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| Ah, the original SNK logo that most fans love and adore |
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The Beginning
When you speak of companies such as Nintendo, Sega, Sony, Microsoft, SquareSoft, Capcom, and Konami, chances are good that
the average game player can tell you what games the company makes and what that company's significant contributions are to
the world of video games in general. Seriously, who doesn't know the names of the companies responsible for Mario, Sonic,
PlayStation, and the biggest monopoly this side of board games?
Now consider SNK. In the span of 25 years, the company has produced games such as Ikari Warriors, Fatal Fury, and King of
Fighters, as well as a modular arcade hardware setup called the NeoGeo MVS. These games and their sequels, along with the
NeoGeo, have made SNK an innovator in the world of video games and have pushed those other companies--primarily Capcom and
Nintendo--to improve and develop their products at a much faster pace and at a much higher level of quality than they would
without SNK in the picture.
Despite SNK's contributions to our beloved hobby, the company doesn't have the same brand or franchise recognition that these
other companies do. The average game player might recognize King of Fighters or Metal Slug or have a vague recollection of
the big-budget NeoGeo console, but he or she probably doesn't associate them with SNK. Some people aren't aware that SNK actually
went out of business in 2001 or that the company is back today as SNK Playmore.
The Formative Years:
The Beginning (1978-1989)
Before all of the name changes, before the NeoGeo, and long before the company became known for its King of Fighters and Metal
Slug games, SNK was just another startup trying to gain a foothold in the burgeoning video game craze of the early 1980s.
SNK (short for Shin Nihon Kikaku, or "New Japanese Project") Electronics Corp., the brainchild of Eikichi Kawasaki, set up
shop in Osaka, Japan, in July 1978. Initially, the company's purpose was to design and produce software and hardware components
for a variety of business clients. Shortly thereafter, noticing the rapid growth that was occurring in the coin-operated video
game sector, Kawasaki expanded the company's endeavors to include the development and marketing of stand-alone coin-operated
games. The first two titles out of SNK's coin-op division were Ozma Wars (1979), a vertically scrolling space shoot-'em-up,
and Safari Rally (1980), a maze game with little noteworthy value save for the fact that "Shin Nihon Kikaku" was spelled out
on the copyright notice. Things took a turn for the better with 1981's Vanguard, a side-scrolling space shoot-'em-up that
many people consider the precursor to modern genre staples such as Konami's Gradius and Irem's R-Type. SNK licensed the game
to Centuri for distribution in North America but ultimately started manufacturing and distributing the game itself when profits
exceeded expectations.
On October 20, 1981, SNK Corporation of America was born. The company established itself in a tiny office in Sunnyvale, California
(near San Jose), with the intent of delivering its own unique brand of coin-operated games to arcades all across North America.
The man chosen to run SNK's American operation was none other than John Rowe, eventual founder of Tradewest and current president
and CEO of Sammy Studios.
Riding high on the success of Vanguard, SNK shifted its focus solely toward the development and licensing of video games.
Between 1979 and 1986, SNK produced a grand total of 23 stand-alone arcade games. Highlights during this period include Mad
Crash (1984), an isometric shoot-'em-up similar in style to Sega's Zaxxon; Alpha Mission (1985), a wildly popular vertically
scrolling shooter; and Athena (1986), a side-scrolling platform game that would ultimately gain a large following when it
was ported to the NES in 1987.
Far and away, the company's most successful game during this time frame was Ikari Warriors. The game was released in 1986,
and arcade-goers flocked to this relatively new style of shoot-'em-up, which took you out of the worn-out and hackneyed spaceship
motif and put you in control of mercenaries battling it out against enemy soldiers in a jungle setting. Movies like Rambo:
First Blood Part II were all the rage at the box office, and players were eager to spend their quarters to mow down soldiers,
toss grenades, and seek cover in foxholes just like John Rambo was doing on the silver screen. Ikari Warriors was so popular
that it was eventually licensed and ported to the Atari 2600, Atari 7800, Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, and NES video game
consoles. SNK followed up Ikari Warriors with two sequels, Victory Road (also in 1986) and Ikari III: The Rescue in 1989.
Although SNK is best known today for its arcade beat-'em-ups--most notably the King of Fighters series--many people first
fell in love with the company back in the mid to late 1980s, when its games began to appear on the Nintendo Entertainment
System. Even though SNK had a decent arcade business going all throughout the early and mid 1980s, executives at the company
were interested in the profits that could be made through the development and licensing of games for home video game consoles.
Unfortunately, the home market was still reeling from the fallout caused by the legendary video game crash of 1983, and major
players, such as Atari and Mattel, were more occupied with lawsuits than with the marketing and production needs of their
flailing consoles. Nevertheless, one console manufacturer in particular seemed to weather the crash fairly unscathed: Nintendo.
SNK signed up to become a third-party licensee for Nintendo's Family Computer (Famicom) system in 1985 and opened a second
branch in the United States--this time in Torrance, California (near Los Angeles)--shortly after the Nintendo Entertainment
System was introduced. This new branch was called SNK Home Entertainment and would handle the distribution and marketing of
the company's products for home consoles, such as the NES. By this time, John Rowe had left the coin-op branch to form his
own company--Tradewest, which would later market SNK's Ikari Warriors series in North America. Subsequently, both halves of
the company were now being presided over by Paul Jacobs, who is notable primarily for having helped launch the company's innovative
NeoGeo hardware in North America during the early 1990s.
SNK flourished as the 1980s drew to a close. The company continued to develop successful arcade games (many of which made
it to North America, thanks to Takahito Yasuki's distribution company, Romstar), which it would later port to and publish
for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Alpha Mission, Athena, and Ikari Warriors were released for the NES in 1987; Ikari
Warriors II: Victory Road and P.O.W. followed in 1988; and Ikari Warriors III wasn't far behind, hitting store shelves in
1989.
Owing to the breakout sales of the company's NES ports, and perhaps as a response to waning arcade receipts, SNK began to
dabble in the development of original software designed specifically for the NES console. Two games came out of this effort:
1989's Baseball Stars and 1990's Crystalis (known as God Slayer in Japan). Baseball Stars captivated players with its franchise-style
hiring and trade features, which weren't yet common to sports games at that point in time, while Crystalis was the company's
answer to Nintendo's Legend of Zelda. It was an adventure-based RPG with a large overworld, tough bosses, and gorgeous cinematic
cutscenes.
1989 also marked the release of two new home video game consoles in North America: the 16-bit Sega Genesis and NEC's joint
project with Hudson, the TurboGrafx-16. Nintendo followed suit with a new system of its own, the Super NES, in 1991. Rather
than choose sides and become embroiled in the so-called system wars, SNK chose once again to refocus its efforts on the arcade
market, leaving other third parties, such as Romstar and Takara, to license and port SNK's future properties to the various
home consoles of the time. The engineers at SNK had an idea on their hands that would revolutionize the arcade industry and
could potentially mean millions upon millions of dollars in revenue for the company. That idea, stated simply, was the NeoGeo.
NeoGeo in Arcades, NeoGeo in Homes (1989-1994)
Sometime in 1988 SNK began toying with the idea of a modular video game cabinet for use in an arcade setting. Up to that point,
stand-up arcade cabinets typically contained only a single game. When an arcade operator wanted to switch or replace that
game, he'd have to completely rip the guts out of the existing cabinet or exchange the entire setup, display and all, for
another. SNK's solution to the problem was an arcade machine that could pack multiple games into a single cabinet, using a
cartridge-based storage mechanism similar to that employed by cheap consumer consoles.
The NeoGeo MVS (short for Multi-Video System) made its debut in 1989 and allowed arcade operators to display one, two, four,
or six separate games in a single cabinet. In order to swap in a new game, all the operator had to do was remove one cartridge
and exchange it for another. Changing the title cards and cabinet artwork for a new game took minutes, thanks to the custom
cabinet designed by Neal Zook, an experienced industrial designer who also served a brief stint as SNK Corp. of America's
operations director during the late 1980s.
