- Joined
- Jan 2, 2009
- Posts
- 3,454
?
Are you really just that stupid?
Yes he is.
He even has his own warroom thread going, congrats to Double Penetration on that.
?
Are you really just that stupid?
I just couldnt ever imagine paying that kind of coin for 1 unlicensed game.
The other reason I piped up was because everyone else was piling on Niko and I don't think he deserved it.
Jonmkl, I'm still in love with your avatar girl
It's a marketing trick. They can inflate prices due to low numbers. Could they produce more? Probably, and make more money doing so. They just wouldn't be able to charge a premium with extra copies available.
It's no shock they are charging a premium - raping the market even. But its working. It seems the only ones complaining aren't the core demographic for these. I can't really talk as I only own 1 MVS release of theirs. I think everything but Fast Striker is amateur. Gunlord being an honorable mention. This looks a little phoned in, although I would like to play it. It feels like a B-Side that was released to help fund other projects - so, I'm glad to see support for it. Let's be honest, it will sell out. They have a good gig going here. I like watching the drama as well. Plus, they'll probably release a "1.5" version a couple months later - someone will rave about it on the forums then all you guys will be posting "WTB" threads.
I pretty much agree with you but I would also say they are still better (Gunlord and XYX especially) than at least 70-80% of Neo Geo games that were officially released.
Nobody will read this, but...
The two biggest reasons why NG Dev carts are so expensive is because they cost a lot of money to manufacture and a small number of copies are made. Large PCBs cost money, lots of chips cost money, big FPGA and CLPD type chips cost money, getting everything designed and arranged for printing costs money. For the technology involved with a NG Dev game, you could easily make two console clones, let alone games.
Also as true with anything in electronics, the more you print, the cheaper it becomes. A few hundred copies of an already expensive product result in a very, very high price. For NG Dev games to get closer to say, $300, you'd be looking at tens of thousands of copies printed. The market is simply not that big, they'd never sell them all.
If you don't believe me on the cost of manufacture aspect, look at these boards. These were used for Gunlord and are probably still the most recent PCBs by NG Dev. Their earlier custom boards were twice as tall, filling all the space inside a Neo cart.
For comparison's sake, here is the PCB for Pier Solar (Sega Genesis), which is microscopic compared to a Neo Geo game. This game is sold for about $70. (I couldn't find the side with the chips, there's only a couple)
n00b question, does the unibois support any of the NGDEV games?
Ahh wow I didnt realize they had two FPGAs in there. Still those Spartans are pretty cheap, depending on the variation they can be bought for ~$20 a piece. Even cheaper when you buy in bulk. But anyways I didnt want to argue the price, I was just wondering why the cost was so high. Which multiple members have already touched on. So I got my answer.
Thanks
Read HeavyMachineGun's post; these carts are not cheap to produce, no matter what you're assuming.
I did and it makes me wonder why they go to unnecessary lengths. Surely there are cheaper ways to produce these games. Homebrew, while different than bootlegs in their content, can use similar hardware to reduce their costs. They'll never be 'official' carts in the long run. The way I see it if you're going to spend time developing a game why not produce it in a way many, many more people will be able to appreciate?
I did and it makes me wonder why they go to unnecessary lengths. Surely there are cheaper ways to produce these games. Homebrew, while different than bootlegs in their content, can use similar hardware to reduce their costs. They'll never be 'official' carts in the long run. The way I see it if you're going to spend time developing a game why not produce it in a way many, many more people will be able to appreciate?
We're not retarded. We know why they were priced like that. We know why SNK made two different versions, for arcade and home, so as to protect their profits. We know that games came out at high prices, then dipped a few months to a year later. You're not telling anyone here anything new, or what we didn't know.
The fact of the matter remains. MVS games were always more expensive when new, and do you forget that NG Dev is still targeting arcades with some of these releases. Sure that market is minuscule to say the least, but Fast Striker actually had a Free Play only version and a Credit version to keep the Arcade roots alive. I don't agree with that tactic, but whatevs.
So, seriously, stop spouting off in these threads like we're all a bunch of rich idiots that don't know anything about this hobby. I promise you, the people here have been in the game, and into gaming, for at least as long as you, if not many many years more.
As said before, it's a niche market. Clearly there's enough of a demand to sell the limited copies available.
You need not discredit my many, many years of knowledge and experience either.
The FPGAs and such are only a tiny fraction of the overall massive cost. The big part that needs to be understood is production run costs. 300 copies is a very, very tiny amount for professional circuit boards with expensive chips and design put into them. That's why NG Dev cartridges are so expensive here. Now, if they made 30,000 copies, the price would be significantly less. Problem is, there are probably far fewer than 30,000 total people who even buy Neo Geo stuff anymore, that guess is for the global population and most have probably never heard of this website or NG Dev, so chop that number down by several thousand.
Even 30,000 is still a tiny number though. To get a $100 - $150 brand new Neo Geo game, you'd be looking at upwards of 300,000 bare minimum. Probably more given how these boards are not being ordered by a large corporation like SNK who ran things like a high end technology and programming company. NG Dev is two guys apparently, dealing with a microscopic fraction of the same market SNK had 20 years ago. It all adds up, $550 makes perfect business and logical sense.
When you spout unsubstantiated stupidities you'll get what you deserve around here.
I'm not saying this to be rude, but you're clearly lacking a fundamental understanding of the hardware involved. The custom PCBs and design are needed to allow for storing far more data than original neo geo games are able to, among other things.
As said before, it's a niche market. Clearly there's enough of a demand to sell the limited copies available. More power to them for putting that much work into something that only a small segment of the gaming population would play (regardless of price).
Still, MVS aside, many more people get to enjoy their games through the dreamcast ports; I've played the shit out of Fast Striker on the Dreamcast. The only time I got to play the MVS version was in an arcade (Southtown in San Francisco).