Posted by SignOfZeta on May 27, 2020 at 12:57:37 EST in reply to elsewhere we've been discussing whether the NGPC could've lived on, and what that would've looked like. Of course the ultimate answer when you look back is the thing never had a chance, but it's still interesting to think about I guess!? from exodus.
I think the idea that a console has to “win” is stupid. Things that don’t make #1 aren’t failures. You don’t go out of business because you were only #3. There is no demon that comes out at night and takes all the low volume publishers to hell. In fact, after #1 auto OEM General Motors went bankrupt they specially said they don’t care about sales rank anymore. It’s expensive! You have to basically give cars away to rental agencies and cops etc to stay #1. After FCA and Peugeot merge GM will be #5 but in way better shape. The good companies like Honda and VW flirt with #1 but usually stay around #4. SNK was never #1 as a NES publisher, as an arcade vendor, as an OEM, etc. “Could they beat Nintendo...” why the fuck does anyone even care? Now obviously the NGP itself could have made a bit more money if the asses at Playmore hadn’t taken it off the market completely at its peak and it would have been very interesting to at least see it outlive the Swan. If it lived long enough the only Neo Geo Pocket 2 that anyone would have ever needed would just be an actual portable Neo which they could run though...what looks like forever at this point.
n/t
Follow Ups:
I have no idea if it was really at its peak, my impression was it was bleeding money for the company, and what I've been told by devs is they hated working on it (which is why more stuff started getting outsourced to companies like yumekobo). Eventually I'll get the straight answer to this, but I think it was a money-losing venture from the start basically - with car companies they have venues other than sales with which to recoup, and maybe that's what SNK needed to look into. Package the thing with some happy meals and give it away at coachella or something (I'm using my 1999 brain here). (n/t) (exodus) (13:40:59 05/27/20 EST)
It would seem like the b/w version must have made money or else they wouldn’t have made the Color, and then likewise the NNGPC. They must have been hovering near the idea of profit being realistic. (n/t) (SignOfZeta) (15:01:39 05/27/20 EST)
By “peak” I mean creatively which it certainly was. CF2 and Faselei had just been released, with Faselei being snatched half way to the store almost. It couldn’t have paid more to recall all those just made carts, manually destroy all the boxes, and sell the shit off to a wholesaler. At the time this seemed like an extreme measure to protect their reputation with retailers but for what purpose? They didn’t have a thing to sell after that! So was it just typical closing up shop behavior to satisfy creditors? I still don’t get it. (n/t) (SignOfZeta) (18:36:54 05/27/20 EST)
So what's the ultimate goal of analyzing this? That's an actual question, but my implied tone of skepticism could be summarized this way: if I'm going to imagine a scenario where the NGPC becomes successful, what criteria are appropriate to define that? Whether the NGPC was profitable or not, how can we understand the economic environment at SNK? There is anecdotal information from people who were there, and I assume SNK was publicly traded, so Japan's version of the SEC probably required a certain amount of financial disclosure. But that information doesn't help us comprehend the opportunity cost of developing and supporting the NGPC. It could have been profitable and still tanked, or a money loser that kept people employed. (n/t) (substance J) (13:10:21 05/31/20 EST)
To elaborate, this is the kind of thing I'm talking about: The company I work for is 25 people and does about $2m/yr revenue. A recent review of a long-standing contract showed that we'd been losing money for almost the life of the agreement. When the contract came up for renewal, our owners made the decision to re-submit it without amendment. They reasoned that if a new contract was rejected, reduction in workforce would be the result. The people assigned to that job were too valuable to fire, but the net effect would be the same - 3 other people would be laid off to eliminate the shortfall in billable hours. These types of losses are completely obscured by the huge profit margins on other work that we do. What I'm saying is that even if SNK's detailed balance sheets are available to us, they don't even begin to give us insight into the actual or potential outcome of the NGPC. (n/t) (substance J) (13:44:56 05/31/20 EST)
As far as I can recall, I've never seen anything suggesting SNK was publicly traded. (n/t) (Paleface) (17:23:59 05/31/20 EST)
hmm, I guess the goal would be to get a better sense of whether Aruze "killed" the NGPC before its time or whether it extended its life briefly by doing the blister pack thing. Or indeed whether there was some viable path to keeping it going. I see your point with the "necessary loss" there, but SNK didn't have enough other divisions going at the time to absorb any damage I reckon. 2000-2010 was pretty dark for them - it was interesting getting a sense of that while talking to the samurai shodown folks. That game was so popular that they actually constructed a new (10+ story) building with the money. (well, they say "maybe samurai shodown paid for the first three floors" - but it was SNK's money that build the building). If you go around that neighborhood it's full of places they used to own, or built, or something else. Now they're in one smaller building nearby, and you kind of feel the consolidation of the company quite literally. (n/t) (exodus) (13:40:41 06/01/20 EST)