The MVS was an immediate success. Arcade operators loved it because the setup time required for each game was nearly nonexistent,
the floor space required was minimal, and the cost outlay for new cartridges was barely $500--less than half of what a traditional
arcade unit cost at the time. Arcade-goers fell in love with the MVS as well. The first four games--NAM-1975, Baseball Stars
Professional, Top Player's Golf, and Magician Lord--took familiar genres and reinvigorated them with the kind of colorful
16-bit graphics and huge character sprites that players had been wanting to see in arcade games for some time. NAM-1975 spoke
to the shoot-'em-up crowd, Baseball Stars and Top Player's Golf attracted sports fans, and Magician Lord is widely regarded
as one of the defining side-scrolling adventure games of the 1980s.
Consumers had always dreamed of bringing the arcade experience home. That's why the Sega Genesis and Nintendo Super NES consoles
were so successful--they allowed gamers to get a taste of those large sprites and colorful backdrops in their own living rooms.
SNK wanted to take advantage of people's desire to play arcade games at home, but without making the same compromises on CPU
and memory horsepower that typical home consoles were forced to make. In 1991, the company released a home version of the
MVS, a single cartridge unit called the NeoGeo Advanced Entertainment System (AES for short). Initially, the AES was only
available for rent or for use in hotel settings, but SNK quickly began selling the system over the counter when customer feedback
suggested that there was an untapped market out there composed of grown-up gamers willing to bring the real arcade experience
home no matter what the cost.
Compared to the other home consoles of the time, the NeoGeo AES was a beast. Under the hood, the AES featured two CPUs: a
16-bit Motorola 68000 main processor running at 12MHz and a Zilog Z-80A backup processor running at 4MHz. Even though the
system's main CPU was "just" 50 percent faster than the 68000 processor found in Sega's Genesis console, the NeoGeo AES also
had the benefit of specialized audio and video chipsets. A custom video chipset allowed the system to display 4,096 colors
and 380 individual sprites onscreen simultaneously--compared to 64 simultaneous colors and 80 individual sprites for the Genesis
--while the onboard Yamaha 2610 sound chip gave the system 15 channels of CD-quality sound. Seven of those channels were reserved
specifically for digital sound effects.
Banking on Neogeo:
This type of arcade-at-home power carried a lofty price tag. Early adopters shelled out $599 for the console, two joystick
controllers, and a pack-in game (either Baseball Stars or NAM-1975). Thankfully, within a few months of the system's introduction
in North America, SNK lowered the cost of this package to $399 and added Magician Lord to the list of pack-in options. Additional
games cost $200 and up, each. The NeoGeo certainly wasn't a cheap hobby.
For anyone who could afford it, though, this was the Cadillac of video game systems. Each joystick controller was a full 2
1/2 inches tall, measured 11 inches long by 8 inches across, and contained the same four-button layout as the arcade MVS cabinet.
When you held one of these monsters in your hand, you knew you were playing with quality.
AES game cartridges were the size of VHS tapes and proudly proclaimed their ROM size right on the label. While the Super NES
and Genesis were just reaching 16 megabits with some games, the NeoGeo already had a line of games topping 100 megabits--affectionately
known as the 100 Mega Shock.
ROM size was a major selling point for the NeoGeo AES. Not only did each game have its ROM size printed on the packaging,
but the console itself had MAX 330 MEGA PRO-GEAR SPEC painted onto the plastic. The same message appeared every time you powered
up the system.
Ironically, 330 megabits was just a theoretical maximum, because King of Fighters '96 broke that barrier in 1996, clocking
in at 362 megabits. Today, games like King of Fighters 2003 and SVC Chaos are tipping the scales at over 700 megabits.
Believe it or not, the NeoGeo AES also happened to be the first home console to implement memory card save technology. The
prevailing justification for the concept was that players would become familiar with a new game on the MVS and subsequently
want to continue their progress when the AES version came out. The memory card slot on the AES console was identical to the
slot located on the front of every MVS cabinet. For $40, you could purchase a PCMCIA-style card that could store game saves
and high scores for approximately 20 games. Unfortunately, the NeoGeo memory card never really caught on. Each card could
only store roughly 2 kilobytes of data, which is pathetic even compared to the now-meager 128 kilobytes contained on a PSOne
memory card, and relatively few games actually took advantage of the feature.
Soon after the NeoGeo AES was introduced, SNK launched an aggressive marketing campaign to promote the system. If you visited
a video arcade or purchased an enthusiast gaming magazine back in the early 1990s, you couldn't help but notice the company's
"weenie" ads, which asked prospective purchasers if they were happy playing on a plain weenie system, such as the Sega Genesis
or NEC TurboGrafx, or whether they'd rather play on a full-blown hot dog with all of the trimmings, namely SNK's NeoGeo.
SNK soon followed up that campaign with its "Bigger, Badder, Better" ad blitz, which featured a menacing pitbull as its mascot.
The dog, along with the words "Bigger, Badder, Better," appeared on the first page of a series of advertisements in a number
of magazines. Once again, the goal of these advertisements was to convince wealthy game players that the Super NES and Genesis
just weren't going to cut it anymore. Instead of comparing the competing consoles using a food analogy, as was done in the
previous ad campaign, the pit bull ads simply laid out the hardware capabilities of each system in an easy-to-understand chart.
The NeoGeo came out ahead in all categories.
The pit bull inserts also transformed one of SNK's game counselors into a cult celebrity. Inside the multi-page advertisements,
the Game Lord (known to his friends as Chad Okada), would offer previews of upcoming games and provide tips about the games
that were popular at the time. Okada soon became the company's unofficial "mascot," answering letters sent in by fans and
appearing at industry trade shows such as the Consumer Electronics Show and the Electronic Entertainment Expo.
The pit bull campaign proved so popular that SNK ultimately decided to include the mascot on the quality-assurance seal that
was printed on the outside of AES cartridge boxes. The company wasn't consistent in its implementation of the pit bull seal,
however, and many games were released in variations with or without this "dog tag" embellishment. To compound matters, SNK
dropped the pit bull altogether when the company switched to an outside PR firm with the release of Samurai Shodown II (around
1994). Today, collectors place a premium on packages that include the "dog tag" seal.
The Original Capcom vs. SNK
As popular as the NeoGeo MVS was in arcades, and as innovative as the AES was to home hobbyists, the biggest thing to happen
to SNK in 1991 was Capcom's arcade release of Street Fighter II. Street Fighter II ignited the fighting game craze and once
again gave people a compelling reason to shut off their home consoles and start spending their quarters at the arcade. Street
Fighter II made its debut in April 1991.
SNK followed suit with a one-on-one fighting game of its own seven months later: Fatal Fury (known as Garou Densetsu in Japan)
for the arcade MVS. The characters in Fatal Fury were comparable to those in Street Fighter II, as were the large sprite-based
graphics. Fatal Fury even had something Capcom's game didn't: twin background planes that allowed you to take the fight into
the background for dodge maneuvers and cross-screen attacks. Fatal Fury gave the NeoGeo AES console the "killer app" it needed,
because while players would have to wait more than a year to play a watered-down version of Capcom's Street Fighter II on
the Super NES console, they would only have to wait until December 1991 to bring home the arcade-identical AES version of
Fatal Fury. Assuming that the whopper price of $250 wasn't an issue, of course.
Incidentally, many people have heard of SNK because of the popularity of the company's King of Fighters franchise, which didn't
come along until 1994. What you may not realize, however, is that King of Fighters '94 technically isn't the first King of
Fighters game. When Capcom introduced Street Fighter II in 1991, it was subtitled "The World Warrior." Not to be outdone,
SNK gave Fatal Fury a subtitle too: "King of Fighters." SNK of Japan really loved the phrase and couldn't wait to title a
game with it.
Capcom followed up in 1992 with Street Fighter II: Champion Edition, a sped-up version of Street Fighter II that also allowed
you the luxury of controlling the game's four boss characters. SNK responded with Art of Fighting, which didn't knock people
off their feet with its highly derivative gameplay and joke characters, but it did manage to impress all the same, thanks
to its use of scaling characters and backgrounds--a technique that would later be put to use in the madly successful Samurai
Shodown series.
