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Games Entertainment

Farewell to SNK 161

Posted by michael from the jump-out-when-the-tank-starts-smoking dept.
pliew writes: "There's a good article over at classic gaming with a reader's digest version of the history of SNK. I'm sure all readers here have at one point experienced video games on the neogeo console."
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Farewell to SNK More

Farewell to SNK

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  • I must have bought versions of Samurai Spirits for half a dozen platforms. It has been really sad watching SNK fall into obscurity over the last few years. Especially with the comparatively shallow games of Capcom continuing to rake in the bucks.
    • NeoGeo? Samurai Spirits?


      My favorite SNK product was a NES game called 'Athena'. I used to call their customer support line and get tips for the game.

      • My favorite SNK product was a NES game called 'Athena'

        Ah yes Athena, the game that gave us the Athena (albiet a bit better clothed) that would appear in lots of SNK fighting games. That NES game was my first exposure to SNK.
        My theory on why Capcom is more popular is because their games appeal to scrubs, especially arcade scrubs more than anything. (Though they can be played on a high level.)
        Man I'm going to miss SNK, they tried to innovate in fighting games and produced some of the greatest 2d fighting games I've ever played. Too bad it wasn't enough to save the company.

        • You got it, although in a somewhat demeaning way towards Capcom players.

          You can't really categorize all Capcom fighters together. At the very least, there are the scrub dial-a-games (all flash -- Marvel), the intermediate games (lotsa flash, but mostly meat -- Vampire, Warzard), the upper-intermediate games (lotsa meat, but with some throwbacks like custom combos -- SFZ), the basic games (few gimmicks, awesome gameplay -- SF2, CvS), and the hardcore games (where you are expected to possess moderate to advanced skills in order to enjoy the game, like SF3). I personally have no taste for 3-D fighters of any kind, and I really dislike scrubby 2-D games. According to the categories I used, I pretty much enjoy their upper-intermediate and basic games, and can enjoy the occasional intermediate and hardcore game -- but only in moderation.

          SNK's thing was always upper-intermediate and basic stuff too, always leaning much more towards hardcore than scrubby. Almost all of their 2-D fighters since FF2 rock IMO, because of this.

          < tofuhead >

          • My single favorite fighting game is the original Street Fighter II. The combos were an accident and required actual knowledge and practice and if you really truly knew how to play you could pop a quarter in and play through the single player version with the amusing interlude of challengers every once in a while.

            I was a faithful SFII player through Champion and Turbo but after that the whole genre was ruined (save for the Virtua Fighter series).
  • I think I like Penny Arcade's response [penny-arcade.com] too it more, though.
  • I mean... Osama wars [classicgaming.com]???
  • ..somehow I do not feel like crying - companies come and go what is TBFD?

    Change is good. (evil grin of survivor of 70% layoffs :)

    • Re:Somehow.. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by czardonic ( 526710 )
      what is TBFD?

      This is just one more nail in the coffin of quality, hand-drawn, 2D arcarde style games. Many generes have benefited or even spawned from the switch to 3D, but I'll take Samurai Spirits (2-4) over Soul Caliber any day of the week.
      • This is just one more nail in the coffin of quality, hand-drawn, 2D arcarde style games.

        You know, when something is in the coffin, somehow I do not mind few nails to close it down.. Will even throw a handful of dirt into the ditch.. ;-)

        Dead is dead.

        • You know, when something is in the coffin, somehow I do not mind few nails to close it down.

          It's a figure of speech. There is no reason why 2D games should be dead OR buried, other than lazy programmers and shallow gamers.
        • I still have more fun with a neogeo than I have with any other console.
      • Personally, I couldn't stand any of the SNK games I've ever played. I played a lot at a place called "Gamer's Heaven" that had the console and you paid by the hour to play in the back room on their consoles. I used to try the NeoGeo every once in a while and it was just dull. I hated the colors and the games were not fun for me.

