The current marriage makes perfect sense for the NeoSD for obvious reasons. Seems completely out of place for the Super SD System 3 and any future Terraonion products given that they will most likely expand into areas beyond SNK's platform. Strictly from a business point of view, wouldn't make sense with Terraonion's non-NeoSD portfolio to have neo-geo.com be the mecca for product support for their portfolio beyond the NeoSD. And with respect to neo-geo.com, this forum's success has been the ability to specialize in one platform for what is now a very long time.
Pro's for NG.com:
- Increased traffic
- Potential for new ideas from new individual contributors
- Increased reputation
- Potential linchpin for evolution beyond SNK's platform
Con's for NG.com:
- Increased traffic
- Increased management of traffic
- Increased COG's
- Increased headaches from management of increased traffic
- Alienate existing member base
Pro's for Terraonion
- Gain virtual members to NeoSD Team leveraging existing platform management
- Decreased operational expenses
- Decreased operational responsibilities for NeoSD Team
- Tap into loyal market gained from sale of NeoSD
Con's for Terraonion
- Cause confusion in marketplace for future non-NeoSD products
- Limit ability to tap into non-hardcore market beyond NG.com member base
- Potentially alienating non-NG.com interested customers
- Relinquish complete control of direction and support strategy of product portfolio
- Unrealized future conflicts of interest leading to potential divorce
Terraonion is a business. Right now, I believe there is a handshake agreement and goodwill that keeps the marriage going. From a business point of view, if NG.com is to be used, I would draw up a contractual agreement of terms to level set expectations if the marriage is to continue. But, I'd sooner create my own platform if driving the bottom line is my goal (the whole Microsoft Office for Apple relationship mentality. Microsoft doesn't provide support for Office through Apple). Keep the NG.com as the place for the news and announcements for interested parties. Direct customers to a proprietary platform, IMO.
For NG.com ownership and management, it is just a question of whether you want to take on the change or not. This has been a specialized forum for so long built around an unchanged platform and has been successful. But all good things come to an end. Sometimes you must evolve but that has consequences too as mentioned in the Cons, IMO.