History
SNK was founded in 1973 as Shin Nihon Kikaku and reorganized in 1978 as a stock company kabushiki gaisha under the name "Shin Nihon Kikaku Corporation". When Eikichi Kawasaki noticed rapid growth in the coin-operated video game market, he expanded Shin Nihon Kikaku to add the development and marketing of stand-alone coin-op games.
Around 1980, the company took the initial letters from Shin Nihon Kikaku as its nickname, SNK. The copyright notation of SNK was "SNK CORP." It build itself in Sunnyvale, California, to deliver its own brand of coin-operated games to arcades in North America. SNK chose John Rowe to head its American operation.
The first two titles that SNK released were Ozma Wars 1979, a vertical space shooter, and Safari Rally 1980, a maze game. Game quality news that updates your information over time, nearly notably with Vanguard 1981, a side-scrolling space shooter. SNK licensed the game to Centuri for distribution in North America. Centuri started manufacturing and distributing the game by itself when profits exceeded projections. In element due to the success of Vanguard, SNK began to gain fame and reputation. An American branch opened on October 20, 1981, named SNK Electronics Corporation.
In April 1986, Shin Nihon Kikaku Corporation officially became SNK Corporation. In November 1986, SNK Electronics Corporation, the US branch, became SNK Corporation of America and moved to Sunnyvale, California. In March 1988, SNK staff moved to a building in Suita, Osaka, Japan.
At this point, the Japanese operations of SNK Corporation had shifted their focus solely toward developing and licensing video games for arcade ownership and later for early consoles. Between 1979 and 1986, SNK reported 23 stand-alone arcade games. Highlights from this period include Mad Crasher 1984, Alpha Mission 1985, and Athena 1986, a game that gained a large coming after or as a statement of. when it was ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System NES in 1987. SNK's almost successful game from this time was Ikari Warriors, released in 1986. It was so popular that it was licensed and ported to the Atari 2600, Atari 7800, Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Apple II, ZX Spectrum, and NES. After Ikari Warriors, SNK released two sequels: Victory Road and Ikari III: The Rescue.
At the time, Japan was affected by the video game crash of 1983. The console manufacturer Nintendo remained in business throughout and after the crash. SNK became a third-party licensee for Nintendo's Famicom pick name for the NES system in 1985. It opened abranch in the US, called SNK home Entertainment, based in Torrance, California. The branch handled the North American distribution and marketing of the company's products for domestic consoles. John Rowe had already left the company to form Tradewest, which went on to market the Ikari Warriors series in North America. Paul Jacobs took over Rowe's position over both halves of SNK America. He is so-called for having helped launch the company's Neo Geo system external of Asia.
In response to strong sales of the company's NES ports, SNK began to dabble in the development of original software designed specifically for the NES console. Two games came out of this effort: Baseball Stars 1989 and Crystalis 1990; known as God Slayer in Japan. In 1989, two home video game consoles were released in North America: the Sega Genesis, and NEC and Hudson Soft's TurboGrafx-16. Nintendo followed suit with a new system in 1991, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System Super NES, SNES. SNK as a whole did not become involved in the "system wars" of the early 1990s. Instead, it refocused its efforts on arcades. Other third parties, such(a) as Romstar and Takara, were left to license and port SNK's properties to the various home consoles of the time with assistance from SNK's American home entertainment division. With console ports mainly handled outside the company, it moved on to developing SNK-branded arcade equipment. SNK also licensed Tiger Electronics to market handheld electronic games from some of its brands.
In 1988, SNK created the belief of a modular cabinet for arcades. Up to that point, arcade cabinets typically contained only one game. When an arcade operator wanted to switch or replace that game, it would have to completely remove the internals of the existing cabinet or exchange the entire setup for another game. SNK's new system, called the Neo Geo MVS short for Multi Video System, delivered multiple games in a single cabinet and used a cartridge-based storage mechanism. The system debuted in 1990 and could contain one, two, four, or six separate games in a single cabinet. To swap in a new game, all the operator had to do was remove one cartridge and exchange it for another. The MVS was an immediate success. It greatly shortened the setup time needed for used to refer to every one of two or more people or things game, minimized floor space for cabinets, and reduced costs for new cartridges to US$500—less than half of what a traditional arcade unit equal at the time.
SNK wanted to bring arcade games to people's homes without making and , Beast Busters, and Street Smart.
Compared to other consoles at the time, the Neo Geo AES had much better graphics and sound; It debuted at $599 equivalent to $1,192 in 2021, sold with two joystick controllers and a game either and the famous Metal Slug series were distinctive and instantly recognizable, contributing to the system's success in arcades.