    • Re:Somehow.. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Winged Cat ( 101773 ) <[atymes] [at] [gmail.com]> on Friday November 30, 2001 @07:35PM (#2639421)
      what is TBFD?

      Sure, all companies - like all organizations, teams, governments, clans, and so forth - are ultimately temporary, no matter how long they do last. It is sad to see the good ones go, but like (current) people, they do eventually die. But that does not mean their lives must be in vain.

      Support the ones you like. Let the lessons they demonstrated be applied to new forms. Find out why they died, and if you are ever in a similar position, learn from their mistakes and their sucesses.

      Celebrate the dead, perhaps. Does anyone know the legal status of SNK's games now? If they are now abandonware, then play those and encourage others to do likewise instead of playing the worst of what's new, such that SNK's products may set an eternal minimum quality bar for all future games of that nature. (No, I'm not advocating ripping them off to drive them out of business, just saying what we should do now that they are. If they were still in business, they could keep improving. It's kind of like harvesting fruit and wood from a tree that has been knocked down.)

      Death is a part of the cycle of life. But make sure it is a cycle, and not just a one-shot: recycle its bits into new births; don't let its death erase the good in it from existance. The degree to which it can live on is the degree to which it will have mattered, and the degree to which it is immortal...
      • Celebrate the dead, perhaps. Does anyone know the legal status of SNK's games now? If they are now abandonware, then play those and encourage others to do likewise instead of playing the worst of what's new, such that SNK's products may set an eternal minimum quality bar for all future games of that nature.

        Even better, what if we could get the source code for their games and start hacking it? Fans of Samurai Shodown 2 (as it was called in the U.S.) surely know that it could have been one of the greatest fighting games of all time, if SNK had just done a better job with the character balance. Likewise, the AI for Mizuki (the main boss of that game) should be studied by future game designers -- aside from one little bug, that character was probably the best at being "hard to beat without being cheap or overpowered" of any boss character I've ever seen.

  • I remember playing their arcade games a few years ago. Though most of the games were pretty crappy, IMHO, I really liked the idea of having several different games in one machine. Anyone know if these multi-game arcades caught on with any other companies?

    • Didn't Nintedo have (or still has) their multi-game arcade machine? You know, the one where you put so many quarters (or ugh, tokens) for a set amount of seconds. Then you could play what ever game you wanted on the machine for as long as the seconds lasted. I believe Capcom also tried their hand at a 3 in one game systme (was it called "3 Wonder"?) but it didn't go very far...

  • Will all the SNK games be public domain, legally emulated on M.A.M.E?

    Will we be seeing more Mai Shiranui Hentai ?

    YESSS!!

    Oh, I meant, how sad!, no really!
  • I still find it interesting how the NeoGeo still has games coming out for it (how long this will last, I am not sure), like The King of Fighters 2001...

    [Ok. I didn't really have anything to say, but SNK meant a lot to me as far as video game companies go. I still prefer fighting games with 2-D sprites over newfangled 3-D ones...]
  • This has been a lousy day.

    Since I can't speak much about George (tho I loved his Wilbury's and Beatles work) I *do* have this to say about my first time - with the Neo Geo that is... ;)

    The first time I saw the Neo Geo was actually in a 'mom and pop' type store in the early 1990's. The two things I first thought where:

    - WOW look at the graphics, features and gameplay!!!(and)
    - HOLY $**7! Look at the price tag!

    There it was.. US$750 and the games were going for US$150 each. This was *not* my idea of what to pay for a console gaming system. But it was a very impressive system, nonetheless...

    When I heard about their pocket game system that would work with the Dreamcast I *hoped* this would save them.. I knew they were in trouble when the Dreamcast was cancelled.

    Now.. they're just a footnote in Game Console History.. *snif*.

    I suppose for both George and SNK I can say the same thing...

    Still my guitar gently weeps...

