(formerly '''SNK''') is a
Japan ese
Video Game hardware and software company. SNK is short for '''S'''hin '''N'''ihon '''K'''ikaku, japanese for "'''N'''ew '''J'''apan '''P'''roject." The company was founded in
Osaka ,
Japan , in July
1978 by
Eikichi Kawasaki with the intention of designing and producing software as well as hardware components for a variety of clients. They are most notable for creating the
Neo-Geo arcade system, and several franchises of games including the ''
Metal Slug '' series, the ''
Samurai Shodown '' series, ''
Fatal Fury '' series and most distinctly the ''
King Of Fighters '' series.
When Eikichi Kawasaki noticed the rapid growth that was occurring in the coin-op video game market, he expanded SNK to include the development and marketing of stand-alone coin-op games. The first two titles out of the new coin-op division were ''Ozma Wars'' 1979, a vertically scrolling space shooter and ''Safari Rally'' 1980, a maze game. Game quality improved over time, most notably with 1981's ''Vanguard'', a side-scrolling space shooter that many people consider the precursor to modern classics such as ''Gradius'' and ''R-Type''. SNK licensed the game to
Centuri for distribution in
North America , who ultimately started manufacturing and distributing the game themselves when profits exceeded expectations.
SNK Logo combined with original
1978 "S" Logo.]]On
October 20 ,
1981 , the North American division (SNK Corporation of America) was opened. They established themselves in
Sunnyvale ,
California with the intent of delivering their own brand of coin-operated games to arcades in North America. The man chosen to run the American operation was John Rowe, the eventual founder of
Tradewest and current (2005) president and CEO of
High Moon Studios .
arcade hit, ''
Ikari Warriors ''.]]
SNK Corporate in Japan had at this point already shifted its focus solely toward developing and licensing video games for arcade use and (later) for early consoles. Between 1979 and 1986 they produced 23 stand-alone arcade games. Highlights from this period include ''Mad Crash'' (1984), ''Alpha Mission'' (1985), and ''
Athena '' (1986), a game that gained a large following when it was ported to the
NES in 1987. Their most successful game from this time frame was ''
Ikari Warriors '', released in 1986. ''Ikari Warriors'' was so popular that it was eventually licensed and ported to the
Atari 2600 ,
Atari 7800 ,
Commodore 64 ,
Commodore Amiga , and NES. They followed up ''Ikari Warriors'' with two
Sequel s, ''Victory Road'' and ''Ikari III: The Rescue''.
Even at this late point, the home market was still suffering from the fallout caused by the . 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 , based in
Torrance, California and called
SNK Home Entertainment that would handle the North American distribution and marketing of the company's products for home consoles. By this time, John Rowe had left the company to form
Tradewest , which went on to market SNK's ''Ikari Warriors'' series in North America. Subsequently, both halves of SNK America were now being presided over by
Paul Jacobs , who is notable primarily for having helped launch the company's
Neo-Geo system outside of
Asia .
'' for the
NES .]]
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: 1989's '' and
NEC's joint project with
Hudson , the
TurboGrafx-16 . Nintendo followed suit with a new system in 1991, the
Super NES . Rather than become involved in the early 90s system wars, SNK Corporate in Japan jointly with SNK of America chose to refocus their efforts on the arcade market, leaving other third parties, such as
Romstar and
Takara , 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 being handled outside the company, they moved on to developing SNK branded arcade equipment.
During 1988 SNK began toying with the idea of a modular cabinet for arcades; up to that point, arcade cabinets typically contained only a single game. When an arcade operator wanted to switch or replace that game, they would have to completely remove the internals of the existing cabinet or exchange the entire setup for another game. SNK's new system, called Neo-Geo MVS (short for Multi-Video System), featured multiple games in a single cabinet and used a cartridge-based storage mechanism. The system debuted in 1989 and could contain 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.
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. But SNK also wanted to take advantage of people's desire to play arcade games at home, but without making the same compromises on CPU and memory performance 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
68000 main processor running at 12 MHz and a
Zilog Z-80 A backup processor running at 4 MHz. The system's main CPU was 50% faster than the 68000 processor found in Sega's Genesis console and 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 with seven channels reserved specifically for
Digital sound effects.
Nonetheless, this type of power carried a large price tag; the console debuted at
$ 599, which included two joystick controllers and a game (either ''Baseball Stars'' or ''NAM-1975''). 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. Other games cost $200 and up - each. 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.
The quality of the games obviously 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, with games such as ''
WindJammers '' and the famous ''Metal Slug'' series being distinctive and instantly recognisable, no doubt contributing to the system's success in the arcades.
They also produced a
Neo Geo CD and
CDZ , a failed, 64-bit
Neo-Geo 64 system and two handheld systems, the
Neo Geo Pocket and
Pocket Color . Several of their 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 , and
Xbox .
The
Neo Geo Pocket was SNK's original
Hand Held System . It was released in
Japan in late
1998 , and discontinued in
1999 , with the advent of the
Neo Geo Pocket Color , due to lower than expected sales with the Monochrome Neo Geo Pocket. It was later released in North America and
Europe .
Even though it had a short life, there were some significant games released on the system such as ''
Samurai Shodown '', and ''
King Of Fighters R-1 ''.
.]]
The year 2000 saw the beginning of the end for SNK. In January, their poor financial status forced them to become acquired by '' on the Neo Geo Pocket Color. Combined, both sold an unremarkable 50,000 copies. SNK closed its American subsdiairy in the summer of 2000.
The company collapsed in
October 2001 , filed for
Bankruptcy and began selling off their intellectual properties to several other companies such as
Korean -based
Eolith and
Mega Enterprise and Japan-based
Noise Factory .
In an (eventually successful) attempt to regain control of the company, Kawasaki had anticipated SNK's bankruptcy and founded in early 2001 a new holding company by the name of
Playmore . Kawasaki spent most of 2001 and 2002 chasing down the rights to the intellectual properties SNK had once owned. As of mid-2002, Kawasaki had regained all of SNK's property, most recently the SNK name itself. As such the company name was changed to SNK Playmore in 2003.
handles character licensing, as well as hardware and software sales in Asia (except for Japan and South Korea).
handles software sales in the Americas.
SNK Playmore has continued to release former SNK franchises under the Playmore and (later) the SNK Playmore banner, including games in:
