SNK

SNK Corporation (株式会社SNK, Kabushiki-gaisha Esu Enu Kē) is a Japanese video game company and successor to the original company Shin Nihon Kikaku and current owner of the SNK brand and Neo-Geo video game platform. The original company Shin Nihon Kikaku Corporation was founded in Higashiosaka, Osaka, Japan on July 22, 1978 by Eikichi Kawasaki. Initially called Shin Nihon Kikaku (新日本企画, "New Japan Project"), the name was shortened to SNK Corporation since 1981, which became the official name five years later.

SNK is most notable as creator of the Neo Geo family of arcade, home, and handheld game consoles, beginning in 1990. The Neo Geo line was halted in 2001, when financial troubles forced SNK Corporation to close in October 22, 2001. Anticipating the end of the company, Kawasaki founded Playmore Corporation on August 1, 2001. By October, Playmore had acquired all of the intellectual property of the original company. On July 7, 2003, Playmore Corporation was renamed to SNK Playmore Corporation, to more firmly establish itself as the successor to the SNK brand and legacy.

Traditionally, SNK operated primarily as a video game developer, publisher, and hardware manufacturer, focusing on arcade games but also working on console and PC games. In 2004, the company started manufacturing pachislot machines, which the company leaned heavily into before withdrawing from the market in 2015. In 2009, the company also entered an active wave of mobile game development. Classic SNK franchises like Metal Slug, Samurai Shodown and The King of Fighters feature heavily in its recent offerings.

On March 2015, the company was bought out by a shared venture of Chinese companies consists of Leyou, 37Games, and Orient Securities. The deal was finalized after 81.25% of SNK's share were purchased for $65 million.

On April 25, 2016, SNK dropped the Playmore name from its logo and reintroduced its original slogan "The Future Is Now" to signify "a return to SNK's rich gaming history". On December 1, 2016, SNK Playmore officially changed its corporate name to SNK.

In April 2022, 96% of SNK's share were acquired by Electronic Gaming Development Company, an investment firm under control of Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.

Why Their Future Is Now

 * 1) Unlike Capcom, they don't ignore many other respective, high-anticipating series like The King of Fighters and Metal Slug, or charge money for on-disc or overpriced DLC such as color swaps of characters.
 * 2) They also try to release games in a complete and finished state.
 * 3) The King of Fighters XIII was a huge hit on Steam increasing the popularity of The King of Fighters series, which made them a lot of money from this port.
 * 4) They compete against Capcom, which has the same headquarters, for the Street Fighter series, which means they made The King of Fighters series while the Tekken series is going on.
 * 5) They are not interested in making Pachinko and Pachislot machines anymore, which are legally led to gambling in Japan, and clearly shifted to video gaming. So this means that SNK is now anti-mh:crappygames:Konami, a horrible Japanese company that already shifted to mobile gaming and Pachinko machines as "less cost, more profit" businesses instead of AAA video game market.
 * 6) They made a lot of money from some video game ports, leading them to focus more on video game industry.
 * 7) They improve and update beautiful graphics.
 * 8) More frequent sales.
 * 9) They release multiple sequels with more important innovations like decent graphics, sound, etc.
 * 10) They made the Neo-Geo brand, which is one of the best arcade hardware and consoles around.
 * 11) And most importantly, In April 2019 SNK has announced they are coming back with new NEO-GEO consoles at works along with a new Metal Slug game work in progress!
 * 12) Unlike many companies, they did not remove their games from Steam in Russia following the Invasion to Ukraine, thus meaning they don't care for politics.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) They rarely make new game franchises (especially nowadays), and prefer to milk their existing ones instead (for example they milked Metal Slug Attack by focusing on the game's updates and pay-to-win features).
 * 2) They tried to insert The King of Fighters stuff in almost every game they release recently.
 * 3) They are known for having extremely hard (and unfair) boss battles, thus created mh:atrociousgameplay:SNK Boss Syndrome, the infamous so-called "nightmare" to players.
 * 4) Most of their games they produced while good, some can be bad or flawed like mh:crappygames:The King of Fighters XII, mh:crappygames:Samurai Shodown Sen and mh:crappygames:SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy.
 * 5) They support NFTs. We should remind you that they are harmful to the environment.