  • Who is SNK? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Doppler00 ( 534739 )
    Why is it that I have been playing video games since the Atari and have never heard of the company SNK? I've never heard of any of those games before. It's amazing that their company could survive that long being that unpopular.

    They should have done what Sega did to survive. Switch to game development only.

    • Re:Who is SNK? (Score:4, Funny)

      by vicviper ( 140480 ) on Friday November 30, 2001 @07:27PM (#2639374)
      If you had actually played games *other than* the ones on your Atari, you may have heard of them. :)
    • Why is it that I have been playing video games since the Atari and have never heard of the company SNK? I've never heard of any of those games before. It's amazing that their company could survive that long being that unpopular.

      It's amazing you could have been alive so long and still have such a self-centralized view of the world. Amazing fact: there's actually stuff that's extremely popular out there, that neither you, nor I, have heard of!

  • Bomber Man (Score:2, Informative)

    by flollywebfrog ( 462849 )
    Neo Geo came out with the first version of the famous Bomber Man [dotcomnotcom.com]. I will miss that game.

    • Re:Bomber Man (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Bomberman is quite possibly the most interesting, fun game ever created. Its power and lure are in its simplicity. No fancy graphics, no confusing storyline, no lags in action. Just pure gameplay.

      That's what a game should strive for.

    • Re:Bomber Man (Score:2, Informative)

      by CmdrSanity ( 531251 )
      I though the first version was on the NES? [hypermart.net] I remember playing it when it was first released.
    • Actually, the first version of Bomberman was released on the PC-Engine in Japan.... either in 1988 or 1989. WELL before the Neo-Geo console or MVS came out.

      That being saide, the Neo-Geo version DID rock :)
  • What a great system that was for its time. My only question is "What were they thinking?!", at ~$600 a system, that put it out of the reach of most consumers.

    Had it been priced at a more reasonable price, say $200, they would have taken a huge financial loss on the systems, but more than made up for it by beating the SNES and Genesis in the market at the time.

    My $.02.

    • Re:The Neo Geo (Score:2, Interesting)

      by czardonic ( 526710 )
      Neo-Geo was never meant to be a mass-market system, at least not the cartridge version. It was a replica of the arcade, for those willing to pay for the priviledge. SNK would have gone out of business years earlier if they had tried to compete with SNES and Genesis.

    • Re:The Neo Geo (Score:3, Informative)

      by Cuthalion ( 65550 )
      The Neogeo wasn't intended to be owned by consumers. Originally it was only a coin-op platform. When demand.. demanded it, they released hte home version, but even that was intended to be rented out to consumers rather than sold to them. $600 is not so much for a rental place. Unfortunately who the hell wants to do that, so they would up just selling them.

      It amazes me that as of 2000 people were still making new games (KOF2000, for instance) for this 10 year old hardware. And that they didn't look all that dated!

      Though I have to say my favorite game for the neogeo (and really any platform) is Money Puzzle Exchanger. Such bliss!
  • My first memories of the NEO-GEO were as a prize given away on "Video Power" (boy do I miss that show). My next memories were that of having World Heroes at our convenience store (boy, do I hate that game).

    It was really such a bittersweet thing. Bless with a solid platform that put more games into the arcade than any other in history, but (with some exception) cursed with a cart system that drove prices through the roof for anyone but try uber-gamers)

    It will be missed.

  • Crystalis (Score:3, Insightful)

    by infiniti99 ( 219973 ) <justin@affinix.com> on Friday November 30, 2001 @07:26PM (#2639366) Homepage
    No mention of Crystalis, one of the best (only?) action RPGs for the NES. Zelda was good, but Crystalis was different in that it actually had a storyline with dialogue, something USA gamers wouldn't really see again until Final Fantasy 2 for SNES. At the time, it was surprising to see the game coming from SNK, whose past games were nothing like it (read: Ikari Warriors).

    I was always hoping SNK might do a follow-up version for Neo-geo.. oh well.

