AW-NET history & service overview

Detailed research notes. Quoted source text may be machine-translated.

A detailed history of AW-NET and its features, drawn from the saved website, magazines and publisher pages. For a shorter overview, start with the encyclopedia.

What the evidence establishes

AW-NET linked participating Atomiswave arcade cabinets, AW cards, a paid mobile service, and a PC website. Players could carry records between participating machines, inspect statistics, spend shared points, customise supported games, and enter events. Network play depended on the title: the fighting games' web services should not be recreated as internet matchmaking merely because they supported AW-NET. The launch report explicitly described communication play as something subsequent compatible software could provide. Launch report

Commercial service began 17 December 2003 with Guilty Gear Isuka. Service ended 30 November 2006. A contemporary shutdown report explicitly identifies five affected released games, making this list considerably stronger than an inference from the Atomiswave software catalogue. Launch report, Game Machine shutdown report, SNK shutdown notice

Membership was acquired through AW-NET Mobile, rather than a PC signup form. The April/May 2004 membership guide gives ¥315 per month including tax, and directs members to create an AWID and password through the mobile account-management menu for subsequent PC login. Membership guide

There was no single unchanging AW-NET website. Surviving material includes a September 2003 trade-show microsite, the early commercial framed website, an explicitly announced 28 April 2004 redesign, and later title-specific portals. A faithful recreation needs a target date, or separate selectable versions. Trade-show page, Early frame document, Official update history

Confidence and interpretation

• Confirmed: directly stated in surviving service documentation, a publisher's page, or contemporary reporting of an announcement.
• Inferred: suggested by preserved HTML structure, filenames, or surviving routes, without the corresponding working service or authenticated page.
• Unresolved: no sufficiently strong source recovered. An archive connection failure is not proof that an item was never captured.

Capture dates are not necessarily publication dates. A page captured in January 2005 may describe a 2004 feature. Similarly, a test site captured before a game's release does not establish the final commercial rules. The URL inventory uses the first qualifying capture per URL; it is not an inventory of every historical revision.

Supported games

Sources: the five-title shutdown list; Isuka launch; Kintaro visitor portal and 2004 show report; SNK NEOWAVE history; Sega catalogue; July 2005 trade log; Victory Furlong membership introduction; Battle Coliseum publisher notices.

Do not expand this into the whole Atomiswave library. The Rumble Fish, The Rumble Fish 2, KOF XI, Samurai Shodown VI/Tenkaichi Kenkakuden, Fist of the North Star, and Metal Slug 6 are not included in the explicit five-game shutdown list. An advertisement or location-test notice on awnet.jp is not sufficient evidence of AW-NET support.

The 20 February 2004 AOU report records SNK's Hirata saying the Metal Slug 6 development team was interested in AW-NET and wanted to use it. No implemented function is specified. Keep that early intent separate from commercial compatibility and the five-game shutdown list.

Planned software belongs in a separate category. FORCE FIVE appears in 2003 plans. Kenju was publicly described in 2004 as intended to support records, rankings, and accessory customisation. These announcements do not establish a released public AW-NET service. Sammy vs Capcom's announcement likewise does not establish a shipped AW-NET game. 2003 announcement, 2004 show report

Recovered official October 2004 and January 2005 Kenju test notices explicitly say the product does not support AW-NET. Their dated qualification is preserved alongside the earlier proposal. New primary notices and English reading.

Kintaro's 2003 demonstration reportedly included a fourth game, Tactics. Later reporting and the public member-feature pages describe three-player mahjong, daifugō, and reversi. Recreating the commercial service with four games would conflate the demonstration with the released product. 2003 show observation, Kintaro rankings introduction

This is earlier evidence of the design, not a commercial launch date.

Chronology

Sources: announcement, trade-show page, launch, official 2004 news history, 1,500-point campaign, NEOWAVE history, Kintaro home, Fight Money rules, ring rules, horse test news, Sega catalogue, Battle Coliseum opening notice, publisher purchase/closure notices, shutdown report.