Throughout the 1990s, Capcom and SNK continually responded tit for tat with newer and better fighting games. Capcom would
ultimately release 10 sequels to Street Fighter II, along with various Marvel Comics-themed fighting games, while SNK would
go on to release six Fatal Fury sequels, four Samurai Shodown games, and 10 installments in the King of Fighters franchise.
And that's not even counting SNK's stable of offbeat fighting games, such as Last Blade, Kizuna Encounter, or Matrimelee.
On a humorous side note, the main figure responsible for many of the later Fatal Fury, Samurai Shodown, and King of Fighters
sequels in SNK's lineup was Takashi Nishiyama, who had initially worked on Street Fighter II for Capcom! It's no wonder that
arcade-goers in the 1990s would get into heated arguments about which company's characters would win fights against the other
company's characters. The same people were making these games! It only makes sense that the two companies would ultimately
join forces to make the Capcom vs. SNK fighting games that we enjoy in the arcades and at home on multiple consoles today.
Thanks to companies like Capcom and SNK, arcades were making a strong comeback in the early '90s. SNK Corporation of America
was netting huge profits from sales of MVS hardware and games, while SNK Home Entertainment continued to get by on tepid sales
of its big-budget AES console. By 1991, SNK Corp. of America had outgrown its space in San Jose, and the decision was made
to relocate the company to join its other half in Torrance. The following year, SNK merged both halves of the company into
a single entity: SNK of America. By now, former president Paul Jacobs had left the company. In his place were Marty Kitazawa,
who would reign as acting president of SNK of America through 1996, and John Barone, former VP of sales, who was promoted
to vice president of the coin-op division. Kitazawa stayed out of the limelight, focusing primarily on liaison duties between
the US office and Japan. Barone served as the public spokesperson for the company and its NeoGeo line, at least up until mid-1993,
when he was let go for undisclosed reasons.
Fret not for Barone, however, at least not yet. He would return to run SNK in the late 1990s and take on the responsibility
of pushing the company's Hyper NeoGeo 64, Neo Print, and NeoGeo Pocket Color product line-ups--which all ultimately ended
in failure. Barone would also earn the ire of fans for failing to promote SNK's products in the wake of the Sony PlayStation
and Sega Dreamcast consoles. Both of these stories are told later on in our timeline, and we still have plenty to cover first.
Raking It in With Fighting Games
While Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting helped establish the NeoGeo as a viable alternative to traditional stand-up arcade units,
it was a game called Samurai Shodown that absolutely cemented SNK's reputation as "that company that makes fighting games."
Samurai Shodown, called Samurai Spirits in Japan, was released in 1993. The game used an upgraded version of the scaling graphics
engine that was originally featured in Art of Fighting, but the play mechanics, character designs, and quality of animation
were far more diverse and interesting than anything SNK had produced in the past. The characters looked as though they were
ripped right out of a samurai-themed Japanese animation film, and their attacks hit with all the meaty subtlety of a freight
train. Every slash and thrust was followed by a spurt of blood and a spine-chilling scream, and woe to the players who lost
a match, because there was a good chance that the winner's final blow would end up cutting them in two or severing their jugular
vein--unleashing a fountain of blood five feet into the air. If you've never seen or played Samurai Shodown, the mention of
blood and gore might lead you to compare it to Midway's Mortal Kombat, a game that was infamous at the time for its photo-realistic
portrayals of death and dismemberment. Truthfully, the two games couldn't have been any more different from one another. Samurai
Shodown had three times as many attacks and combinations, giving you a richer gameplay experience, and the anime-style graphics
made the blood sprays and killing blows seem almost tasteful.
Nonetheless, thanks to the brouhaha over Mortal Kombat, SNK of Japan got cold feet when it came time to release the AES version
of Samurai Shodown in North America. Fans of the arcade MVS game would be sorely disappointed to learn that all of the dismemberments
had been removed and that the red blood splatters had been transformed into white sprays of sweat. For the first time, paying
the $250 required to bring the AES cartridge home didn't mean that you were bringing home the complete arcade experience.
The censoring of Samurai Shodown garnered significant attention in the enthusiast magazines of the day, such as Die Hard Game
Fan and Electronic Gaming Monthly, and led some NeoGeo AES owners to have debug BIOS chips installed in their consoles that
would allow them to trick the game into displaying the blood and gore that was supposed to be there. Despite the controversy,
however, Samurai Shodown's popularity in the arcade remained strong; so strong, in fact, that the follow-up, Samurai Shodown
II (1994), developed an even greater following. Many fans consider Samurai Shodown II to be the high point in the Samurai
Shodown franchise, of which there are now seven installments. Two of these are rather terrible 3D games produced for the Hyper
NeoGeo 64 arcade setup, though, so most fans only include the five standard NeoGeo releases in their counting.
Samurai Shodown II also hinted at the company's desire to churn out fighting games as quickly as arcades could absorb them.
While this business plan didn't seem to affect the quality of graphics or the playability of subsequent releases, the rush
did cause SNK to skimp when it came to English-language localization. After dropping a quarter into Samurai Shodown II and
selecting a character, you were presented with this brief background story: "Long, long ago, there were a man who try to make
his skill ultimate. Because of his bloody life, it's no accident that he was involved in the troubles." Everything else about
the game was fine--perfect even--but those 30 words would cause a new phrase to be coined to refer to the kind of broken English
that SNK's localization team would become known for throughout the years. That phrase was "SNKgrish," a play on the more commonly
used "Engrish," which is a popular--albeit somewhat derisive--term for English phrases conjured up by nonnative speakers,
typically from Asian countries.
Along with Samurai Shodown II in 1994, SNK released the first game in what would become the company's longest-running and
most successful franchise: King of Fighters. King of Fighters '94 brought the various characters and storylines from the Fatal
Fury and Art of Fighting games together into a new style of team fighting game.
The basic play mechanics in KOF '94 were the same as in any other 2D fighting game, only now you could choose a team of three
characters as opposed to a single individual fighter. When one of your fighters was knocked out, the next in line would take
his or her place. To win, you had to knock out all three fighters on the other team. It sure sounds like a simple twist on
a trite formula, but the teamplay aspect had players flocking to King of Fighters '94 in droves. Year after year, SNK would
continue to release new installments in the King of Fighters series like clockwork. The significance of King of Fighters '94
to the company's eventual bottom line and reputation is immeasurable.
It didn't take long for Capcom to take notice of the teamplay mechanic pioneered in King of Fighters '94. By 1996, the rival
company had paired up its X-Men license with the Street Fighter franchise to make X-Men vs. Street Fighter. Marvel vs. Capcom
and Marvel vs. Capcom 2 followed a few years later. Eventually, SNK and Capcom would put aside their differences and join
forces to create another team fighting franchise: Capcom vs. SNK.
During the early '90s, SNK wasn't the only company producing games for the NeoGeo. Sammy unleashed a Zaxxon-inspired isometric
space shooter called Viewpoint in 1992 (which admittedly was ported just fine to the Sega Genesis in 1994). 1994 saw a trio
of third-party hits for the MVS/AES tandem: Fighters History Dynamite and Windjammers by Data East and the first installment
in Taito's groundbreaking puzzle series, Bust-A-Move. Other now-familiar franchises, such as Bomberman, Double Dragon, and
Magical Drop, would soon follow. Throughout the NeoGeo's life span, SNK also funded the day-to-day operations of a second-party
publisher responsible for a number of marginally successful MVS/AES games. That publisher was Alpha-Denshi, better known to
fans as ADK. While ADK wasn't exactly the RareWare of the day, the company did make a name for itself, thanks to games like
Magician Lord, Ninja Combat, and the World Heroes fighting game series.
In hindsight, one could argue that SNK's unwavering focus on the NeoGeo MVS/AES tandem was a situation of putting too many
eggs in one basket. Like it or not, games for the Super NES and Sega Genesis were getting better all the time, and people
were beginning to pour their hard-earned dollars back into new games to play at home instead of into the coin slots down at
the local arcade. Hard times were on the horizon, but to the company's credit, SNK didn't completely ignore the 16-bit console
market.