    • that was chrysalis, and yes, that game rocked

    • I second this. Crystalis is one of the reasons I aspired to be a game programmer. I bought it on Ebay last year during one of my original Nintendo collecting binges, and it's the only 3+ hour game that I've played through so far.

      I must have been in grade three when that game was new and I played it for the first time.

      The programming team at Threewave idly debated doing a Crystalis type game for the gameboy advance for a while. :)

    • I agree with you there, Crystalis was a weird game coming from SNK but it was alot of fun. I kept renting Crystalis but we ended up getting Faxanadu for some odd reason. I think they are comparable in genre but Crystalis was definitely a better game. I think Zelda holds the top spot for me because it was the first game I ever beat on my own. My uncle had to go finish a whole fricken section in Metroid!
  • I remember my younger years in arcades playing Fatal Fury and Samurai Showdown. I even remember playing Ikari Warriors on C64. I always thought the NeoGeo was expensive though... from the way this article sounds SNK wasn't exactly the best run business.
  • Back when I was 10 or so, everytime I was in the local game store which had a NeoGeo on display we'd always oogle the thing. It was the system every kid wanted, but could never afford. Sometimes there would be that rich kid in school who you would hear rumors like "I hear he's got a NeoGeo"..

  • Exit: SNK Enter: Sega (Score:3, Interesting)

    by HanzoSan ( 251665 ) on Friday November 30, 2001 @07:32PM (#2639400) Homepage Journal


    SNK survived mostly because of their arcade business. With the fall of the arcades, companies whos business relies on the arcades are dying.

    SNK made very good arcade games, but good games arent enough to by profitable when you compete with Sonys and Microsofts.

    Sega seems to be in the same situation SNK was in, and that Atari was in before SNK.

    Can Sega survive on games alone? SNK couldnt do it, Atari managed to do it just barely, while Sega has good games, will people buy them?

    IF people didnt buy them for Dreamcast Segas own system, will they buy them for PSX, Xbox, or Gamecube?

    I dont know
    • Sure they can ... just look at Electronic Arts.

      -B

    • Sega is in a slightly different situation in that they are now (arguably) the world's biggest third party game development company (EA being the other candidate). This will be a great financial move for them. There are a lot of parallels to IBM. IBM started to lose it's dominance over the industry, and what saved them was, in effect, giving up on certain things.

      IBM is now a stablizing force in the computer industry. They don't face as many risks as they used to by having all of their eggs in their own baskets. They've got their eggs in various baskets, not siding with the same company all the time. All they have to do is try to make sure no one gains too much power and watch their stock value climb. Let the others take the risks.

      Granted, the rewards for them are smaller this way, but so are the risks, since there is less at stake for them.

      This works the same way for Sega. Before, they had to try to push their own console, and compete with other companies in this arena. They had to compete in hardware and software. Also, if they made software for other consoles, they're simultaneously generating revenue for their direct competitors (through licensing fees) and making the appeal of their own consoles (great Sega games) smaller. And to top it all off, they were starting to get a bad reputation in terms of supporting their own hardware.

      They don't have to worry about any of these things any more. They just have to focus on making great games. Let the other folks sweat that Microsoft is getting into the game industry. Sega's potential user base is huge, now (with all the different consoles they are supporting). As long as one console doesn't win and create a monopoly, they are on a good course. And they can take actions to prevent this from happening.

  • Do any of you remember the old NES game Athena.
    Was there an end to that game? I could never figure it out. I even tried using the game genie but I couldn't figure out any form of an ending.

    And Ikari Warriors! Wasn't that SNK? ABBA select start or something like that to continue as many times as you wanted. I'd always get a couple hours into the game and get stuck in a wall or something (multiplayer mode).

    They had a lot of great games on both consoles and arcade machines. Most of them can be emulated, but it's sad to see a fun company die.

    Magician lord was one of my first arcade games that I really got into.