The corporate transition is documented in two original Japanese notices with separate English readings. The sales change applied to domestic shipments from December 2004, while the legal division transfer was planned for April 2005. Neither notice names AW-NET or describes a server, membership or subscription migration.

Availability, charges, and access

The material describes a Japanese arcade and Japanese mobile-carrier service. The mobile enrollment route used i-mode, EZweb, or Vodafone live!, with device compatibility lists. This is strong evidence for the documented service's Japanese focus. It does not establish commercial availability in every territory where Atomiswave machines were sold. Membership guide, supported DoCoMo phones, supported au phones, supported Vodafone phones

At launch Sammy projected installation at roughly 1,000 Japanese amusement facilities. That figure is a rollout expectation, not a measured final installation count. The surviving title-specific venue lists are snapshots, and Battle Coliseum's own venue page warns that listings may be incomplete or out of date. Launch report, Battle Coliseum venue page

Sources: membership guide, general FAQ, Victory Furlong test notice. Ordinary carrier data charges and operator network contracts have not been reconstructed from primary documents.

Registration and PC login

Confirmed historical sequence

1. Obtain an AW card at a participating arcade and use it in a compatible game. The early AWID instructions explicitly require registration of a used card, rather than an unused card purchased for future play.
2. Reach AW-NET Mobile through a supported carrier menu and subscribe.
3. Register the card through the mobile service. The general FAQ specifies the 16-digit number on the back.
4. From the mobile top page, enter Membership management (account management), then PC login ID registration/change (register/change PC login ID), and register the AWID and password.
5. Use those credentials in the PC site's login panel.

Sources: AWID instructions, membership guide, general FAQ, preserved PC login HTML. Exact intermediate mobile screen wording, credential-length rules, and carrier billing confirmation screens remain unrecovered.

The carrier paths reported at launch were:

Launch access instructions. The recovered original carrier-menu graphic adds a FOMA-specific annotation to the i-mode branch. Treat that image as its own dated version.

PC registration was explicitly unsupported in the general FAQ. The membership guide also warned that over one month without mobile access could prevent PC login. This is an access condition, not evidence that the whole account was automatically deleted after 30 days. General FAQ, membership guide

The early PC login panel is particularly useful for reconstruction: a narrow image-based menu surrounds a POST form targeting menu.cgi, with input names aid and pas, and a hidden rmd=1 value. The original source contains spelling/attribute mistakes; they are evidence of the implementation, not intended user-facing labels. PC menu capture

Important HTML trap: the membership page's email-address/send-URL form is inside an HTML comment. A source-code search can find it even though users would not see an active form. Membership page HTML

What membership changed

The service differentiated ordinary play, use of an AW card, and paid web/mobile membership. Kintaro's public page explicitly distinguishes card users who could save records and appear in national rankings from members who gained detailed data, rival search, shared-point use, and event registration. Kintaro visitor introduction

The June membership campaign required both enrollment and card registration for the point bonus. Simply subscribing without registering a card was insufficient. The campaign page offers 1,500 points through the end of June 2004; this was a temporary promotion rather than the normal ongoing award. The original spring poster describes a preceding offer through 31 May for both existing members and new members, and includes a thumbnail of the redesigned website. Spring poster Campaign page, June news clarification

A separately recovered campaign graphic offers 3,000 points to existing members and new members enrolled by the end of November. Its archive capture is 24 October 2004. Original campaign graphic

AW cards, data, points, and recovery

The FAQ describes data on both the card and the server. Card artwork did not alter functionality. Cardless play was possible, but did not retain the corresponding records/points. A card held one game's data locally; server-backed membership enabled use across titles. A July 2004 notice makes the restriction explicit: a nonmember card used for one title could not then be used for another without joining. General FAQ, July cross-title notice

The March 2005 FAQ explicitly limits server-backed recovery to members and declines to guarantee or repair nonmembers' or former members' data. Its detailed offline table preserves selected Isuka/Kintaro/NEOWAVE records while disabling purchased fighter/colour use, Kintaro cross-arcade matches and NEOWAVE events as applicable. Offline play earns no shared points. The translated feature table also records the original online-status indicators. No data-retention deadline or cancellation flow is established. March 2005 FAQ

