SNK Playmore
SNK Playmore (formerly
SNK) is a
Japanese
video game hardware and software company. SNK is short for
Shin
Nihon
Kikaku, Japanese for "
New
Japan
Project." 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 the
King of Fighters series.
Beginnings
|
SNK logo from 1988 to 2000. |
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.
|
The 1982 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.
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,
Amstrad CPC,
Spectrum and NES. They followed up
Ikari Warriors with two
sequels,
Victory Road and
Ikari III: The Rescue.
Even at this late point, the home market was still suffering from the fallout caused by the
video game crash of 1983. 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, 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.
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
Baseball Stars and 1990's
Crystalis (
God Slayer in Japan). 1989 also marked the release of two new home video game consoles in North America: the
Sega Genesis 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.
Neo-Geo and the Multi-Video System
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 $500â€"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 1990, the company released a home version of the MVS, a single cartridge unit called the
NeoGeo Advanced Entertainment System, or more simply, the NeoGeo AES. 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 the money. Compared to the other consoles of the time, the NeoGeo AES was incredibly powerful. It featured two CPUs: a 16-bit
Motorola 68000 main processor running at 12 MHz and a
Zilog Z-80A 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 simultaneouslyâ€"compared to 64 simultaneous colors and 80 individual sprites for the Genesisâ€"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
Top Hunter 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.
Neo-Geo Pocket
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.
Collapse and rebirth
The year 2000 saw the beginning of the end for SNK. In January, their poor financial status forced them to become acquired by
Aruze, a company well known for their
pachinko machines. Instead of using SNK's franchises for video games, Aruze manufactured Pachinko machines featuring popular series such as
King of Fighters. SNK saw little success on the video game market due to (reportedly deliberate) under-financing on Aruze's part, so the original founder, Eikichi Kawasaki left the company, along with other executives, to found the company named
Playmore.
The highlight of 2000 came when
Capcom agreed to create a series of fighting games featuring both company's fighting game characters. When
Capcom vs. SNK was released, it was a success but most of the profits went to Capcom as they developed the game. SNK released
SNK vs. Capcom: Match of the Millennium and
SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters Clash on the Neo Geo Pocket Color. Combined, both sold an unremarkable 50,000 copies. SNK closed its American subsidiary in the summer of 2000.
The company collapsed in October 22, 2001, filed for
bankruptcy and placed the intellectual property rights for the SNK franchises on bidding. Much of the company's employees disbanded, with a number of them joining together to found the game and hardware developer, Brezzasoft. During this time, SNK licensed game production and development rights for their franchises to several other companies, such as
Korean-based
Eolith and
Mega Enterprise, and Japan-based
Noise Factory.
In an attempt to regain control of SNK, Kawasaki's new company, Playmore, successfully bidded for and were awarded SNK's intellectual rights in late 2001. The company then began to bolster its assets and rehire many of the former SNK employees.
As a part of their efforts to reestablish their presence in the gaming market, Playmore purchased Brezzasoft and renamed it SNK NeoGeo Corp, giving the company an internal game development team. A Japanese commercial games distributor, Sun Amusement, was also purchased in order to provide the company with a arcade distribution outlet. International offices were established in South Korea, Hong Kong, and the United States under the SNK NeoGeo name. All of these entities were later consolidated into
SNK Playmore when Playmore regained the rights to use the SNK name for a holding company on July 7, 2003.
On October 2002, Kawasaki would eventually sue Aruze for copyright infringment over SNK's intellectual properties which was unauthorized by Playmore in which they still owned, for 6.2 billion yen in damages. In January 2004, a preliminary decision was handed down by the
Osaka District Court favoring SNK Playmore and was awarded 5.64 billion yen. Within that period of fall and winter of 2003, SNK Playmore obtained an injunction against a group of four different companies, which resulted in hundreds of AES cartridges being seized. But for the following year, SNK made a compromise with two of the companies as they were allowed to sell the AES cartridges, with conditions that they cannot be modified again and any legitimate materials were returned to them. SNK would at the same year discontinue the AES system, preferring to publish videogames in cooperation with
Sammy, using their
Atomiswave arcade board, which would provide them a more secure platform for new arcade releases.
As of mid-2006, SNK releases their arcade games on the Atomiswave, with each eventually being ported to the
PlayStation 2 and, in some cases,
Microsoft's
Xbox. They have been releasing an "online collection" of some of their older games in Japan for the PS2, containing emulations of their classic games, with the ability to play online by way of the
KDDI matching service. To date, none of these online collections have seen release outside of Japan. There are also original titles based on their existing properties, such as a new 3D
Metal Slug and the series.
SNK Playmore H.K. Co., Ltd. handles character licensing, as well as hardware and software sales in Asia (except for Japan and South Korea).
SNK Playmore USA Corporation handles software sales in the Americas.
["NEOGEO Group" SNK Playmore Official website, accessed January 10, 2006.]SNK Playmore has continued to release former SNK franchises under the Playmore and (later) the SNK Playmore banner, including games in:
*The
King of Fighters series
*The
Samurai Shodown series
*The
Metal Slug series*The
SNK versus series
*
List of games by SNK*
Neo-Geo*
Neo-Geo Pocket Color*
Hyper Neogeo 64*
SNK Playmore Official Homepage*
SNK Playmore (USA)*
Planet-SNK (Germany)*
SNK Playmore Corp. at
MobyGamesHistory
*
The History of SNK from
GameSpot*
The History of SNK from
Penny Arcade*
The History of SNK from
G4*
The History of SNK from
MobyGames