Realizing that many game players couldn't afford the pricey NeoGeo AES and would happily "settle" for weaker versions of the
system's games on the Super NES or Sega Genesis, SNK of Japan penned a licensing deal with Takara. To those of us in the English-speaking
world, Takara is best known as the toy manufacturer responsible for the production of Hasbro's massively successful Transformers
line. But it also develops and publishes video game software. Takara eventually developed and released 16-bit versions of
a number of SNK's biggest titles, including Fatal Fury, Fatal Fury 2, King of the Monsters, and Samurai Shodown.
Unfortunately for SNK, the company didn't invest the resources it should have into the development and publishing of its own
games for Nintendo's and Sega's popular 16-bit consoles. Takara's conversions were weak sauce compared to their AES/MVS counterparts
and were only mildly received. Capcom, on the other hand, took the initiative to internally develop and publish versions of
its Street Fighter II games for the Super NES and Genesis consoles. The end result was that people could play Street Fighter
II at home, albeit in a letterboxed format, instead of needing to visit the arcade to do so. Millions of copies of Street
Fighter II for the Super NES and Street Fighter II: Special Champion Edition for the Genesis were sold, compared to the roughly
50,000 copies of Fatal Fury and Samurai Shodown that trickled off store shelves. Capcom ate SNK's lunch, and with companies
like Electronic Arts, Konami, Nintendo, and SquareSoft giving gamers plenty of other reasons to stay home, the arcade market
was beginning to shrink. That spelled bad news for SNK.
The Fall of SNK:
The Fall of SNK (1994-2001)
NeoGeo CD
Even though SNK had a hit on its hands with the arcade MVS hardware, especially with the constant influx of new fighting game
titles, the AES console became increasingly more difficult to market as the caliber and number of games that were available
for 16-bit consoles grew. Devoted fighting game enthusiasts might be willing to shell out $300 for an AES and another $200
per game, but that didn't translate into the kind of massive profits that SNK was looking for as a company. The general public
was happy to get by with the huge selection of RPGs, fighting games, and action games available for the Super NES or Genesis,
the majority of which were selling for $60 or less. Around this time frame (1992 into 1993), the Sega CD and TurboDuo systems
burst onto the scene. Neither system would prove successful in the long run, but the buzz generated by the introduction of
the CD-based storage format suggested that the future of home video game systems would rest with cheaply manufactured high-capacity
discs and not the expensive low-capacity cartridges that had long been the norm.
The AES console's greatest disadvantage was the high cost of its games, which sold for roughly $200 a pop. In addition to
the development costs associated with a full-featured game, the memory chips and circuit boards in a NeoGeo cartridge were
extremely expensive. One of the advantages of CD-based consoles is that game discs literally cost nothing to manufacture.
If SNK could cut its expensive cartridge format out of the equation, the company would be able to sell its games for between
$40 and $60, a price level that would help the NeoGeo compete against the otherwise lesser-powered Super NES and Genesis.
That's what SNK execs hoped, anyway, when they released the NeoGeo CD in 1994.
September 9, 1994. On a single day in Japan, SNK sold through the entire first run of 25,000 NeoGeo CD consoles. Internally,
the NeoGeo CD was nothing more than a NeoGeo AES with a CD drive and 56 megabits (7 megabytes) of internal memory. SNK also
stopped producing its huge arcade-style joysticks in favor of a gamepad that was cheaper to manufacture and more in line with
the existing game controllers of the time. The system itself still cost $300, but games for the NeoGeo CD were priced at a
mere $40. From that point on, new games would come out for the CD unit just a couple of months after the corresponding MVS/AES
versions. The only difference in the software was the loading times that came along as a result of the slower CD-based medium,
a shortcoming that soon became the common complaint among many NeoGeo CD owners.
The benefit of the cartridge medium is that data can be moved from ROM chip to system memory in just milliseconds, which means
that the transition from one scene to the next appears instantaneous to the player. The loading time in between stages in
a typical NeoGeo CD game, such as King of Fighters '94, was 20 to 30 seconds--a nearly unbearable amount of time to wait between
matches in a fighting game. It didn't help that the "Now Loading" message that popped up during these transitions came in
the form of a goofy-looking monkey banging on a pair of conga drums. Ask any NeoGeo CD owner, and they'll tell you they absolutely
hate that monkey.
To solve the problem of lengthy load times, SNK released a version of the NeoGeo CD in early 1995 that used faster cache RAM.
The new system, called the NeoGeo CDZ, ran all of the same software as the NeoGeo CD, but did so with half the load time.
In Japan, SNK marketed the NeoGeo CD aggressively. Along with the introduction of a double-speed unit, the NeoGeo CD saw a
number of exclusive releases that the AES did not. One of these was Samurai Spirits RPG, a role-playing-game version of Samurai
Shodown that unfortunately never saw the light of day outside of Japan. Perhaps the most popular of the NeoGeo CD's exclusives
was Taito's hot puzzle game, Bust-A-Move, which SNK published for the arcade MVS and home CD system, but not for the AES.
By contrast, the company's introduction of the NeoGeo CD in America would prove less than stellar--a disaster by most measures.
By the time the system went on sale in the United States, in September of 1995, Sega's Saturn console had already been released,
and the Sony PlayStation was just days away. Both of these consoles had 10 times the horsepower of SNK's NeoGeo. Gamers were
hardly itching to bust out CD versions of SNK's popular 2D fighting games; they were champing at the bit to try out home versions
of Namco's 3D Tekken and Ridge Racer games on the snazzy new PlayStation. To compound matters, SNK of Japan didn't send SNK
of America the newer double-speed CDZ unit to sell in North America. Instead, the US branch was saddled with the unenviable
task of trying to market the older single-speed model.
SNK of Japan didn't fund a major ad campaign for the NeoGeo CD in North America like it had done in Japan. Few stores would
carry the NeoGeo CD, since the shelves were already packed with games and accessories for no fewer than four mass-market game
products: the Super NES, Sega Genesis, Sega Saturn, and Sony PlayStation. In the end, rather than push the underpowered single-speed
NeoGeo CD, SNK of America consolidated its operations and shifted its focus back toward the part of the company that was still
making money, the arcade division. Chad Okada and many of the familiar faces of the "Bigger, Badder, Better" era left the
company.
As a result of the consolidation, SNK of America put the lion's share of its resources into the sale and distribution of MVS
hardware and games. The distribution of AES software in retail stores stopped, direct orders for AES cartridges now took weeks
to fill, and the previously accessible customer support line quickly devolved into long hold times and voicemail boxes. It
didn't take long for the other shoe to drop--SNK of Japan downsized the US branch even further and moved its operations back
to San Jose, California. By the end of 1996, SNK of Japan was running the day-to-day operations of its American counterpart.
The Lost Years
For the most part, SNK spent the years between 1994 and 1998 trying to find itself as a company. On the arcade side, the King
of Fighters and Metal Slug series were driving MVS distribution. At home, the company was still selling AES and NeoGeo CD
games directly through mail order and was also reaching out to the mass-market console audience with versions of its favorite
fighting games for the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn.
Up until 1998, SNK's main source of income came from the King of Fighters franchise. Each year, a new installment was produced,
which would debut in the arcade and subsequently make its way onto the popular home consoles of the time. King of Fighters
'95, '96, '97, and '98 were published for the Sony PlayStation in Japan by SNK, and King of Fighters '95 and '96 were published
for the Sega Saturn. The two Saturn games are best remembered for the add-on RAM cartridges they supported, which significantly
trimmed CD access time when used. Sony Computer Entertainment America published King of Fighters '95 and '96 in North America.
King of Fighters '98 was brought stateside by SNK itself.
In terms of the number of good games published in a single year, 1996 was the year of record for SNK. King of Fighters '96,
Real Bout Fatal Fury, and Samurai Shodown IV were sucking down quarters in the arcades, which in turn sparked a modest resurgence
in the sales of AES consoles and cartridges. 1996 is also the same year that Metal Slug came to the NeoGeo. Unlike the fighting
games that were so typical of the MVS/AES, Metal Slug was a side-scrolling platform game with a military theme and a hilarious
cartoon style that proved popular to a decidedly wide audience.
After purchasing Nazca, the game's original developer, SNK would go on to publish four more Metal Slug sequels. (All but one
Metal Slug game was published by SNK. Metal Slug 4 was developed and published by Mega Enterprises in 2002 during SNK's "dark
period," which will be covered later on in this feature). Today, you can purchase and play near-perfect versions of these
Metal Slug games for the PlayStation, PlayStation 2, and Saturn consoles.
An AES version of Metal Slug was produced in small numbers and sold primarily in Japan during the summer of 1996. The game
took a few months to achieve popularity in the United States, and by the time players took notice and were interested in ordering
the cartridge directly from SNK, there weren't any left for sale. MVS versions of the game modified to work in AES consoles
routinely sell in online auctions for around $200 to $300, but original AES versions--complete with cartridge, clamshell box,
liner artwork, and manual--typically fetch upward of $1,000.
Metal Slug wasn't the only game released in limited numbers in 1996. By that time, SNK was manufacturing AES cartridges at
a rate that was just 10 percent of the rate the company was producing them at during the early '90s
Along with Metal Slug, SNK released two other limited-issue AES games in 1996. The first of these was Kizuna Encounter: Super
Tag Battle, a tag-team fighting game that's best described as a cross between Samurai Shodown and Capcom's X-Men vs. Street
Fighter. Kizuna is a weapons-based 2D fighting game where you can swap between two characters throughout the course of a match.
Kizuna Encounter isn't the greatest fighting game on the planet, but it is noteworthy for its rarity. SNK sold only a dozen
or so copies of the AES version of Kizuna Encounter in Europe and North America before shutting down production. As a result,
the game is a sought-after collectible for NeoGeo fans. One copy sold on eBay for a whopping $900 back in 1998, and in 2002,
bids for the game on a private message board escalated to more than $5,000.
Joining Metal Slug and Kizuna Encounter in limited release during 1996 was the final installment of SNK's popular soccer series,
Super Sidekicks 4: Ultimate 11. There are no official numbers to verify the total production run for Ultimate 11, but anecdotal
evidence suggests that there may be even fewer copies of it floating around than there are of Kizuna Encounter.
In addition to SNK's ultra-rarities, many third-party releases, such as ADK's Twinkle Star Sprites and Sunsoft's Waku Waku
7, became impossible to find barely days after they were released and tend to incur significant bids on Internet auction sites.
For 1997 and beyond, SNK embarked on two new ventures, achieving mixed success in the process. The first of these was the
Neo Print photo sticker machine, which you can still find in a number of malls and arcades to this day. If you've ever seen
a photo booth that purports to let you take your picture with a variety of colorful frames and cheerful backgrounds, chances
are it's a Neo Print machine.
Less successful was the company's Hyper NeoGeo 64 hardware. Hoping to catch up with the 3D movement, SNK came up with a new
64-bit motherboard that included both 2D and 3D capabilities. The system used custom cabinets depending on the type of game--a
stand-up cabinet for action and fighting, a cabinet with a light gun for shooting games, and a sit-down cabinet for racing
games--and used a cartridge-based storage medium similar to that in the MVS.
Under the hood, the Hyper Neo carried a custom 64-bit RISC processor, 4 megabytes of program memory, 64 megabytes of 3D and
texture memory, and 128 megabytes of memory for 2D characters and backgrounds. Unfortunately, the hardware was weak compared
to the powerful arcade cabinets being offered by Namco and Sega, and the games fell far short of expectations. Namco released
Tekken 3 in arcades in early 1997, and Sega released Virtua Fighter 3 later that same year. SNK produced Samurai Shodown 64
for the Hyper NeoGeo in December 1997. Its graphics weren't nearly as smooth or cutting edge as the games Sega and Namco had
put out earlier in the year, and, in fact, the game barely held up to scrutiny when compared to the PlayStation versions of
Tekken 2 and Soul Blade that were available at the time. Not surprisingly, a PlayStation version of the sequel to Samurai
Shodown 64, Samurai Shodown: Warrior's Rage, was later produced for the PlayStation by SNK. All told, seven games were produced
for the Hyper NeoGeo 64 during its brief two-year life span.
Around the time that SNK was introducing the Hyper NeoGeo 64 to arcade distributors, the company decided to once again expand
its operations in North America. Generally speaking, Japanese business people prefer to deal with people they know and trust.
In the fall of 1997, John Barone was asked to come back and manage the newly formed SNK USA. Barone's new title was executive
vice president. Right off, he installed his wife, Susan Barone, as vice president of SNK USA's consumer division. This wasn't
an instance of nepotism though. During the early 1990s and before their marriage, Susan (then Jarocki) was SNK of America's
operations manager. Just as he had done in the past, John Barone concerned himself mainly with the production and sales of
coin-op hardware and games, while his wife handled the marketing and sales of the company's PlayStation and Dreamcast software,
as well as the sales of NeoGeo AES cartridges to the niche of people still clamoring to purchase new games for the unit. Thanks
to the expansion of SNK USA, gamers in North America were able to purchase versions of King of Fighters '96, King of Fighters
'98, Fatal Fury: Wild Ambition, Samurai Shodown: Warrior's Rage, and Metal Slug for the PlayStation, along with King of Fighters
'99 for the Dreamcast, without having to resort to expensive import copies and black-market mod chips.
Despite the fact that things were looking up for SNK during the waning days of the last millennium, the company really wasn't
flourishing. Arcade attendance was way down, because of the success of Sony's and Nintendo's home consoles, and the fighting
game craze had all but died out. That didn't bode well for a company with a library loaded with fighting games.
In order to boost its revenue, SNK needed to once again go in a new direction. During the mid-'80s, that new direction was
publishing games for the NES. In the early 1990s, it was going after the enthusiasts with the NeoGeo MVS and AES. What would
SNK's new strategy be in 1999? Going after the handheld market, which at the time was 100 percent dominated by Nintendo's
Game Boy Color.
NeoGeo Pocket Color
Show anyone a portable video game system, whether it's a Game Boy Advance, an old-school Sega Game Gear, or the newfangled
Nokia N-Gage, and chances are he or she will ask you something along the lines of, "What kind of Game Boy is that?"
Like it or not, the name "Game Boy" is synonymous with handheld game systems. It was like that in 1998 also. Many companies--including
Atari, Sega, NEC, and Tiger Electronics--had already tried to break into the lucrative portable video game market with machines
that were vastly superior to Nintendo's Game Boy line but had been outgunned where it mattered most: the software. By and
large, the audience for handheld video games is younger than the audience for console games. Often, parents are buying games
for their kids--and parents tend to buy what they've heard of or what their kids already like. The Atari Lynx had Steel Talons
and Ms. Pac-Man. The Sega Game Gear had Sonic the Hedgehog. Take a look at the library for Nintendo's Game Boy though, and
you'll run out of breath reading off all the A-list franchise titles: Super Mario Bros., Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Donkey
Kong, Tetris, Pokemon...the list goes on and on. It's no wonder that Nintendo's Game Boy had a lock on the traditionally younger
audience that was playing portable game systems.
History shows that going up against the Game Boy is a losing proposition. Regardless, there are many teenage and adult game
players who would love to own a handheld system geared toward their tastes--something with simulation, sports, and fighting
games instead of the kid-friendly Mario and Pokemon games. It was with an eye on this untapped market that SNK dove into the
handheld genre with a system of its own, the NeoGeo Pocket, in 1998.