This qualifies the launch marketing statement that one card supported all games. The strongest reconstruction uses the later explicit distinction between physical compatibility and member-enabled cross-title use. The FAQ explicitly disallows one person registering multiple cards simultaneously. General FAQ

The FAQ's ordinary shared-point bonuses were 100 at enrollment and 100 at the start of a month. Points were shared across compatible games, but earnings depended on the game. Isuka's FAQ gives roughly 10–30 per play under ordinary conditions; Victory Furlong specifies 10 for a new play/continue and a further 10 for winning a race within that credit, capped at 20. Campaign awards were separate. General FAQ, Isuka FAQ, Victory Furlong FAQ, 1,500-point campaign

The contemporary Outlive Encyclopedia explicitly gives 500 uses (500 matches) per commercial Isuka card, with transfer after exhaustion, in its March 2004 registration context. This is stronger than the conflicting retrospective Isuka wiki's 100-use claim. It does not establish a universal limit across all games. Battle Coliseum's 200-use location-test card, and Victory Furlong's test cards changed to unlimited use on 22 December 2004, retain their test-specific rules. Original Isuka page and English reading, Isuka retrospective, Battle Coliseum test FAQ, horse test news

Replacement and transfer

The original transfer guide describes two flows:

• Exhausted card at an online cabinet: insert the zero-remaining-use card, accept the transfer prompt, replace it with a new unused card when the reader unlocks, and wait for completion.
• Lost or damaged card, via web/mobile: members obtain a new unused card, authenticate, choose card transfer, enter the new card number, and wait for server confirmation.

The old card became invalid for subsequent server saves. The guide warned about transferring after offline play, attempting web transfer immediately after a cabinet transfer, and playing offline immediately after a web transfer; the last could reset total results. These were operational constraints worth representing in a faithful help page. Original transfer guide

Five earlier preserved FAQ response files say a handset change with the same number preserves data, while a changed number cannot transfer it. Their requests span February–October 2004, but the February request resolves to April; they are not five independent dated policy witnesses. The 5 March 2005 capture adds an exception for mova ↔ FOMA changes, even with the same number. It also says a card registered through the former phone cannot be re-registered through the new-number phone, leaving the prior play data unavailable under that policy. This is not evidence the server physically deleted it. The exact introduction date of the exception remains unknown. May 2004 FAQ, March 2005 FAQ, revision audit and English reading

The FAQ separately says users cannot delete an existing card registration and register a different card. Replacement must be understood alongside the documented transfer flow above, rather than a modern unlink/relink control. May 2004 FAQ

For the complete currently documented game feature inventory, named extra fighters, mode-specific earning table and GGX Mobile distinction, read Game features and points. The older approximate Isuka range above remains dated evidence.

Guilty Gear Isuka

Isuka provides the clearest surviving early model of AW-NET: player data and rankings, Web Garage customisation and SHOP, EX character/colour purchases, and mobile ringtone/wallpaper content. Guilty Gong was a voting feature related to downloadable content. The FAQ describes records for all characters, including win totals, rates, and use. Isuka FAQ, early home/news, launch report

Purchased content needed to be enabled in the character-specific Web Garage settings, then used at an AW-NET cabinet. The recovered illustrated guide tells the player to hold Start at character selection until the emblem appears, then select the character. Buying an item and activating it were distinct steps. Original illustrated item guide

The ranking help establishes actual eligibility gates:

Clear-time records could take four to five hours to appear. A recreated ranking system should distinguish submission delay from the general marketing description of immediate access. Ranking help

The rank chart splits advancement after the initial trainee rank into Wanted/Bounty and Holy Order courses. The recovered chart is more useful than translating every icon from memory. A separate help page and an aggregate power distribution distribution page survive. Rank help, original rank chart, distribution page