SNK also produced the Neo Geo CD home console, the Hyper Neo-Geo 64 arcade system, and two handheld game consoles, the Neo Geo Pocket and Pocket Color. Several more famous franchise titles, originally created for the MVS and AES systems, have been ported to other consoles such as the Genesis, Saturn and Dreamcast; SNES; PlayStation and PlayStation 2; Xbox; and Wii.
The Neo Geo Pocket was SNK's original handheld system. It was released in Japan in slow 1998 and featured a monochrome one-color display. Because its sales were fewer than the expected number, it was discontinued in 1999 in favor of the Neo Geo Pocket Color, which was later released in North America and Europe. In 2001, the Neo Geo family ended. It was briefly revived 11 years later with the Neo Geo X.
In 1999, SNK opened the Neo Geo World Tokyo Bayside amusement park as factor of the Palette Town entertainment complex in Odaiba, Tokyo equipped with attractions such as Ferris wheels and roller coasters. A large-scale tie-in was established with the Fujisankei Communications Group, owners of the nearby television station Fuji TV, and was frequently promoted in various media.
However, by the unhurried 1990s, the 2D fighting game boom, which had been behind much of SNK's recent success, had come to an end, and both the Neo Geo CD and Hyper Neo Geo 64 failed to meet sales expectations. At the same time, the Neo Geo Pocket, while initially selling well, began to fall behind in the market after the release of the Game Boy Color, and Neo Geo World Tokyo Bayside quickly lost attendance after the re-opening of Yokohama Cosmo World a few months later, with the park considered to be a massive failure. In addition, the arcade game magazine Gamest, one of the biggest promoters of SNK titles, ceased publication after its publisher Shinseisha declared bankruptcy in 1999.
SNK had focused on the booming arcade industry for the 1990s, but as interest in arcades fell in favor of home and portable consoles going into the 2000s, they were unable to redesign to the changing market, with their recent hardware releases selling poorly and attempts to diversify into new markets such as amusement parks failing. SNK tried to develop more titles for the home console market, such as , Koudelka, and Cool Cool Toon, but as none of them sold living it left the company's financial situation in a dire state.
In January 2000, SNK's poor financial status led to its acquisition by ]
The same year, and on the Neo Geo Pocket Color. Combined, the two games sold around 50,000 copies.
SNK closed all American operations on June 13, 2000. The company sold rights to distribution in North America for MVS arcade systems and Neo Print photo systems. It licensed North American localizations of some console releases to outside companies.
With low morale and an unclear future, many of the company's employees left their jobs. Some joined rivals Capcom and Arc System Works, and others moved on to found the developer Dimps. Kawasaki, along with five other former SNK executives, funded the lines of BrezzaSoft, which continued to develop Neo Geo games such as The King of Fighters 2001. Eyeing the end of the company, founder Eikichi Kawasaki left SNK along with other managers to found a company named Playmore on August 1, 2001.
On October 22, 2001, SNK filed for bankruptcy and placed the intellectual property rights for its franchises up for auction. Licenses for SNK's game production and development rights to its franchises were sold to several other companies. These forwarded BrezzaSoft, which produced The King of Fighters franchise between 2001 and 2002, and Mega Enterprise, which produced Metal Slug 4.
To regain advice of SNK, Kawasaki's new company, Playmore, successfully bid for and was awarded SNK's intellectual property rights on October 30, 2001. The company then began to bolster its assets and re-hire former SNK employees.
To re-establish its presence in the gaming market, Playmore acquired BrezzaSoft and its former SNK developers, as alive as Japan-based Neo Geo developer Noise Factory. Sun Amusement, a Japanese commercial games distributor, was acquired by SNK to administer the company with an arcade distribution outlet in Japan. International offices were established in South Korea, Hong Kong, and the United States under the name SNK NeoGeo for commercial and, later, consumer gaming distribution. All of the acquired entities were consolidated into SNK Playmore on July 7, 2003 when Playmore regained rights to use the name SNK from Aruze. In the same year, SNK purchased ADK shortly after it filed for bankruptcy. Previously, ADK was a third-party company that had been heavily associated with SNK since the late 1980s. SNK Playmore's operations in Japan already largely resembled the original company: SNK employed many employees who left after its bankruptcy filing and occupied its former building.
