster after snk finshed closing?

No problem guys, I got da real answer on this (straight from teh horses mouth) -

These games are coming from the SNK HK, they are clearing out their old warehouses. When SNK folded, their leases on their warehouses hadn't yet expired, and when they were bought out by Aruze, and sequentially Playmore, the warehouses stayed full of junk. We're going to be seeing TONS and TONS of these carts be dumped on the market, as you can tell videogameswholesale already has dumped a bunch of them on ebay, including a load of USA Faselei!.

Faselei! has suddenly become an affordable game

YAY!

Are there really McDonalds everywhere like that?

Thats why I love China. The copyright laws are basically non existant.

That's good news for the average gamer considering how much I had to pay for Faselei. Now if only they had US Evolution carts.

I wonder what goodies they might have stashed away in those warehouses. Any more slimlines, straps, and other accessories for me?

Where is this flood of carts you mention on ebay? I don't see any Faselei auctions.

EDIT

Nevermind, it seems the wholesale company that has all of this stuff has MISNAMED all their auctions. They've called Faselei FASELE...sigh...can anyone verify if these are the famed US carts?

<small>[ March 15, 2003, 10:33 AM: Message edited by: Comic-Kaze ]</small>

Thats why I can never find anything on Ebay. Everything is named wrong.
Kind of makes me angry.

<img src="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0000798L5.01.MZZZZZZZ.jpg" alt=" - " />

You should just search 'neo geo pocket' and your search should turn up results. I'm going to give this time to ride itself out, because if these cart only games flood eBay at these ridiculously high prices, considering they come with no box or instruction, I'm going to just wait till it sinks to something reasonable.

In any case, stupidest thing ever by Aruze, recalling all those Neo Geo Pocket Color games, they lost their capital investment 4 times, once by making the carts, second by sending them to America, third by recalling the games, and fourth by letting them collecting dust. Now they aren't even recouping their investment in the cartridges.

snkneogeousacth, are you sure those are US Faselei! cartridges? because there were Japanese ones in that warehouse too. I emailed videogamewholesale with a message and so far I've not yet received a reply confirming that they are the US versions.

<small>[ March 15, 2003, 11:15 AM: Message edited by: bokmeow ]</small>

I know. Every anime boxset on ebay is an HK bootleg and every OST has a dark side...
I spent many months searching for a copy of my Eternal Arcadia OST

Almost dead 100% sure they are english.

so these carts don't come with cases.

Could be that they are flashing english roms of pocket reversi, evolution, faselei, Metal slug 2nd, etc into blank boards and swapping them into carts, then reproducing the insert and manuals before shipping them off to different parts fo the world...

snkneogeousaCTH:
Almost dead 100% sure they are english.

Click to expand...

I'm waiting for the scan, if it's confirmed maybe I will buy one, but I already have Faselei! japanese version so I'm not super compelled to get one.

I was worried about some bootleg garbage, so I opened up my cart that was ordered from Play-Asia and it has all the SNK stamp plus the dates on the board. No bootleg here.

EvilWasabi:
so these carts don't come with cases.

Could be that they are flashing english roms of pocket reversi, evolution, faselei, Metal slug 2nd, etc into blank boards and swapping them into carts, then reproducing the insert and manuals before shipping them off to different parts fo the world...

Click to expand...

that sounds like a lot of work for 5$

CapcomFanConverted:

EvilWasabi:
so these carts don't come with cases.

Could be that they are flashing english roms of pocket reversi, evolution, faselei, Metal slug 2nd, etc into blank boards and swapping them into carts, then reproducing the insert and manuals before shipping them off to different parts fo the world...

Click to expand...

that sounds like a lot of work for 5$

Click to expand...

It sounds like a lot of work even for selling them at that low low price. They had to have just picked this stuff up for a pence, but then what kind of profit margin is $5.00?

The memory on the flash carts are really expensive. Remember how expensive the flash carts were?

They wouldn't go through all this trouble for $5 profit margin.

Like I said before, I have talked to SEVERAL people extremely familiar with the situation, and they have confirmed that these are coming from the new SNK-NEOGEO-HONGKONG. As I said before, these are new old stock (NOS).

If anyone can confirm which games that videogamewholesale is selling on eBay are US and which are Japan, because I want to fill up my collection with some nice bare carts.

lithy:
If anyone can confirm which games that videogamewholesale is selling on eBay are US and which are Japan, because I want to fill up my collection with some nice bare carts.

Click to expand...

I think they are selling the games that have auction listings in caps. The stuff they have listed for sale are: Party Mail (spelled wrong as party mall, the tamogotchi like game), Faselei (spelled wrong as Fasele), Reversi (spelled wrong as Riversi), Pocket Tennis, Gals Fighters, Neo 21, Metal Slug 2, Metal Slug 1, Dive Alert. It's uncertain which Dive Alerts have been put up for auction, since there are 2 versions.

If only videogame wholesale would have some pics we could confirm if these are Japanese, UK, or US carts being sold. I'd like to think that the Faselei carts are US but they also have Japanese only carts like Party Mail.

BTW, when did SNK produce systems in the generic packaging? I know Aruze packaged a few like this with Pachinko games but even those had a greyscale pic of the NGPC on the front. These white boxes say Neo Geo Pocket Color only.

Hey guys, wouldn't it be zany if Party mail was an ENGLISH VESION?! Now THAT would be cool.

CapcomFanConverted:

EvilWasabi:
so these carts don't come with cases.

Could be that they are flashing english roms of pocket reversi, evolution, faselei, Metal slug 2nd, etc into blank boards and swapping them into carts, then reproducing the insert and manuals before shipping them off to different parts fo the world...

Click to expand...

that sounds like a lot of work for 5$

Click to expand...

You miss my point - theya re using hte snap lock cases for the counterfeit UK releases.