The NeoGeo Pocket went on sale in Japan in the fall of 1998. Like the Game Boy, it was a portable game system with a monochrome
screen and two buttons. Unlike the Game Boy, it possessed a 16-bit processor and a selection of games based on SNK's most
popular franchises. 10,000 NeoGeo Pocket systems were sold within the first month of release, and customers lined up to get
their hands on the initial set of launch games, which included Baseball Stars, King of Fighters R-1, Pocket Tennis, Samurai
Shodown, and NeoGeo Cup '98 Soccer. Unfortunately for SNK, Nintendo released the Game Boy Color just two months after the
NeoGeo Pocket made its debut. Sales of the NeoGeo Pocket quickly diminished. Rather than give up, however, Kawasaki sent his
engineers back to the drawing board.
The new mantra was color. In the spring of 1999, SNK replaced the monochrome NeoGeo Pocket with the NeoGeo Pocket Color. This
new unit incorporated a reflective TFT screen into the design. Now, SNK had a portable system that could compete with the
Game Boy Color, at least in terms of the hardware under the hood. Compared to Nintendo's GBC, the NGPC could display more
graphical sprites onscreen at a time (64 vs. 40) and display more simultaneous colors (146 vs. 56). That meant games for the
NGPC would look superior to those on the GBC. At the same time, the 16-bit Toshiba processor inside the NGPC used less power
than the 8-bit Z80 processor inside the GBC, giving the system a spectacular 40 hours of run time on a single pair of AA batteries.
The Game Boy Color, by contrast, would drain a pair of AAs in 15 hours on average.
SNK never officially put the monochrome NeoGeo Pocket on sale in North America or Europe, but customers in these regions could
mail-order the system and its games through the snkusa.com Web site. In total, SNK USA sold two NeoGeo Pocket units between
the months of April and August in 1999. Two. Ouch. Even though SNK USA did nothing to market the monochrome system, the primary
factor underpinning its weak sales in North America was that most gaming enthusiasts already knew that SNK was planning to
release the NeoGeo Pocket Color in the US and in Europe.
Eventually, SNK did just that. The NeoGeo Pocket Color went on sale in limited fashion in the United States in June of 1999,
with a full nationwide rollout in August. Toys "R" Us, Electronics Boutique, Software Etc., Babbages, and a whole host of
retailers carried the system. Print ads appeared in major enthusiast publications such as Electronic Gaming Monthly and Pocket
Games. Word of mouth was unequivocally positive. All of these factors helped the NGPC sell nearly 25,000 units during the
first two months of its US release, and all of the "big five" launch titles sold out their initial 10,000 copy press runs.
The launch lineup was pretty solid, anchored by Samurai Shodown II, Fatal Fury: First Contact, King of Fighters R-2, Pocket
Tennis, and Metal Slug: 1st Mission.
It was during this tumultuous period that SNK USA underwent yet another major personnel change. The executives in Japan weren't
happy with how the Barones were marketing the company's products in the United States. John Barone, the executive VP, was
having little success increasing the MVS's penetration into the arcade sector, and his ability to market the Hyper NeoGeo
64 and Neo Print photo booth in North America proved to be below the parent company's expectations.
On the consumer side of things, executives in Japan weren't pleased with how poorly the monochrome NeoGeo Pocket had sold
just prior to the introduction of the color model in North America, and they were livid with Susan Barone for her decision
to use cardboard boxes as opposed to plastic boxes for the system's US release. The Barones were stripped of their control
of the US branch in June 1999 and released from their contracts at the end of the year.
Replacing the Barones was Ben Herman, who was just hired on as SNK USA's national director of sales a few months into 1999.
Herman's history with the company went back much further, however, to the early '90s, when Paul Jacobs was president and the
NeoGeo AES had just been introduced. Back then, Herman's role was primarily as a consultant responsible for getting chain
stores like Toys "R" Us to notice and stock the NeoGeo home console. With the departure of the Barones, he was put in charge
of SNK's entire US operation.
Under Herman's watch, SNK's US marketing team decided to go all out for the 1999 Christmas shopping season. The company spent
$4 million to create television advertisements that aired on MTV, Comedy Central, Cartoon Network, and a variety of other
demographically focused channels. In addition, the software lineup for the NeoGeo Pocket Color was bolstered by what would
ultimately become the system's three most prominent releases: Sonic the Hedgehog: Pocket Adventure, Match of the Millennium,
and SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighter's Clash. Sonic was a big hit on the system, selling 110,000 copies overall and eventually
pairing up with the system as a pack-in in a $99 bundle.
Match of the Millennium and Card Fighter's Clash were both based upon the SNK vs. Capcom cross-license. MOTM was a team-oriented
one-on-one fighting game, similar to King of Fighters, while Card Fighter's Clash was a card battle game similar in spirit
to Konami's Yu-Gi-Oh!.
After the winter boom, English NeoGeo Pocket Color releases slowed to a crawl. Announcements out of the company pertaining
to future titles grew scarce as well. From November 1999 through April 2000, Japanese gamers got Dive Alert, Gals Fighters,
Cotton, Faselei!, Last Blade, Memories Off Pure, Cool Boarders, and Metal Slug: 2nd Mission. In the US, only Dive Alert and
Gals Fighters were released during that time. SNK of Japan had just been acquired by Aruze, a Pachinko machine maker, and
the home office didn't seem too concerned with how its cute little handheld was doing in North America and Europe.
At the May 2000 Electronics Entertainment Expo, however, fortunes appeared to be turning. The newly christened SNK Entertainment
Inc., with Ben Herman at the helm, displayed English versions of Metal Slug: 2nd Mission, Cotton, Last Blade, Evolution, and
Dynamite Slugger in its booth. The marketing team was jubilant, proudly announcing that the NeoGeo Pocket Color had reached
2 percent market share in the US compared to the Game Boy Color's massive share. That number wasn't enough to send Nintendo
running for cover, but it was enough for SNK USA to eke out a profit and enough to convince Toys "R" Us to begin placing demo
kiosks in its stores.
Metal Slug: 2nd Mission came out in late May and sold out its entire initial run of 10,000 copies. Fans were looking forward
to Last Blade, Faselei!, and Dynamite Slugger in June and to Evolution and Cotton in July. The most eagerly awaited was Faselei!,
which was a mech robot strategy game that completely flexed the graphical and audio capabilities of the tiny NGPC. Digital
music is common in handheld games these days, but back then, Faselei!'s MP3-quality intro music was a wake-up call. Sadly,
the June honeymoon would not come.
On June 11, 2000, rumors began surfacing on the Internet that SNK would be pulling out of the US and European markets. Admittedly,
while the NGPC was beginning to reach a watershed mark in the US, it was failing miserably in Japan. The system's initial
popularity there had died out when Bandai introduced its WonderSwan portable game system. The NGPC was selling fewer than
3,000 units per month in Japan. On the console side of things, the Dreamcast releases of King of Fighters 2000 and Fatal Fury:
Mark of the Wolves sold below expectations in Japan, while sales in the US of King of Fighters '98 for the PlayStation were
equally miniscule. To make matters worse, sales of arcade MVS machines and software were way down in both countries.
And then, on June 13, 2000, Aruze, now the parent company of SNK, dropped the bomb:
"In a move to regroup and re-evaluate its worldwide marketing strategy, SNK Entertainment, Inc. has decided to cease distribution
of NeoGeo Pocket Color hardware and software in the US and Canada, effective immediately. The company also will stop domestic
distribution of all Dreamcast and PlayStation titles." --Official SNK Press release.
Outside of Japan, with the exception of third-party license deals, SNK was effectively dead. Cotton, Faselei!, Last Blade,
and Evolution were never officially released in North America, though they were issued in the United Kingdom for a short time.
Today, complete sets (cartridge, box, manual, registration card) of these rare games fetch upward of $100 each on auction
Web sites. Unconfirmed production figures place the number of UK copies of Faselei! in circulation at around 5,000. Evolution
is more rare, numbering around 2,000 copies.
