SNK
SNK Corporation is a Japanese video game company. It was founded in 1978 as Shin Nihon Kikaku by Eikichi Kawasaki and began by developing arcade games. SNK is known for its Neo Geo arcade system on which the company established many franchises during the 1990s, including Art of Fighting, Fatal Fury, Metal Slug, Samurai Shodown, and The King of Fighters; they continue to develop and publish new titles on contemporary arcade and home platforms. Since the 2000s, SNK has diversified from its traditional arcade focus into pachislot machines, mobile game development, and character licensing.
In 2001, due to financial troubles, the original SNK Corporation was forced to close. Anticipating the end of the company, founder Kawasaki established Playmore Corporation, which acquired all of the intellectual property of the SNK Corporation. In 2003, Playmore Corporation was renamed to SNK Playmore Corporation. In 2016, SNK dropped "Playmore" from its name. It has been owned by the Saudi Arabian MiSK Foundation since 2022.
History
Beginnings (1973–1981)
SNK was founded in 1973 as Shin Nihon Kikaku and reorganized on July 22, 1978 as a stock company 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 include the development and marketing of stand-alone coin-op games.The company was nicknamed "Shin Nihon Kikaku" in katakana at first; however, since 1981, it has been changed to "SNK" by taking the initials from the Roman alphabet. The English copyright notation was also "SNK CORPORATION". It established 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, a vertical space shooter, and Safari Rally, a maze game. Game quality improved over time, with SNK outsourcing development of the games Sasuke vs. Commander and Vanguard to then-inexperienced Tose. SNK licensed various games to Centuri for distribution in North America, motivating it to start manufacturing and distributing games by itself when profits exceeded projections. In part due to the success of Vanguard, SNK began to gain fame and reputation. An American branch named SNK Electronics Corporation opened on October 20, 1981.
First Incarnation of SNK Corporation (1986–1999)
In April 1986, the company name was changed to SNK Corporation, adopting the initialism SNK as its trade name. This is because the Ministry of Justice at the time did not allow the registration of business names in alphabets. In November 1986, the American subsidiary SNK Corporation of America was born in 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 use and later for early consoles. Between 1979 and 1986, SNK produced 23 stand-alone arcade games. Highlights from this period include Mad Crasher, Alpha Mission, and Athena, a game that gained a large following when it was ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1987. SNK's most successful game from this time was Ikari Warriors, released in 1986. It was licensed and ported to the Atari 2600, Atari 7800, Commodore 64, 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 system in 1985. It opened a second branch 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 home 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 known for having helped launch the company's Neo Geo system outside 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 and Crystalis. 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. 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 as Romstar and Takara, were left to license and port SNK's properties to the various home consoles of the time with help 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 idea 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, developed by Fatal Fury and The King of Fighters director Takashi Nishiyama, featured 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 each game, minimized floor space for cabinets, and reduced costs for new cartridges to US$500—less than half of what a traditional arcade unit cost at the time.
SNK wanted to bring arcade games to people's homes without making CPU and memory performance compromises that typical home consoles were forced to make. In 1990, the Neo Geo family was created. The company released a home version of the MVS, a single cartridge unit called the Neo Geo Advanced Entertainment System. Initially, the AES was only available for rent or for use in hotel settings, but SNK quickly began selling the system through stores when customer response indicated that people were willing to spend money on home versions. Several franchises of games derived from it, including Sengoku, The King of Fighters, The Last Blade, Super Sidekicks, Art of Fighting, Metal Slug, Burning Fight, Savage Reign, Samurai Shodown, and Fatal Fury. The King of Fighters, Samurai Shodown, and Metal Slug series were continued on later consoles. SNK also helped publish third-party Neo Geo games such as ADK's World Heroes and Aggressors of Dark Kombat, Visco's Breakers and Ganryu, Noise Factory's Rage of the Dragons and Sengoku 3, Sunsoft's Galaxy Fight: Universal Warriors and Waku Waku 7, Sammy's Viewpoint, NMK's Zed Blade, Psikyo's Strikers 1945 Plus, Aiky/Taito's Pochi and Nyaa, Paon/Eleven/Gavaking's Nightmare in the Dark, Face's Money Puzzle Exchanger, Data East's Spinmaster and Street Slam, and Technōs Japan's Double Dragon and Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer. During this time, SNK also released stand-alone arcade games, some of which were ported to home consoles, including Vanguard, Alpha Mission, Athena, Ikari Warriors, Psycho Soldier, Touch Down Fever, Time Soldiers, P.O.W.: Prisoners of War, 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, sold with two joystick controllers and a game. Within a few months of the system's introduction in North America, SNK increased the cost to $649 and changed the pack-in game to Magician Lord. Alternatively, the console could be bought for $399 with one control stick and without an accompanying game. Other games cost at least $200 each. Joystick controllers contained the same four-button layout as the arcade MVS cabinet. The quality of AES games varied. Some, such as the Super Sidekicks series, were all-new creations, while others were updated versions of earlier successes, such as Baseball Stars Professional. SNK games were graphically bold and bright. Games such as Top Hunter: Roddy & Cathy 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 late 1998 and featured a monochrome 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 1999, SNK opened the Neo Geo World Tokyo Bayside amusement park as part 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 late 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.