$300k Kizuna Encounter Euro AES over at the NeoStore

Burning Fight!!

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Explanation is a bit odd but the “recalled to Japan to sell more units” story still makes the most sense, unless someone directly refutes this by explaining in detail how SNK dealt with foreign distributors
 

HeavyMachineGoob

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So basically, they'd rather have the games available to the Japanese market....where the PS1 was also dominating.

It doesnt matter to me if its real or fake, I just think its dumb people choose to pay more for what is essentially a bastardized version.
But it's TEH R A R E Z, that's the most important part you see.
 

HeavyMachineGoob

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Am i the only idiot who buys US games on retro systems to read the manuals?
…. I can answer this myself. Yes. 🙊
I like reading US manuals too, including for Neo Geo, but I for one wouldn't do that for $300k.
 

Atro

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You are all missing one thing here.

If there was only one box of EURO Kizunas shipped, it means 6. There's apparentely 5 known copies. Now it'll be only a matter of time until some funny ass comes with a high quality conversion/japanese swapped sticker+insert copy and claim he's the final 6th owner because he found out the game, in an Austrian lost garage sale.

How come people also lost the opportunity to ask about Ultimate 11?
 

Atro

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I can only assume it's because nobody cares about a rare soccer/football game.
I believe it's way rarer than KE. Just less sought after. There's tracking of 4-5 copies of KE. Maybe 1-2 for U11.
 

wataru330

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Where is Ben Herman when you need him…or any of the Barones?

Euro pre-orders escaped re-labeling, but American pre-orders didn’t?

This mystery is solvable if certain people come forward.
 

madmanjock

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There’s rumours that EURO Kizunas reached Australia and were sold there in limited numbers, so the one box sold in Germany rumor doesn’t add up.
 

Heinz

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Where is Ben Herman when you need him…or any of the Barones?

Euro pre-orders escaped re-labeling, but American pre-orders didn’t?

This mystery is solvable if certain people come forward.
The Barone's will never cough up because they are the middlemen for what is known as the Transfer of Power (Euro Kizuna) between seller and buyer and take a cut from the total sale. Legend has it a male Barone must knight the copy of Euro Kizuna with a half erect penis before the Transfer of Power ritual can be certified. This is what is known in the inner NG circles as the "Barone Conspiracy".
 

joe8

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What determines if its real? If NGF had converted a handful of JPN Kizuna's under the license of SNK would it make it more real as opposed to some Germany guy without a license?

The whole Euro/English home cart market is a massive joke. SNK barely gave two fucks about the market outside of Japan.

The US was the only serious market for the AES, outside of Japan. But the MVS was popular in many countries.
 

SignOfGoob

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What determines if its real? If NGF had converted a handful of JPN Kizuna's under the license of SNK would it make it more real as opposed to some Germany guy without a license?

Yes. That’s exactly how legitimacy works. That’s the difference between a doctor giving you a full physical examination and some guy groping you.

Even if it’s a pervert doctor soon to lose his license (like NGF did) it’s still a doctor and some guy is just some guy.


The whole Euro/English home cart market is a massive joke. SNK barely gave two fucks about the market outside of Japan.

I agree completely. The “original” versions of all of these games is the JP one. This goes quadruple for SFC, MD, and PCE stuff. I don’t know what’s wrong with “US collectors”.
 

yori2004

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This explanation is only a mockup of several facts. SNK has always returned unsold products, relabeled US game into Japanese, or repurposed chips for another game.

Oda had said in an interview that the main reason for Kizuna's low numbers is that the cartridges were built from unsold Savage Reign.

So, I chatted on Twitter with the guys behind the self-proclaimed new truth about Kizuna US. @Bigkam_69 requested information from @1979Geronimo. He put him in contact with an anonymous person. This third person discussed with Kazuhiro Takeshita in a professional setting. Indeed, he was looking to acquire the IPs and his approach was unsuccessful. He took advantage of discussions with Takeshita to ask these types of questions.

The story of this third person is similar to that of bootlegger Atomikwave who got in touch with SNK years ago to revive AES game publishing. SNK requested too many copies for each game and no agreement could be reached. In his email exchanges, he also asked for and obtained clarifications on somewhat obscure points in the stories behind Neo-Geo games. He had posted interesting anecdotes on French forums at the time. However, Bigkam_69 says it's not him and didn't want to say who is this third person who got this story from Takeshita.

There is a big lack of reliability in the intermediaries of this story and I think it's a big fake integrating real elements.

We have no proof that there is only one video game seller in the world that has pre-ordered Kizuna US and that seems completely unrealistic to me. Just as Takeshita remembers precisely such an unimportant fact at the time.

Neotropolis told me that they got their 2 Kizuna manuals from a japanese seller 4 years ago and that he was selling a lot of genuine US manuals. This does not match with the destruction process that is described.
 

prof

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Nah bruh. When I was a kid I used to buy loose NES manuals even if I didn't own the game. Crazy to think games don't have manuals nowadays.
That's one of the cool things about Rockstar Games. They still include a thick book and map, at least their last couple games still did. Cyberpunk came with a book and some other stuff as well. I also love flipping through manuals, and it's something that I miss in today's games. That's why it's always special when a game actually comes with one nowadays.
 

Niko

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This explanation is only a mockup of several facts. SNK has always returned unsold products, relabeled US game into Japanese, or repurposed chips for another game.

Oda had said in an interview that the main reason for Kizuna's low numbers is that the cartridges were built from unsold Savage Reign.

This makes complete sense, and I'd be willing to bet is the real reason.

Neotropolis told me that they got their 2 Kizuna manuals from a japanese seller 4 years ago and that he was selling a lot of genuine US manuals. This does not match with the destruction process that is described.

First and foremost fuck @Kpj. Second, there are a lot of random SNK/NeoGeo assets from that time floating around Japan. It wouldnt surprise me if the "destruction" process was just toss it in a box and shove it in the back of a closet, which later was discovered and sold during one of the liquidations.
 

Theruff

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This makes complete sense, and I'd be willing to bet is the real reason.



First and foremost fuck @Kpj. Second, there are a lot of random SNK/NeoGeo assets from that time floating around Japan. It wouldnt surprise me if the "destruction" process was just toss it in a box and shove it in the back of a closet, which later was discovered and sold during one of the liquidations.
almost 100% sure that is exactly how the destruction process was back in the day. Cartridge shells, boards, etc could be repurposed, but things like manuals could not easily be changed to Japanese. On top of that, throwing things (such as manuals) away in bulk would cost money to haul out. Often times they just tossed them into storage to avoid the costs. Can’t say if that’s the case here, but I would not be surprised.
 
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