The early home page states daily maintenance from 04:00 to 05:00. Later horse/Battle Coliseum documentation states 04:00 to 06:00. Preserve the date/title distinction. The Isuka FAQ also explains that a “currently playing” lock can persist while data is queued for upload; that message did not necessarily prove someone was physically using the card at that instant. Early home, Isuka FAQ

Related books/goods, tournament notices, rare-card and poster giveaways, and a Roger plush campaign were part of the surrounding site. These are useful original editorial modules for the recreation, not additional supported games. Goods page, event page, Roger campaign, poster campaign

Period print evidence now verifies 1,500 shared points per EX character and 300 per EX colour. The Outlive Encyclopedia also documents 1,000 for reusable starting-survival-level control, independently adjustable per character up to 999, permitting survival beyond the ordinary level-100 cap. It describes thirteen prepared EX palettes per character with successive additions and occasional ranked CPU challengers on the rare route. Guidebook originals and English findings, period magazine evidence.

The same guide identifies the first Guilty Gong winner as “Exceptional Routine Work”, distributed as a GGX Mobile ringtone, and preserves printed mobile/PC site screens. Complete ballots, download files, wallpaper winner and point-to-vote rates remain missing. Its member-only Bridget-art rare-card giveaway belongs to a publisher postcard contest rather than a demonstrated point-shop inventory. Gong, screenshots and prize evidence.

Net Select: Salaryman Kintaro

Kintaro supports national network competition in three-player mahjong, daifugō, and reversi. Its public visitor site opened 4 October 2004, and explicitly advertises the deeper member experience. Card records used both game ranks and company-position progression. Kintaro visitor introduction, rankings introduction

The member-page explanations preserve enough fields to reconstruct substantial data screens:

Personal data introduction, data-bank introduction, shop introduction. These are descriptions and embedded illustrations of member functionality; the existence of a public visitor page does not mean its explanatory screen is a captured authenticated session.

Rankings include overall, job, area, monthly performance, and game-specific tables. Named categories include mahjong rank/performance/yakuman/dora, daifugō rank/performance/daifugō/revolution, and reversi rank/performance/stone/perfect/white/black. The illustrated interface used a dropdown and GO button with previous/next navigation. Rankings introduction

The 2003 show report describes preset chat messages. The shop's message packs fit this model; there is no basis here for implementing unrestricted modern text chat as an original feature. 2003 show report, shop introduction

The June card notice warns that location-test points, performance, and records would be reset at the end of testing. It discusses partial member-related transfer plans, so a simple “all test data carried into release” statement would be inaccurate. Kintaro test-card notice

The King of Fighters NEOWAVE

SNK confirms the 27 July 2004 arcade release. Its surviving official news describes AW-NET character purchases and a character-edit help link, including Geese in a later purchase wave. The preserved service routes include player/character editing, rankings and shop endpoints; several replay as tiny authentication responses rather than member screens. Their filenames establish routes, not all their behavior. SNK game history, NEOWAVE publisher site, archived entry page

The original Geese promotional command sheet specifies a 3,500-shared-point purchase, AW-NET membership and an AW card. It directs the player to select K′ and confirm while holding Start. See the English printed-material guide; this dated item is not a universal character-shop tariff.

The public event pages, however, preserve concrete rules. Fight Money was a virtual event balance separate from shared AW points. The first event ran 1–7 November 2004; another ran 29 November–5 December; a third ran 17–23 January 2005. The original rules award 900 initially, 100 at a game start including a challenger start, and 50 for a CPU-team win. Versus stakes were 20% of the poorer player's balance, with a 100 minimum; winnings/losses transferred according to the result. A 5,000 balance unlocked special titles for members. Later pages say previous balances carry forward. First Fight Money rules, second event, third event

Ring competition was another event type. Both opposing players needed AW cards and at least one ring for the competitive exchange. A win gained one; a loss removed one. Thirty rings qualified for member-accessible special titles. The first rules grant three initial rings and one ring for a CPU clear when empty. A recovered poster covering the first two events instead says three, as does the third event web page. The precise effective date of this rule revision is unresolved; retain the disagreement rather than inventing a single unchanging rule. The poster also states that rings carry over into the second event. First ring rules, event poster, third ring rules

First/second schedule, third schedule. Results pages also survive in the local archive. These event mechanics concern recorded arcade results; they are not proof that NEOWAVE supplied remote internet fighting matches.