  • King Of The Fighters? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by GMOL ( 122258 )
    They didn't mention KOF throughout that whole articles, I think this is what SNK was known by in the last few years? I actually didn't like KOF as a game, but the characters, environments, music and general feel are unparalleled in any other fighter....you can feel it in Capcom vs. SNK (although it plays much like a Street Fighter).

    • Definitely. I've heard that many people didn't like SNK 2-D fighters like KOF because they felt too "Japanese," and because the control of SNK's fighters was not as lenient as Capcom's responsive controls, but I like them a lot. I prefer many games in Capcom's Street Fighter series, but SNK's 2-D fighters were great IMO.

      < tofuhead >

  • Ikari Warriors? *shiver* (Score:3, Interesting)

    by X-Dopple ( 213116 ) on Friday November 30, 2001 @07:36PM (#2639427)
    That game would have to be one of SNK's worst.

    Their port to the NES of this rather classic arcade game was messed up. IIRC, you had a gun, four lives, and baddies ambushing you from everywhere. Sure, you could get into a tank - until it ran out of fuel. It was nearly impossible to dodge the flying bullets and IIRC, you died with one shot.

    You thought CONTRA was hard? Ikari Warriors makes Contra look like Barney's Hide 'n' Seek in terms of difficulty. Levels are ridiculously long, to the point where the music is like sandpaper to your ears. If you didn't know the continue code, the game was IMPOSSIBLE to beat on a normal NES. And, to further insult the player, they made the continue code 'ABBA'

    I actually slogged through this game. I fought through wave after wave of pallet-swapped enemies, entrenched machine guns, grenades..
    I got to the third level, which consisted of cyan platforms and black water or oil. I slogged through it, and as I approached the end, I took a wrong turn and wound up at a dead end. See, SNK's programmers had learned how to make the screen scroll UP, but not how to scroll the screen DOWN.

    so I was stuck there.

    I still have the cartridge. It glows with an evil red aura.
    • I had a similar experience, although I see the game through the wonderful filter of nostalgia. I remember playing it with my brother and getting really far, then getting to a point where we couldn't go forward anymore. I think we needed to have some rockets to blow through a wall, but we didn't predict the need, so were stuck.

      That is the ultimate sign of bad game design, when you can just get stuck, with no options but hitting the reset button.
      • That is the ultimate sign of bad game design, when you can just get stuck, with no options but hitting the reset button.

        I don't see what was keeping you from dying.

        Its a very clear option I think. :-)
    • And, to further insult the player, they made the continue code 'ABBA'

      I always thought it was funny that the code was printed INSIDE the manual that came with the game! It's like they realized how badly they screwed up in terms of balance and obscene difficulty in the game, so they thought they'd patch things up by including the code.
    • I cannot tolerate your slander of Ikari Warriors. First of all, it's your own mistake that you weren't playing the game the proper way: on the arcade machine. SNK is not really to blame for whatever was wrong with he NES version, which was published by K Amusement, and presumably butchered in the translation. I myself had Ikari Warriors for the C64, which was largely ruined in the translation by Data East.

      If you were just no good at the game, that is your fault too. It certainly draws your expertise into question when you describe getting to "the third level," when there are no separate levels in the original game. This discrepancy could be K Amusement's fault, but either way, you cannot be permitted to defile the good name of this truly excellent game, or its benevolent creators at SNK.

    • You mean you never got to the 4th level. Here's the secret: After you kill the squid thing at the end of the thrid level, lob grenades into the shadow where the squid thing was sitting. A ladder will appear. This will take you to the fourth level, which is a more techno looking, black and red version of the third. Also has laser robots near the end, where you fight a big face that spits super grenades. Much harder than the squid.

      For the longest time I thought all you could do at the end of the third level was thrash around helplessly until the missles got you. Yes, I actually liked this game when I was 13 and still beat it with my brother every couple of years for nostalgia's sake.

  • SNK, here's to the dream (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Hunterdvs ( 461524 ) on Friday November 30, 2001 @07:43PM (#2639459) Homepage
    I think SNK was a dream for a lot of people back when it came out late 80s. Unfortunately, 500 bucks for a home system and up to 250 dollars per game was waaay out of many people's budget mine included. However, SNK built the system to last, and last it did. I just bought Mark of the Wolves for DC, one of the greatest, last, and largest of the SNK games. The mvs cartridge will still run on hardware that is 13 years old. I found one of my really old gamepro magazines, and they have a picture of the old home system. (right next to a pic of the 'new' sega genesis) I'll never forget how I felt looking at that machine, and that feeling never went away.
    Goodbye SNK, goodbye terry bogard
  • Ikari Warriors- Cool game, until the one time my friend ruined an attempt to finish the game by advancing the screen and trapping me when no enemies were left. :-(

    Samurai Shodown- One of the reasons I bought a 3DO.

    Their ridiculous home system- Way overpriced when it was new (I seem to remember seeing it for sale in a Babbage's, for ~$600-$700), friggin' gigantic cartridges you could kill someone with, and great controllers. Too bad you couldn't make a game last for more than a minute, unless you were normally as twitchy as Beavis on a sugar-high. I kept my Neo Geo system for about 2 months, before re-selling the entire package back on eBay where I bought it from-- the games were just too ridiculously fast-paced to be enjoyable.

    ~Philly
  • Well.. I do know that we haven't seen the very last of the King of Fighters series, yet. Another KOF game called 'King of Fighters EX: Neo Blood'.

    And it looks like a new wrinkle is getting added to the plot, could we possibly see additional games in the future from the same team at a different company like say, Capcom?
  • SNK made some of the most kickass games ever, and the NeoGeo hardware lasted a long, long time compared with other things in the arcade. Surprisingly enough, SNK was churning out some great games on it, even towards the end.

    Very, very sad to see SNK go down the tubes like this.
  • Who can forget Baseball Stars, which took place in "SNK Stadium", featuring the classic scrolling scoreboard cheer "Hooray Hooray!"

    And of course, the bottom feeders of the league were the SNK Crushers. Boy did they ever suck. Even worse than the Lovely Ladies....
  • Ive always wanted one but being 6 or 7 when it was released my rents wouldn't get me one and now thy're gone. sob. anyone got one I can buy? anywhere? I have the emulator with Metal Slug (even now my favorite game, magicians lord, crossed swords, and that monster fighting game (although it always ran slow compared to the others) n-e-one know why?
  • ...I find it interesting that there is just NOW an article about this, because SNK declared bankruptcy and went out of business many months ago. Farewell, SNK. I have a tattoo on my arm that says "SNK 1978-2001"...but it was made with a marker, so it won't last long...

  • My friends had nintendo's or sega's. I had a turbografx, then the really really luck ones (rich) got a neo-geo for christmas. Those bastards.

    I remember walking into my 7-11 (yes kids in those days 7-11's had games in them) and seeing the neo geo for the first time. There was 4 games on it, magician lord, King of fighters, Nam75, and Super Baseball. My buds and I loved vids the way some kids loved baseball. We would buy every game magazine out there, hang out at the flea market trading games and then go home to play games. Games games games. We allways reminised about the good old days when America was the console king with Atari and the 2600/5200/7200. The great debate at the time was nintendo's decision to check games content before we here in america got them. We didn't care if there was a cross in the graveyard in castlevania.

    Ok so I proved how deeply emotionally attatched I am to games, let me go on about the neo geo. So there was only 1 kid in the entire east side of san jose that owned one. He never let anyone near it. Our only recourse was to go down to 7-11 to check it out. 4 buttons, cool. Memory card so you could save your place in a game? whats that and where do I get one? Headphone jack? Why were all arcade cabinets built like this one? In terms of sound and graphics, neo geo was top notch.

