How much of the Neo userbase is "online"?

Interesting question....

How much (%-wise) of the Neo commmunity do you think "congregates" online?

I'm asking this in regards to the fact that the huge turnout at the SvC test in California was definitely not all board members of the two major spots... (Here and S-C) nor the other "spots" that neo addicts meet online.

I know for the most part, this board is pretty much the center of the domestic Neo audience that is online. Which leaves the interesting question... how big do you think the installed user base is these days?

I think the number is pretty big, just for the sake of the amount of coin-op collectors that don't even know of this board, but only collect older titles from the "boom" days of the Neo. Also, there is a pretty big central/south american Arcade scene still, so that could be a lot.

Adding to that, there's still the active Japanese contingent. (the KOF freaks in Japan alone should account for a huge sect of the populace.) Hell, wasn't KOF 2k1 AES a top-20 selling game for the week it was released?

Interesting though... there's a pretty big world of collectors and gamers out there that we have no idea about. Imagine how much collectible stuff is out there, how much stuff still lies undiscovered!

Difficult to say. My guess is around 5%. Counting non-English BBSes I know of, and with some general knowledge of where on the globe the Neo is popular.

Looking at this from another angle, many people -including myself- have said over the years that there were anywhere from 350,000 to 450,000, even 500,000 cart systems worldwide. Nobody has yet produced a cart system above around 350,000, so let's assume that figure, add the CD systems (over 100K?), and then the paltry but still relevant number of home-owned MVS units. Now that's quite a lot of hardware, a little of which is dead, most of which is all alone in its owner's house, not nestled in beside another 10 back-up systems and every make of Neo CD, which constitutes the remainder. Now let's take this site as an example, out of the 6000 registered members perhaps 1/12th actually post with any degree of regularity, and similar statistics would under normal circumstances apply to any BBS.

Furthermore & regionally, one can assume a tremendous number of users who don't own systems due to the MVS's prevelance in South-East Asia, (and from what I hear) in Mexico/Central & South America. From Europe I keep hearing conflicting reports and other areas, besides Australia, which has a good following from what I'm told, I don't want to comment from the data I have.

So do the math, I'm falling asleep at the keyboard myself. 5% is being generous if you ask me. I'm just allowing for variables, like the potential number of crazy Chinese KOF junkies who can't live a day without the game and who occaisionally post psychotic combo videos.

Final point: most remain off-line, playing and not chatting. We're special.

yeah we're special alright, so special that we'd rather talk online than play the games that brought us here.

Kim _Kaphwan:
yeah we're special alright, so special that we'd rather talk online than play the games that brought us here.

Click to expand...

Quite. But to be fair, North America is these days, sadly and somewhat shockingly, one of the under-privileged areas of the world when it comes to the MVS. $10 in the arcade + endless human vs competition (S.E.Asia) is always better than $2000 on a home system setup all for oneself (here).

What to do?

<small>[ July 15, 2003, 02:09 AM: Message edited by: Neo Bomber Man ]</small>

Neo Bomber Man:

Kim _Kaphwan:
yeah we're special alright, so special that we'd rather talk online than play the games that brought us here.

Click to expand...

Quite. But to be fair, North America is these days, sadly and somewhat shockingly, one of the under-privileged areas of the world when it comes to the MVS. $10 in the arcade + endless human vs competition (S.E.Asia) is always better than $2000 on a home system setup all for oneself (here).

What to do?

Click to expand...

We're sitting knee deep in MVS units over here in California. Almost everyone pizza place has one.

biocat:

Neo Bomber Man:

Kim _Kaphwan:
yeah we're special alright, so special that we'd rather talk online than play the games that brought us here.

Click to expand...

Quite. But to be fair, North America is these days, sadly and somewhat shockingly, one of the under-privileged areas of the world when it comes to the MVS. $10 in the arcade + endless human vs competition (S.E.Asia) is always better than $2000 on a home system setup all for oneself (here).

What to do?

Click to expand...

We're sitting knee deep in MVS units over here in California. Almost everyone pizza place has one.

Click to expand...

Yeah, it's true.

While there are operators that have neo-cabs galore tho, they are hard to find for sale locally near where I live. 3 different operators I called wanted $1,200 for their 4 slot cab. I was about to get one and even had a deposit on one since the operator was going to let me pay over time while the machine was on location, but then I got my candy cab. The operator was kind enough to let me use my deposit to get a 4-slot board, which is currently in the works.