Online competition in home-console versions is a separate service: the official TGS 2005 programme identifies KDDI’s Multi Matching BB (MMBB) for its SNK online-game event. This is not evidence of equivalent AW-NET arcade matchmaking. Official show programme

Routes named team_edit.cgi and team_list.cgi deserve further investigation, but the recovered evidence is insufficient to specify whether these were battle-team settings, social groups, or another structure.

Net Select Horse Racing Victory Furlong

The official catalogue dates commercial release to March 2005. A December 2004 test site survives, so its rules need to remain visibly separated. The member introduction advertises stable/horse records, rival-stable search, a shared-point item shop, a breeding simulator whose more precise calculations cost points, expanded rankings including horse top-100 tables, and a once-daily mobile race lottery with no blank prize. Rewards were in-game items. Sega catalogue, membership introduction

Commercial-period print corroboration: the May 2005 Arcadia article, printed page 146, gives 24 March 2005 (operating) and describes nationwide network races for up to ten horses/players per race. Its Net Stakes explanation lets a player create a race, choose its name, distance and entry conditions, and set a password to restrict entrants. It expressly suggests arcade-organized and friends-only races. This strengthens the released-game evidence beyond the earlier test instructions; it does not reveal transport, latency, exact matchmaking behavior or whether every race filled with ten human opponents. Preserved original page, English service notes

The gameplay description distinguishes breeding/training and racing from challenge play with existing racehorses. In challenge mode, the later FAQ specifies a four-week designated GI objective that can unlock a breeding parent. Game introduction, commercial-era FAQ

Network participation was not a single mode:

• Net Stakes: saved-horse races with player-hosted entry conditions, including passwords/private races; completing one ends that play session.
• Network tournaments: operator-organized races entered using saved horses; results were viewed as replay/VTR after entries closed. The FAQ says entry and result viewing did not consume AP, and returned to the main mode.

The card retained stable data and the last selected horse, whereas the server retained the wider stable. Offline play could not access the other stored horses or network races. Daily maintenance was 04:00–06:00. Commercial-era FAQ

Web/mobile items were reflected at the next online cabinet play. The service explained ordinary browser access and synchronization separately from membership features. Usage guide

The December test was held at Sammy Regno Kawagoe, Silk Hat Keikyu Kawasaki, and Club Sega Shibuya. Test news advertised ¥100 cards, then unlimited use from 22 December. It did not support normal membership registration/card transfer; ranking access used the code on the card back. These are unusually important examples of a test login that should not be confused with commercial AWID signup. Original test news, test venues

NeoGeo Battle Coliseum

The preserved publisher launch press release gives 27 July 2005 (Heisei 17), allowing regional variation. The current page's “2009” title conflicts with its document header; use the header's date. It distinguishes card insertion unlocking Athena/Mars People from member-only services.

The early AW-NET portal announced a network test for 28–29 April 2005 at Club Sega Shinjuku West and Akihabara. Its navigation included game information, characters, test command lists, ranking, My Data, usage notes, and FAQ. Opening page

The initial My Data page used a USER ACCESS CODE form. Its ranking page explicitly concerns the location test. Those captures are not evidence that commercial paid accounts registered with that form. Test My Data, test ranking

The test FAQ specifies test-only cards, 200 uses, no transfer, no shared-point award, and card-enabled Athena/Mars People. It also identifies the on-screen online icon and 04:00–06:00 maintenance window. Its data-loss warning is specific evidence of this test environment, not a replacement for the general member card-recovery guide. Test FAQ

A much later 7 October 2006 venue-page capture preserves the commercial navigation: game introduction/system; member-only My Data, Data, and Shop channels; public rankings, events, and venue lists; notices, FAQ, sitemap and terms. This is valuable evidence that the commercial portal expanded beyond the early test menu. The page presents the fictional host Kaname as part of its interface voice. Commercial venue page

