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Yes he is.
He even has his own warroom thread going, congrats to Double Penetration on that.
New NGDEV Neo-Geo Game: Razion
- Thread starter lantus360
- Start date
Yes he is.
He even has his own warroom thread going, congrats to Double Penetration on that.
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- 517
A good game is a good game dude. Just be grateful that there is a passionate and talented team like NGDEV keeping the neo off the defibrillator.
When you spout unsubstantiated stupidities you'll get what you deserve around here.
Jonmkl
Rasputin's Rose Gardener
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I'm still holding out for that NGDEV/Barsoom crossover side scrolling RPG beat em up I've been asking for :-P
Dragon Punch, friendo, your argument doesn't even make sense. If they could make more money by producing more, and they were being greedy, they would produce more. What you are witnessing is the increased costs associated with a specialty product. When an item doesn't have enough mass appeal to make it's money from large releases, it has to be released in smaller numbers, and as a result ends up costing more to produce. However, if it's smaller base is dedicated enough to pay that necessarily inflated price, it finds a market and continues to exist.
The niche status of NGDEVs products can be easily seen in how hard their indiegogo for Gunlord on the 3ds failed last year. Wether or not it could have been handled better as a campaign it failed to bring them a broader consumer base, and so they are stuck for the time being with their current, highly specialty product business model. Their games aren't what the mass market wants, even on a different console or system, but they are what arcade and shooter enthusiasts love. The same kind of enthusiasts that pay out the butt for brand new cave arcade boards whenever they're released.
Knowing your market is not a "trick," it's business.
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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.
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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.
Chempop
BESTEST Buttrider in chat.Officially No.10 at Schm
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Ordered Gamecenter kit and requested it to be in a blue plastic shell. I seriously hope someone can jump the gun and find a way to supply NGDevteam with plastic shells as an alternative before they run out. I love wooden CMVS systems but having wooden MVS carts just looks ridiculous IMO in anything but an AI CMVS. And even then... There is no contrast. I got the non LE because my OCD would make me have to store the OST, extra box, etc. forever and I don't feel like doing that. The simple brown box matches my kit collection nicely. Anyway, can't wait for the game. Looks great. 
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n00b question, does the unibois support any of the NGDEV games?
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also true
Niko
Whip's Subordinate
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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)
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
Pope Sazae
Known Scammer, DO NOT DEAL WITH!, The Management.,
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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.
DPsx7
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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?
EV quality 
Why do you continue to pretend like you know how to run their business?
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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).
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dps / niko; this isn't the thread to learn about the neo, or to try and show getting hammered doesn't bother you. A lot of folks would genuinely like to discuss this game - go chill / flame / broil in the hyphen for a bit if you want to prove your worth. This isn't the thread for it.
DPsx7
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Maybe not all of you are...
Hmm, I'll give you that. Arcades DO still exist. After all new pinball machines are still being made for arcade use, while at the same time there's a new market of home users willing to buy them at their release cost. They're just as insane, considering that you can have multiple machines for the price of a new one. I'll wait for the used version.
You need not discredit my many, many years of knowledge and experience either.
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That's what it comes down to. You can kind of compare apples with apples when you look at what Jeff did with Knights Chance. Offered a similar package but it is $449 USD. Euro works out about $160 more.
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lol I know what you are trying to say, but can you imagine if they produced anywhere near 30k much less 300k copies of their games?
Even if they priced them at $50 each (lol) they would be sitting on them until the end of time.
DPsx7
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Heh, it goes both ways pal.
While there must be cheaper alternatives, if their games are that complex that they require proprietary equipment then that would account for the inflated price.
I still enjoy the shmup genre. It would be nice to see the genre revived if there was an effort to reach the people who never played these types of games. Make it feel new again after the lull. Pinball and arcades themselves are picking up lately so it can be done.
Yeah I thought I said that earlier. The cart costs too dang much and I'll be waiting for a disc version. It's still the same game. That's all that matters to me. I've been without a local arcade for too many years, so I started collecting games to make up for it.
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Something else to consider is quality control of the parts - if you went the "cheap" route, that's exactly what you would get. Cheap.