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Hi Joe - the disk color idea can work well for many of the Shogi/Chessgi type games. I actually made a set on that basis for Pillars of Medusa so when the Morph captured a piece I could flip it over and have the new morph-image. Later I made a 3D version by altering plastic chess pieces... and it looked much nicer and seemed to be more fun to play on.

With Shogi, of course, flat pieces are great. But with Shogi the flip sides are used for promotions, so, as I believe you pointed out you will need to add extra disks for promoted pieces.

If you are talking about a 3D game set, such as one I could buy in a store; then I think you might want an 8x8 board, 9x9 and 10x10...all in the same box. Disk pieces would be economical (and you could have relatively inexpensive sticker sheets so the consumer could attach the piece images to the disks themselves) But molded-pieces (without stickers) would have some class and not look cheapo.

Due to lots of piece possibilities my idea would be this:

(A) Have a BASE or STARTER KIT - that would include the 3 boards and enough pieces for several games.

(B) Offer expansion PIECE kits... these would get you more pieces for additional games.

(C) Offer expansion BOARD kits ... this would get you hexagonal boards and other 'specialty boards' Sometimes B and C would need to be combined.

POSSIBLE PROBLEM #1 - 3D pieces can be very nice. Traditional disk and tile pieces are nice. So there might be a big problem getting people to buy disk packs. But, it is possible, Backgammon, Checkers, GO, Pente all use simple pieces. If I was going to buy disk sets they would need to look nice. Molded plastic would have the best chance.

POSSIBLE PROBLEM #2 - Relatively small market. Case in Point: Navia D. has some highly detailed high quality pieces (some of the best I've ever seen) and, in my opinion was a great game that should have made it. But it didn't.

In closing, Starting with a Base or Starter Kit (regardless of how you want to do things) will let you complete the task in phases, rather than trying to get a big monster all out in one shot.