SNK's original notices confirm paid-member purchase availability for Mizuchi on 25 August 2005, Shishioh on 1 September, and NEO DIO on 15 September. These are strong dated publisher purchase announcements. Newly recovered anonymous Mizuchi posts discuss a price on 19 August and a purchase decision on 22 August, before the 25 August notice; the first effective availability date remains unresolved. A biography update alone does not establish purchase availability. Publisher's purchase notices

Contemporary demonstration coverage also describes card-enabled Athena/Mars People and member functions such as player names and titles. It is a useful bridge between the test-only archive and publisher purchase notices. May 2005 show observation

The recovered Neo Geo Battle Coliseum Master Guide, first edition 2 September 2005, now supplies primary commercial detail: Mizuchi 1,000, Shishioh 1,500, NEO-DIO 2,000 common points; eight purchased palettes per selectable fighter (seven at 100, special eighth at 500); four purchased victory texts per fighter at 300 each. All 39 character plates and eleven victory-message pages are preserved and reviewed for service scope: 312 paid palette examples and 156 paid text slots, distinct from default colours and CPU-only characters. Original scans and English findings.

The guide documents commercial point earning, Fighting Level experience, nine rankings, 34 example shop titles, aggregate player/character statistics, and monthly top-ten titles plus a glowing Proof of Prowess effect. Its registration diagram and member PC/mobile screenshots substantially improve reconstruction evidence. July dates in printed sample screens are illustrative, not independent rollout dates. Flash fight broadcasts were website footage; they do not establish remote human NeoGeo Battle Coliseum fights. Complete mobile billing pages and actual wallpaper/ringtone files remain missing. Detailed tables and controls.

Website structure and visual reconstruction

Distinct historical versions

Show page, frame document, login panel, redesign notice, sitemap, Kintaro public portal, horse membership page, Battle Coliseum commercial navigation.

The April/May membership page uses a 567-pixel heading graphic, small fixed-size text, decorative table cells and image-based carrier buttons. The early login sidebar uses a 172-pixel-wide table. The structure is more informative for fidelity than a generic modern layout. Broken archive frames can often be researched through the individual frame targets, which is how these pages were recovered. Membership HTML, login HTML

The 2004 sitemap names HOME, membership guidance, event information, product/service introduction, support/FAQ/inquiries, sitemap, terms, and PC-content introductions. Title pages then have their own navigation. The public site-use terms recommend contemporary Internet Explorer/Netscape versions on Windows/Mac, Safari 1.0+, and a Flash plugin; the FAQ additionally requires JavaScript/cookies. These terms are not a recovered carrier billing or membership contract. Sitemap, site-use terms, FAQ

Preserved URLs use several technologies: central CGI, NEOWAVE CGI, horse PHP/static HTML, and Battle Coliseum's servlet/exe/Index_p?COM=.... Reproducing these visible addresses can help historical navigation, but they do not reveal the original backend protocol or database. Authentication-only replays must be labelled as missing content, not reconstructed from a 200 status alone.

Original graphics and screenshots

The collection includes original carrier-menu art, carrier buttons, Isuka's item-use diagram and rank chart, website imagery, and embedded page illustrations. The local asset gallery links each saved file to its original URL and archive capture. Those are recovered assets, not AI-generated replacements. The English side-by-side translation gallery covers the 145 recovered web images, 12 additional original show photographs, and four embedded poster rasters. Original pixels remain untouched; blurred/cropped text is marked.

The strongest signup visual recovered is /pc/1500/access.gif, a carrier-menu flow diagram. It is linked by a membership bonus page and belongs to the signup context. It is not a photograph of a mobile billing confirmation screen. Original access graphic, campaign page

Several especially useful registration references remain unresolved: image/aw-access.jpg, image/nyukai_img01.gif, image/nyukai_img02.gif, and Isuka's img/help/whats_awnet01.jpg through 03.jpg. Their references and some dimensions survive in HTML, but direct attempts here returned connection failures. The collection records these as referenced, not recovered; it does not conclude that no capture exists anywhere.