To illustrate just how near Faselei! and Last Blade were to a release in the United States, SNK had the cartridges for both
games sitting in a warehouse. All that was left to do was to assemble the cartridges together with the associated boxes and
manuals and ship the games to retailers. Instead, the boxes and manuals were recycled, and the cartridges were shipped back
to SNK Japan for remanufacture into products for the Japanese market. Later, after SNK itself slipped into bankruptcy, these
bare US versions of Faselei! and Last Blade were sold to liquidators, which is why you can now find them regularly for sale
at various Web sites and Internet auctions. Generally speaking, collectors don't have much interest in the US versions of
these games because they don't include an original box or manual. But for those NGPC fans out there who just desire to play
these games in English, the bare US versions are not a bad way to go.
In all, 30 games were published for the NeoGeo Pocket Color in the United States. SNK continued to release games for the NGPC
in Japan until 2001, bringing the total number of games available for the system to 85.
After the closure, fans of SNK would be left asking, "Why?"
The answer to that question is interesting for numerous reasons.
The Aruze Fiasco
Despite modest sales of SNK's properties for the PlayStation, Saturn, and Dreamcast consoles, and decent success with the
NeoGeo Pocket Color in North America, SNK Corporation was a company running in the red. By the time 1998 had transitioned
into 1999, SNK had already shut down its hardware manufacturing facilities and closed down its chain of NeoGeo World amusement
centers.
SNK needed a savior. Up to the plate stepped a company called Aruze, which had amassed huge wealth by developing and producing
Pachinko machines for use in the various gambling parlors throughout Asia. Pachinko is a game that requires almost no effort
to play. Prospective players put a few hundred yen into a machine, which in turn gives them a basket full of ball bearings.
Then they walk over to a Pachinko machine and drop the bearings into the holes at various speeds. The balls bounce off posts
and ramps inside the machine and, if the player is lucky, land in one of the prize holes at the bottom. There's also a variant
of Pachinko called Pachi-Slot, which Aruze is especially known for. In Pachi-Slot, a slot machine kicks in when the bearings
land in the prize holes. If the symbols match, the player can win a gaggle of Pachinko balls in return. Aruze wanted SNK's
intellectual property so it could develop Pachi-Slot machines based upon popular SNK franchises, so, in January 2000, Aruze
acquired SNK Corporation and its related companies.
After the buyout, Aruze did little to support SNK's video game business. The company funneled almost no money into SNK's development
studios and put only a haphazard effort into publishing SNK's properties on the successful home video game consoles of the
time. King of Fighters '99 Evolution and Fatal Fury: Mark of the Wolves are highly regarded as two of the best fighting games
available for the Sega Dreamcast. Unfortunately, by the time they were released, the Dreamcast was fizzling in popularity,
and the PlayStation 2 had just launched.
Without question, Capcom vs. SNK was the most notable game to bear the SNK logo during 2000, but it was developed and published
by Capcom, not SNK. Before the Aruze deal closed, SNK and Capcom signed an agreement whereby the two companies would produce
games featuring both companies' characters. Capcom went on to make Capcom vs. SNK and its sequel, which were playable in the
arcade and on the Sega Dreamcast and Sony PlayStation 2 consoles. And it was Capcom that reaped the majority of revenue from
those games.
For SNK's part, the company developed and released two SNK vs. Capcom games for the NeoGeo Pocket Color handheld--Match of
the Millennium, a fighting game, and Card Fighter's Clash, a card battle game in the spirit of Konami's Yu-Gi-Oh!. Both games
sold approximately 50,000 copies, but that didn't add much to SNK's bottom line, nor were their releases the result of any
action on Aruze's part.
Aruze did follow through on its desire to use SNK's intellectual property to make Pachinko machines based on the King of Fighters
and Metal Slug franchises, however, which irked SNK's founder, Kawasaki, to no end.
Subsequently, Kawasaki and a handful of SNK executives left the company. Rather than preside over his company's stagnation
and downfall, Kawasaki, along with five other former SNK executives, funded the formation of a new entertainment company,
called BrezzaSoft. Aruze then decided to shutter all of SNK's operations outside of Japan. SNK USA, then called SNK Entertainment,
closed. The North American rights to MVS coin-op distribution were sold to Apple Industries, and the rights to the Neo Print
photo system were sold to Apple Photo Systems. Obviously, with no revenue coming in from North America or Europe, SNK's earnings
went into an even speedier tailspin.
A group of Aruze's shareholders, primarily those that owned stock in SNK Corporation, filed suit against Aruze in 2000, accusing
the company of being directly responsible for SNK's operating losses, which totaled nearly 27 billion yen (roughly $260 million).
Between the lawsuit and SNK's growing debts, Aruze decided to put SNK into bankruptcy. Ironically, during the process, Aruze
sold the intellectual property rights for King of Fighters and other SNK franchises to BrezzaSoft--the company partially owned
by SNK's former founder, Eikichi Kawasaki.
SNK ceased to be on October 22, 2001.
BrezzaSoft would ultimately publish King of Fighters 2001 and 2002, which were developed by South Korean developer Eolith,
another company partially funded by Kawasaki. The only other SNK-related franchise to see the light of day after the company's
departure was Metal Slug. South Korean publisher and developer Mega Enterprise published Metal Slug 4 in 2002. Sadly, most
fans regard Metal Slug 4 as the weakest installment in the series.
Nevertheless, SNK is a company known for its ability to adapt. Past hardships resulted in NES development, the NeoGeo MVS/AES
systems, and the NeoGeo Pocket. Not even bankruptcy and closure could kill this tenacious company. SNK would come back to
life, eventually.
SNK Reborn
SNK Reborn as SNK Playmore--2001 and Beyond
Piecing SNK Back Together
This is the story of how SNK came back from the ashes.
In August 2001, not long before SNK officially dissolved into bankruptcy, former founder and CEO Kawasaki started up a new
company, called Playmore, and quickly purchased the intellectual property rights to King of Fighters, Metal Slug, and the
majority of other former SNK properties from the companies that Aruze had sold them to. Soon after that, Playmore acquired
BrezzaSoft. What Kawasaki had done, one step at a time, was to piece the old SNK back together again. All that was missing
was the name. Closing out 2001 and throughout 2002, Playmore would produce software for the NeoGeo AES/MVS systems, as well
as port many of SNK's popular games to the Sony PlayStation and Sega Dreamcast consoles.
Kawasaki would eventually have his revenge on Aruze, in a manner of speaking. After SNK went bankrupt and Playmore acquired
the rights to SNK's intellectual properties, Aruze went on to develop Pachinko games using SNK's trademark characters. Needless
to say, the appearances of Terry Bogard, Mai Shiranui, and the Metal Slug tank in games like Bakuchi, Aruze Kingdom 7, and
Ire-Gui were completely unauthorized by Playmore. On October 28, 2002, Playmore filed a trademark and copyright action for
damages in Osaka District Court alleging that Aruze was infringing upon Playmore's trademarks and copyrights concerning the
use of SNK properties in Aruze's Pachinko machines. All told, Playmore claims more than 6.2 billion yen in damages, which
amounts to roughly $58.5 million. In January 2004, a preliminary decision was handed down by the Osaka District Court determining
that Aruze unlawfully used SNK Playmore-owned trademarks following its sale of those trademarks. A final decision and the
awarding of damages are still pending.
Thanks to Playmore, SNK also reopened operations in North America. In December 2002, SNK NeoGeo USA Corporation was formed,
with the purpose of marketing the company's arcade games in the US and Canada. Shortly after that, SNK NeoGeo USA Consumer
Corporation was set up to handle marketing and distribution of the company's games for home consoles such as the PlayStation
2 and Game Boy Advance. In a fitting twist of fate, Ben Herman, VP of sales for SNK Entertainment Inc. until the June 2000
pullout, was asked to come back and become the president of SNK NeoGeo USA Consumer Corporation. Herman had been working as
a regional sales manager for Nintendo but found the opportunity to take the helm at his former employer too tempting to pass
up.
The newly formed US-based SNK companies made their first public appearance at the 2003 Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los
Angeles. There, SNK NeoGeo USA Corporation announced its intention to restart MVS distribution in the United States. That
meant that arcade operators could purchase King of Fighters 2002 as well as the upcoming SVC Chaos: SNK vs. Capcom, Metal
Slug 5, and Samurai Shodown 5.