I would have to say that there is a pretty decent following of people playing the neo-MVS. If there wasn't, operators would just convert a machine and wouldnt be wanting $1,200 for them. You have to remember that this price is high compared to what it is on ebay because operators sell something at a price that will benefit them: in other words, they sell it for a price that will make up for all those quarters that would normally be fed into a game.

In the US alone, I would say that under 1% of neo players are members. There are countless people that go to a pizza place and get hooked on a game, then come back for more after digging under the couch looking for quarters. It's mostly the hardcore fans/collectors that would actually join the forums, and at that, I would actually say it's more the collectors that are here.

biocat:
We're sitting knee deep in MVS units over here in California. Almost everyone pizza place has one.

Click to expand...

But surely Californian statistics do not apply to the continent at large? Of course not. I see no huge shortage of MVS machines in Toronto, I hear Vancouver is better still. But what about all that open space inbetween? In the US, a similar comparison can be made between large gaming centres like New York, Florida & California. A few hot spots doesn't equal a nation of machines, so I maintain that the Canada/USA region is MVS-poor when we're talking about the big picture.

VanillaThunder:
Interesting though... there's a pretty big world of collectors and gamers out there that we have no idea about. Imagine how much collectible stuff is out there, how much stuff still lies undiscovered!

Click to expand...

On the subject of collectible stuff, the treasures lie mostly in Japan. Seemingly the best way to "discover" such goods is in the back pages of old magazines like Neo Freak, Gamest, Neo Geo Tsuushin, Dengeki Neo Geo, SSC et al. Of course Yahoo Japan helps.

And more about the size of the global Neo user base, apart from the home system owner stats I considered above, there are still something like over 100,000 MVS units in operation around the world, correct? Closer to 100K or 200K I can't say, but for argument's sake let's assume 130,000 x let's say 30 people who might see any one machine = 3,900,000 arcade users, hypothetically speaking. Who knows what that number could be in actuality, as it's quite true that any MVS cabinet in an arcade is on the floor because it's attracting people and making money. All of which, coming back to the original topic, renders the on-line crowd as a very dismal percentage of the worldwide Neo userbase says me.

I like the points made.

It really boggles my mind though. Ebay sales alone to people who are not members of the boards is enough to tell me there's a whole lot of people not associated with the big sites. It makes me laugh as some people like to call themselves the "lords" of the neo or whatever, yet have a *very* scant profile in the Neo-world at all.

Japan is definitely where it's at. Like i said earlier.. KOF 2k1 was a top selling game in japan on its release day. Think about that! I believe the figure was something like 7,000 units sold in the first week. (fuzzy memory, figure may be off)


Yeah, it fell of the charts after that, but it's still impressive.

I wish I knew japanese, just so I could go over to their sites and read their boards and info, as I'm sure it dwarfs the scene of us gaijin.

Domestically, though... I don't know. Since Neo titles are so scarce, even more so to those who aren't online, I don't have such lofty hopes. There's probably a good amount, but I wouldn't estimate it above 5,000. Yeah, there may be some neo's in the "hot spots", but I live in a pretty populated area outsided of a major metropolis (suburbs of philadelphia) and I haven't seen a neo in the "wild" in almost 10 years.

Add to that the fact that to 95% of the gaming populace, anything released before Battle Arena Toshinden ( loco ) is for the most part shunned, if known about at all... it's discouraging.

There's definitely one sect of fans that don't come here, and that's the Coin-op collector set. They collect titles, and for the most part, don't bother with coming here.. much less any of the new titles. I'd estimate the user base there for the Neo is VERY BIG, but really doesn't care for it as we do. Another game in the PCB stack, and you'd laugh but a lot of them regard it as an "inferior, mostly worthless" system. (These are the same people who get into a virtual frenzy and will toss INSANE amounts of money, though when a new proto-variant of Sinistar is found. A game with MANY board revisions, I might add.) However, I would venture to guess THESE are the people with the real "goods" in regards to rare stuff and unreleased games... just as they're hounds for hoarding stuff and skilled at finding the rare titles. (Warehouse raids.. religous memorization of board revisions... contacts with lots of operators/distributors.. etc..) I think if any unreleased/rare stuff is out there to be found.. it'l be these guys domestically and the Japanese fans.