Period print evidence

Visually verified Arcadia scans now supply dated NEOWAVE phone-reward prices: 15 shared AW points per wallpaper and 30 per ringtone, in the November 2004 issue. They also show four purchasable alternate colours, a 600-point colour price, and a 3,000-point additional-character tariff alongside Kim/Vanessa/Ramon coverage. These figures retain their game/date scope; Geese's separately documented price remains 3,500.

The September 2004 NEOWAVE card-album advertisement describes entering the album's unique ID on AW-NET to receive a special phone wallpaper. This is an additional redemption route, distinct from AW-card association or membership enrollment. January 2004 publication screenshots show Web Garage, Character Shop, player settings and rankings, but explicitly carry a development-material caveat.

SNK's public AW-NET character movie is preserved separately with its original archive wrappers, extracted media and English on-screen captions. Its gameplay sequences demonstrate Mizuchi, Neo Dio and Shishioh; they do not show registration or purchases.

Japanese community evidence added in the

The Japanese community supplement adds period diaries, personal guides, publisher pages, show reports and recovered Livedoor/Shitaraba forum captures. Especially useful are a firsthand August 2004 signup failure on an unsupported phone, a changing handset-support report in March 2005, an Isuka player's July 2004 record table, and launch-week Battle Coliseum palette purchases. Anonymous August–September 2005 forum posts also discuss purchasable alternate victory messages. The report retains their attribution and contradictory unlock claims.

Following period links recovered both NeoGeo Battle Coliseum and NEOWAVE board indexes and selected thread responses that ordinary search queries missed. A period NeoGeo Battle Coliseum guide references numbered public match videos. This establishes an additional public content section, while video files, the full commercial shop catalogue and released mobile enrollment screenshots remain unresolved. The supplement provides links, dates, English explanations and preservation notes.

Hardware and network evidence

The MAME project's Atomiswave source comments describe Japanese cartridges' customer-ID area at ROM offset 0x7fe000, whereas English versions have an empty region and no AW-NET features. This is reverse-engineering evidence for region-specific software behavior, not an original operator manual. MAME source

A collector's first-person 2021 hardware examination identifies a red AW-NET router as apparently based on a Micro Research NetGenesis SuperOPT100. This supports a lead for hardware identification, but does not establish the complete original fleet configuration, firmware or protocol. Hardware examination

Operator subscription prices, line provisioning, server addresses, transport/protocol details, machine certificates/keys, exact card encoding, and backend schemas are not established by the public website archive. Likewise, an automatic migration of all AW-NET games to ALL.Net is not demonstrated by the shutdown evidence. Website recreation and restoration of the arcade network are separate research problems.

Shutdown and what survived

SNK announced the closure on 8 September 2006, giving 30 November as the termination date. Contemporary trade reporting says network functions such as online competition would cease, while card-based play and display of recorded results remained possible. A blanket claim that every card became useless is therefore inaccurate. SNK notice, shutdown report

Arcadia's December 2006 notice provides further limits: an existing AW card would serve only the last game played before closure; a new card would serve only its first game. Shared points, transfers/renewals, and official web/mobile services ceased, and site-acquired characters/colours would no longer be applied. It says remaining card data differed by title. Original scan and translated shutdown list

The trade report notes that Atomiswave had not spread as much as expected and that software development appeared to have ended. These are contemporary observations, not a recovered internal decision memo. The service lasted nearly three years after commercial launch; “closed when Sega and Sammy merged” is too imprecise to serve as an explanation or date.

Remaining questions and best evidence to pursue

The most productive additional material would be AW-card front/back scans, Isuka/NEOWAVE operator packets, mobile-service leaflets, period Japanese magazines, and player screenshots of the account-management menu. Private authenticated pages are the largest remaining gap. New evidence should be dated and reconciled with the relevant release/test version rather than merged into an undated feature list.