As for SNK NeoGeo USA Consumer Corporation (man, that's a lengthy name)--company president Ben Herman was proud to announce
the impending release of the King of Fighters 2000/2001 double pack for the PlayStation 2, as well as the intention to release
home versions of Metal Slug 3 and SVC Chaos later on. The King of Fighters 2000/2001 pack is out now, but Metal Slug 3 has
met with resistance from Sony Computer Entertainment America's concept approval department. SCEA has a long history of denying
licenses on 2D-based games. Goemon, Dodonpachi, and Soul Hackers are but a few of the many games denied a US release by the
company's approval department, despite the fact that these and the majority of other rejected titles were released in Japan
without incident.
With SNK back on the scene in North America, Playmore's legal counsel also set its sights on counterfeiters. Going back to
1998, a number of companies had been running lucrative businesses selling liner artwork and rare AES games to hungry NeoGeo
fans. The problem is, many of these liners were "custom" reproductions, and some of the rare AES games these companies were
selling were not actually manufactured or sanctioned by SNK. They were unauthorized conversions of MVS games mechanically
modified to work in AES consoles. During the fall and winter of 2003, SNK Playmore obtained an injunction against a group
of four different companies, which resulted in the seizure of hundreds of AES cartridges.
In January 2004, SNK reached an agreement with two of these companies, acknowledging their right to sell legitimate AES cartridges
and authorized reproductions of liner artwork--while putting an end to their ability to sell modified MVS cartridges for home
use. Any legitimate merchandise that was previously seized was returned. Information pertaining to these and other lawsuits
can be found on Playmore's press Web page.
Legalities and business moves aside, the most significant announcement out of Playmore in 2003 came on July 7, 2003. On that
day, Playmore announced that it was renaming itself to SNK Playmore.
All around the world, the SNK name was back, and fans were ecstatic.
The Present and the Future
So what's to come for SNK Playmore? As of now (February 2004), SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos has been released into arcades and
for the NeoGeo AES throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. A PlayStation 2 version of the game recently went on sale in
Japan, and the Xbox version is scheduled to go on sale in North America in September 2004.
The latest installments in the King of Fighters and Metal Slug franchises--King of Fighters 2003 and Metal Slug 5--have just
been released into arcades as JAMMA-compatible printed circuit boards and as MVS kits. Worldwide AES releases of both games
are on schedule for March 2004, and versions for the PS2 and Xbox are in the works.
With the exception of the games mentioned above, however, there are signs that SNK Playmore is in the process of reevaluating
its position in the arcade sector and shifting its focus toward the development and sale of games for home gaming consoles.
During a press conference in January, Koichi Toyama, president of SNK Playmore, made the statement that the company "is moving
its core business focus from games to Pachinko slot machines." Continued Toyama, "We will concentrate our resources on the
rapidly growing and highly profitable business of slots." SNK Playmore intends to release upward of five new Pachinko slot
machines based upon various SNK properties within the next year.
When asked about the company's role as a game developer/publisher, Toyama stated that it will continue to release titles based
upon familiar SNK properties, such as King of Fighters and Samurai Shodown, for mobile phone and home console platforms. "We
plan to develop our business in new areas in an attempt to become a general entertainment company."
Sources in the know suggest that SNK Playmore is also currently trying to work out an intellectual property agreement with
Sammy whereby Sammy would secure the rights to publish and distribute SNK's properties within the arcade sector.
The relationship between SNK Playmore and Sammy goes back to September 2003, when the two companies signed an agreement to
produce a new King of Fighters game for Sammy's Atomiswave arcade platform. The Atomiswave is a modular arcade hardware that
uses interchangeable cartridges, similar to the outdated MVS. Since the platform is relatively new, Sammy is actively seeking
third parties to produce games for it. Currently, the most noteworthy games playable on the Atomiswave are a cadre of Sammy's
fighting games: Guilty Gear X 1.5, a remake of Guilty Gear X; Guilty Gear Isuka, a four-player version of Guilty Gear X; and
Rumble Fish, a new fighting game developed by Dimps, a studio that consists of former Capcom and SNK fighting game developers.
King of Fighters for the Atomiswave is still in development.
Even if SNK Playmore plans to withdraw from arcades, the company is still very much committed to developing and marketing
software for the lucrative home console market--a market that achieved $16 billion in sales during 2002 alone.
SNK Playmore has produced versions of King of Fighters 2002, Metal Slug 3, and SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos for the PlayStation
2 in Japan. Samurai Spirits Zero (Samurai Shodown 5 to those of us in North America) will make its way to the PS2 also.
It was originally the intention of SNK NeoGeo USA Consumer Corporation--the North American branch of SNK Playmore--to release
Metal Slug 3 and SVC Chaos for the PlayStation 2 in the United States, but due to problems getting the games past SCEA's draconian
concept-approval department, both games have been put on hold.
Coincidentally, SNK NeoGeo USA Consumer Corporation announced in January 2004 that it had signed on as a third-party developer
for Microsoft's Xbox console. The company plans to release SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos Live and Metal Slug 3 for the Xbox in
2004. Metal Slug 3 is on track for release in the spring, and SVC Chaos should be on sale by fall. Of particular interest
to fighting game fans, the Xbox version of SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos will have Xbox Live support for one-on-one matches via
the Internet.
A Game Boy Advance version of Metal Slug is also in the works and tentatively scheduled for release in Japan in July 2004,
with a North American version to follow in August.
Mobile phone gaming is another area that SNK Playmore is trying to capitalize on. Early in 2003, the company signed a deal
with PlayPhone, the mobile division of Sammy, to produce games for JAVA-enabled cellular phones. King of Fighters is the first
title to come about as a result of this deal, and a mobile version of Samurai Shodown is on the way.
Just as SNK did in the middle 1980s, it looks like SNK Playmore intends to make its mark on the new millennium as a software
developer for a variety of home video game platforms--and cellular phones--but will the plan work?
Conclusion
As you can see, the history of SNK is a tale full of twists and turns, and it's a tale that's still being written to this
day. Like any company, SNK has had its share of success and failure. Producing games for the NES during the mid to late 1980s
was an unmitigated boon for the company, as was the introduction of the NeoGeo MVS hardware. The NeoGeo AES, although not
a commercial success, still has its share of fans that are willing to shell out $300 or more just to get the latest games.
SNK stumbled during the late 1990s with its NeoGeo CD console, and the buyout by Aruze proved to be catastrophic, but that
tumultuous period also produced the NeoGeo Pocket Color--a handheld that gave Nintendo a run for its money and only failed
because Aruze shut down SNK's operations throughout the world. Moving ahead, the company's plans to develop software for the
PlayStation and Xbox consoles seem like a good idea, at least on paper.
Will SNK Playmore succeed in its bid to become a major third-party game developer? Only time will tell. One thing is certain--this
is a company known for its ability to adapt and roll with the punches.
Above all, SNK's status as one of the most influential players in the video game industry cannot be overstated. If not for
SNK, Capcom may never have tried so hard to come up with newer and better installments in the Street Fighter franchise. If
not for SNK, companies like Sega and Sammy might not have been pushed to develop their own modular arcade systems. If not
for SNK, Nintendo might have waited an additional year before introducing the Game Boy Advance. SNK keeps other companies
on their toes, and that's a good thing.
Until the final chapter in SNK's history is written, fans of SNK's style of games will still be able to purchase them for
their favorite home consoles--even if that console happens to be the NeoGeo AES. Far from dead, the NeoGeo AES is going strong
after almost 15 years, thanks to the devotion of a loyal and large fan base. If this article whetted your appetite for information
pertaining to the home NeoGeo console, you're encouraged to head over to Neo-Geo.com, which bills itself as "the Net's largest
NeoGeo base." In addition to the many articles, game lists, and photo galleries, you'll also find a discussion forum packed
with thousands of loyal and intelligent NeoGeo fans.
As you can see, no matter what becomes of SNK, the company has left its mark on millions of people throughout the world. :P
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