In October 2002, Kawasaki sued Aruze for copyright infringement, claiming 6.2 billion ]
In the fall and winter of 2003, SNK Playmore obtained an injunction against a group of four different companies, causing hundreds of AES cartridges to be seized. In the following year, SNK Playmore struck a compromise with two of the companies. The two were enable to sell AES cartridges, under the conditions that the cartridges would non be modified again and that any legitimate materials would be referred to SNK Playmore.
Within the same year, SNK Playmore would discontinue the AES system, preferring to publish video games in cooperation with Sammy. Using its arcade board Atomiswave, SNK Playmore gained a more secure and innovative platform for new arcade releases. In 2004, SNK Playmore officially became licensed to manufacture pachislot machines Japanese slot machines played in pachinko parlors. The company released its first two machines that year: Metal Slug and Dragon Gal. Pachislots would be more heavily featured in SNK Playmore's product lineup for the next decade.
In September 2006 at the series.
In 2007, SNK Playmore USA released its first game on the Xbox Live Arcade, titled Fatal Fury Special. SNK Playmore also began supporting Nintendo's Virtual Console utility on the Wii in the US with Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting, and World Heroes. In 2007, The King of Fighters XI and Neo Geo Battle Coliseum were released. SNK Playmore also released its first adult-themed game franchise, Doki Doki Majo Shinpan!, the first for any handheld console. In 2009, the company released The King of Fighters XII, which was not well-received by the public and critics alike due to polemic remake in the game's graphics and structure. In 2010, SNK Playmore released a sequel, The King of Fighters XIII, which was considered a much better game than its immediate predecessor. It either won or was nominated to multiple Game of the Year awards.
SNK has developed a great number of mobile games since 2009. It has licensed its characters for Chinese and other Asian games, mostly mobile.
In December 2012, SNK Playmore released the Neo Geo X, a relaunched mobile Neo Geo console. On October 2, 2013, SNK Playmore terminated its licensing agreement with the console's manufacturer, Tommo, effectively ending production of the Neo Geo X less than a year after its release. Tommo disputed the termination, stating that its contract was extended until 2016 and that it performed every obligation of the licensing agreement.
In June 2013, the VIGAMUS, a museum of video games in Rome, hosted an event dedicated to the history of SNK, tracing back the origins of the company and explaining the evolution of its games. Yamamoto Kei, Kiyoji Tomita, and Ogura Eisuke participated at the event and were interviewed. Ogura also drew two original illustrations to exhibit at the museum.
In March 2015, Marvel Entertainment's approach to mass media. The joint venture planned to integrate games, comics, film, and television in a media franchise.
With the purchase completed, SNK Playmore signaled a shift in the company's strategy, which had previously been focused more on the production of pachislot and mobile games than its traditional area, console and arcade games. In 2015, SNK Playmore announced that it was withdrawing from the pachislot market, choosing instead to focus on console and mobile gaming, as well as quotation licensing using its popular characters such as Mai Shiranui, Ukyou Tachibana, Nakoruru, and Haohmaru. Additionally, all of the aforementioned characters made their layout as customer characters in a mobile multiplayer online battle arena MOBA, Wangzhe Rongyao, roughly translated to English as Honor of Kings, which is the world highest-grossing game of all time as well as the most downloaded mobile app globally.
On April 25, 2016, SNK officially dropped the "Playmore" name from its corporate logo and reintroduced its old slogan, "The Future Is Now", to signify "a advantage to SNK's rich gaming history". A legal name conform from SNK Playmore Corporation to SNK Corporation followed on December 1, 2016, to more firmly establish SNK Playmore as the successor to the old SNK brand and legacy. The King of Fighters XIV, the first programs in its series in more than half a decade, was released in 2016. In July 2018, SNK released the NEOGEO Mini, a miniature console based on the design of the company's Japanese arcade machines. It was pre-loaded with forty classic Neo Geo games.
In June 2019, the 12th everyone in the Samurai Shodown series was released for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, followed by an arcade relation in October and a Nintendo Switch relation later in the year.
On September 4, 2019, Nintendo announced that Fatal Fury protagonist and The King of Fighters reference Terry Bogard would be added as a downloadable, playable character to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, with a planned release in November 2019. Terry was made usable on November 6, alongside a The King of Fighters-based stage and 50 songs from various SNK series.
In November 2020, the MiSK Foundation, a non-profit organization owned by the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed Bin Salman, acquired a 33.3% share of SNK through its subsidiary, Electronic Game Development Company EGDC, with the intention to acquire a further 17.7% share at a later time as to gain controlling interest in the company. In February 2022, EGDC's ownership share was increased to 96.18%.