Thoughts about MVS cart serial numbers...

Sememmon

Crazed MVS Addict
Joined
Jun 14, 2005
Posts
145
As I continue to work on my collection, I've come across a variety of different ways carts can have (or not have) serial numbers. On the game label.. on a separate sticker.. sticker sometimes sealing the side of a cart.. sometimes scratched off the label.. sometimes nowhere to be found at all.

Can anyone shed any light on why all the different approaches to serial numbers? I understood that the scratched off ones were an attempt to make it difficult to track where games have been so that people could resell them .. but why was that? And if they were so strict about it, why then are some games completely devoid of serial numbers? :scratch:
 

Missile

Another Striker
Joined
Nov 18, 2007
Posts
311
I presume Arcade owners weren't allowed to resell Arcade carts because SNK effectively lost money. Say SNK sold them new for $200. An Arcade owner could later sell the MVS cart on for $150 to another arcade owner and SNK would effectively lose $200. Also this cart could be continued to be be passed around lots of arcades in teh same way, losing SNK more potential sales.

Arcade owners probably did a deal with SNK where they got SNK carts at a lower price providing they agreed not to sell them on in this way.

EDIT: Found this post in this thread http://www.neo-geo.com/forums/showthread.php?110401-MVS-serials-removed-why

Gentlemen,

The problem is that most of the MVS collectors around here (and anywhere else for that matter) fail to realize that MVS cartridges were NEVER intended to be "collectible" items, kept complete and in mint condition. Yes there is partial truth to the fact that serial numbers allow for a corporation to keep tabs on how many items they have manufactured as well as where those items went in regards to distribution and operation. But the truth is that most other arcade boards from other manufacturers also had serial numbers attached. The only difference is that they used AMAA stickers which were slapped on the boards.

The biggest "hits" for the NEOGEO (speaking PURELY from an operators revenues standpoint) were the first generation fighting games. Fatal Fury, World Heroes, Art of Fighting, and Samurai Shodown as well as their first sequels. Samurai Shodown changed EVERYTHING. By the time the next two (and pretty much LAST) mega-hits came along, Bust-A-Move, and Metal Slug, bootlegging took off and it was big money for the bootleggers and big savings for the operators who used them on location. The landmark titles which raked in thousands of quarters fell victim to massive out of control bootlegging. While professional bootleggers overseas designed and built bootleg boardsets in assembly lines MOST bootlegging that was done within the United States was done so with the familiar "sac cart method" which we are all familiar with today.

As a result, several US distributors (which I will omit there names out of respect for privacy) were heavy into "cart sacing / cart swapping" and they would scratch off the serials from any carts that they sold for multiple reasons. Among them to prevent a tracking of what carts they sold and how many. Also there was an MVS cartridge exchange program in place during the early nineties. Capcom also did this with there CPS-2 A-B boardset system. Operators would trade-in their old mvs carts to the distributors for $50 - $100 credit towards a new cart release. The distributors would then do their own swapping with their own unsold inventories and send back to SNK the least desirable carts!

So in the MVS world, YES, there is some truth to the theory of rare carts. Mostly because the non-earners like say savage reign or galaxy fight were sacced to make metal slugs or samurai 2's. But never forget that in general these "carts" are no different then other arcade boards in the sense that there were thousands built and sold so they are far from rare!

Anyhow, damaged or missing serial numbers is something we will be forced to deal with forever. Yes, it looks ugly, yes it is annoying, but in the end these things were never intended to be trophies on a shelf. MVS carts are NOT the same thing as HOME carts! They were meant to be plugged into a circuit board inside a cabinet, and not stored in a brown box or kept on a shelf.

Billy Pitt
 
Last edited:

Sememmon

Crazed MVS Addict
Joined
Jun 14, 2005
Posts
145
Thanks for pointing out that post! Very interesting. I was oblivious to the bootlegging back then. I was just a kid, pouring my parents' quarters into the nearest Neo.

Interesting that one of the greatest things about the Neo (the swappable carts) was also one of its biggest issues in arcades, it seems.
 
Top