How to use the accompanying files

• research/index.html: searchable archive inventory, local extracted-page links, and asset gallery.
• research/REGISTRATION_EVIDENCE.md: signup-focused guide and visual recovery status.
• research/RECONSTRUCTION_NOTES.md: proposed reconstruction scope, confirmed modules, and unresolved screens.
• research/JAPANESE_COMMUNITY_RESEARCH.md: English follow-up findings from Japanese diaries, guides and forums.
• research/translations/: English image sidecars, terminology and printed-material guide.
• research/tools/: retrieval and catalogue-building scripts.

Some captures are small login/error documents; assets can come from different dates; one first capture per URL does not preserve all revisions.

Primary outage and Japanese alternate-host

Sammy's original press.jsp?n=238 notice is recovered, captured July 11, 2004. It identifies an AW-NET server fault from 10:50 July 8, leaving Isuka and Kintaro offline, and promises another notice when recovery is complete. It supplies no cause or recovery time. Phone/PC website disruption remains the fan report's separate observation. Original Japanese response and English reading.

The credited alternate Hamapika host and later revisions add test-only free-card details and corroborate the already documented album bonus-ID phone-wallpaper campaign. The TGS 2004 i-mode figure of 120,000 is the aggregate for six services, not AW-NET alone. This continuation adds 105 preserved source IDs and 16 scoped English readings, with no additional enrollment success screen or authentic reward file. Updated research coverage, linked-post readings.

The primary service-incident chronology now translates two already preserved AW-NET paragraphs: March 15's confirmed recovery of PC/mobile content-server access after the March 13–14 fault, and July's emergency homepage planning maintenance completion for July 12. The July date is prospective; actual recovery remains unconfirmed. Both notices match their indexed SHA1 and exact capture timestamps. They are additional readings, not newly downloaded source files.

Manufacturer-section attribution and physical phone prizes

A recovered January 14, 2005 Hamapika entry explicitly reports Rumble Fish2 as AW-NET non-supporting. The selected English reading preserves its status as contemporary fan reporting. Proposed Guilty Gear real-time versus/card features carry explicit rumor warnings, and later Slash coverage identifies NAOMI hardware. These entries do not expand the five confirmed shipped AW-NET games. A Kenju tuning page on the AW-NET domain is test publicity, subject to the official notices’ proposed-support qualifications.

A NEOWAVE event report describes a physical five-kind mobile-phone cleaner set as a participation prize, not a phone download or point redemption. Its paragraph does not explicitly identify the game version and includes no recovered event-poster scan. English readings and preserved Japanese bodies.

Okinawan availability, portal attribution and alternate context

A contemporary Nami Maga page lists Isuka at four Okinawan venues. Its older installation block marks TRON in Naha as AW-NET unavailable and Yume Kukan in Chatan as AW-NET available; it gives no network-status annotation for Joy Box or Joy Jungle Goya. A January 8, 2004 roundup on the same page subsequently reports TRON’s Isuka becoming online and links a specific BBS. The page warns that submitted information is not guaranteed and its listed dates can differ from actual operation. Preserve the older and newer reports separately. Partly specified dates and unexplained numeric suffixes do not establish cabinet counts, connection times, continuous availability or remote fighter matches. Selected English readings and unchanged source, literal BBS citation proof.

A Nami Maga article dated July 8, 2004 at 22:24:45, as displayed by the site, says only AW-NET’s top page was available when posted. It links AW-NET as its source. The writer’s discussion of heat, dust, cable damage and server processing is general speculation, not the diagnosed cause of this outage. Two captured revisions of that same article are not independent witnesses, and neither establishes an actual repair time. English reading and capture verification.

Nami Maga’s username/password registration, mobile edition and download menus belong to that fan portal. An older venue report’s physical prize lottery belongs to the venue, not AW-NET shared points. Hamapika’s newly recovered physical collector merchandise and Channel KOF’s Korean POPORU online-service report likewise do not add AW-NET games, point-funded phone rewards or carrier enrollment screens. Game-project rumors remain explicitly qualified. Nami Maga attribution limits, Hamapika readings, separately recovered Channel KOF readings.