More to come...

<small>[ July 15, 2003, 03:49 PM: Message edited by: VanillaThunder ]</small>

Anyone else got an opinion??? multi_co

well user base i say anywere between 5% to 15%, must'nt we forget all the arcade owners and little kids with ngpc.

<small>[ July 16, 2003, 01:25 PM: Message edited by: abdul ]</small>

Here in south america KOF is alive and kicking at all the arcades, and everybody plays, usually very well. Brasil is a haven of NeoGeo both AES and CD - the latter was domestically distributed by SNK of Brasil (NEO GEO DO BRAZIL), and you cannot imagine the cool stuff I have got my hands on from around these parts. Many thousands of SNK fans around here and Brasil is definetly SNK CENTRAL in this part of the hemisphere (don't know how much it it has to do with it, by the Japanese minorities in both Argentina and Brasil are amongst the biggest in the world - infact I think Brasil has THE largest Japanese comunity outside Japan. There is a connection in that alot of stuff is acquired from relatives back in the 'old country'. Well that's my 2 cents (or 2 centavos if you like).

DevilRedeemed:
Here in south america KOF is alive and kicking at all the arcades, and everybody plays, usually very well. Brasil is a haven of NeoGeo both AES and CD - the latter was domestically distributed by SNK of Brasil (NEO GEO DO BRAZIL), and you cannot imagine the cool stuff I have got my hands on from around these parts. Many thousands of SNK fans around here and Brasil is definetly SNK CENTRAL in this part of the hemisphere (don't know how much it it has to do with it, by the Japanese minorities in both Argentina and Brasil are amongst the biggest in the world - infact I think Brasil has THE largest Japanese comunity outside Japan. There is a connection in that alot of stuff is acquired from relatives back in the 'old country'. Well that's my 2 cents (or 2 centavos if you like).

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Sounds a lot like China/HK/Taiwan to me. Every arcade save one I have been to in those countries had a few~many KOF machines, with particularly good players spending all day and all night there.

Partly due to proximity to Japan, I think a bit more geographic than cultural wink I know the KOF populace is large enough in HK that it spawned official manga series in addition to the many HK KOF collectibles that were issued by SNK Hong Kong. And of course they have the annual national tournaments with the winner helping to write the HK official KOF strategy guide (with combo VCD ). I was once even told that all throughout Southern Asia, like the Indian sub-continent, that KOF is #1 there as well, with a very devoted following of highly-skilled players. But that could just be hot air, I don't know.

In any case, you are correct now that I think about it; non-Japanese NG collectibles exist in good numbers. And anyone notice how KOF keeps coming up? Complain all you want about a recycled, unoriginal sequel but look what it did for SNK and does for Playmore.

When I went to Cancun on vacation I couldn't believe how many neo-geo systems they had there.

Until then I thought neo-geo was strictly for collectors. Now I realize that America is kinda backwards when it comes to arcades.

I've heard the explination that Arcades are failing in America because we have access to all the next-gen systems, but I don't buy it. Arcades are still a social thing in Japan, and they have just as many toys as we do.

I am beginning to wonder if most Americans are anti-social in general.

As big as the world is I would think that 5% is a pretty good estimate. It's like an Iceberg, you only really see 5 to 10% of the whole mass. So, with our online community you're probably only really seeing around 5% of the Neo scene. Most of the Neo gamers out there are either playing at home or haunting their local arcades (obviously not here in the states, sadly), content where they are and not really caring about this aspect of the Neo scene (and our bullshit and drama).

If that's true that would also mean that there are hundreds upon thousands of carts, systems and other Neo related items just floating around out there, below our radar. There could possibly be more Euro Kizuna's than you could count and the owners just don't really care about the collectors market. Thousands of high serial home decks, Metal Slugs a plenty and the online community can't tap into it. A deffinate downside for us, but it has to have a down side for them as well.

As an online community we have access to more resourses than they do. We have these forums. As drama-laden as they can be at times, they do come in handy.

Mike

I think 5% is REALLY generous...I live in the Washington DC suburbs and there are maybe 15 mvs machines within a 50 mile radius...including the one in my basement. Arcades have really dissapeared around here...(sheds a tear)