    For awhile there it seemed the neo-geo was going to die into oblivion, but alas a savior came in the form of metal slug. This side scrolling platform shooter showed just what could be done with the system if the artists were given enough time. The attention to detail is apparent everywhere in the game, especially when it came to animations of the different characters. It wasn't just someones helmet flying off when they got shot, their head, and hair flew back as well.

    For a time after that, the fighting games started getting really popular on the NG with the release of samuri showdown. All of the sudden out of nowhere came neo geo (about mid 90's) with fighting games that were on par with rival fighting game producer capcom. Even sega's entry into the foray with the virtua fighters series did not get nearly as much play as the neo geo fighters.

    15 years later, after being all grown up and looking back.. One of the big dreams me and my buds use to say as kids was, "Wouldn't it be great if we had a game system that could play ALL THE GAMES?!?!!?" I see that mame icon on my taskbar, begging to be clicked.

    Unfortunatly this is the reality for the arcade now. PC's have gotten so fast, and so graphically powerful that any system can be emulated to a near %100 accuracy. What did the arcades do in response? They never really did anything, they went about business the old fashion way thinking that things like game houses and home gaming was just a fad that would pass and soon the children would be coming back eagerly slopping quarters down the chute.

    Neo Geo, even though they never released new hardware outside of that newfangled 64 bit system, did everything they could to make games that were pleasing to look at, and pleasing to play. It didn't take a 32bit processor and 63 channel sound. Games like metal slug were "designed" and not just a copycat of some other game that was immensly popular.

    Well, at least there is one arcade left [kaillera.com], I heard King of Fighters 2000 is pretty popular there.

    --toq

  • ...but Fatal Fury being "equal to Street Fighter 2 in playability and character development?" Who knew? First off, "character development?" This was Fatal Fury here, not Warzard/Red Earth. Secondly, it wasn't until Fatal Fury 2 that you could actually perform functional link and cancel combos, two features which were implemented in Street Fighter II from the beginning (although unintended).

    SNK eventually got fighters down pat, but the first Fatal Fury is just not as good as they make it out to be. It was interesting and different at the time, but not good.

    Personally, I will miss them most for Crystalis, Metal Slug, Samurai Spirits/Shodown, and King of Fighters. (Never played Magician Lord, so I can't comment.) I also have to tip my hat to them for getting me hooked on the NeoGeo version of Puzzle Bobble/Bust a Move.

    I propose that everyone go out and buy a copy of Fatal Fury Mark of the Wolves for Dreamcast ($30!) in SNK's honor, and use only SNK characters/grooves in Capcom vs SNK 1, Pro, and 2. ^_^

    < tofuhead >

    • I will too miss SNK! Ikari Warriors is one of my earliest memories of videogames! then there is the Samurai Showdown series which is a classic! and they just released Metal Slug 3!!! this is a sad day!
  • I don't think that article is up to date. SNK america is gone and snk japan is bankrupt but they are stilling making games. Their newest game is King of Fighters 2001. It just came out in the arcades. I also heard that they are making a new king of fighters game called king of fighters ex (someone mentioned this on a post before me) and they are releasing the rom. i took this from madman's cafe http://www.mmcafe.com

    According to Enterbrain Inc's Arcadia magazine, the home version ROM of "The King Of Fighters 2001" is scheduled for release next year by Sun Amusement Co. In addition, Sun Amusement plans to release future MVS titles to the home system as well, depending on the movement of the market.
    Sun Amusement widely became known to the public since its apparance as the distributor for KOF2001 arcade ROMs within domestic Japan. Respectively, Sun Amusement has also announced to service maintenance for MVS machines in place of SNK, and will continue operation of SNK's Arcade franchise, "NeoGeo Land".

    People over here in u.s. may not recognize king of fighters but in asia it is way bigger than any capcom game. Even in Mexico, King of fighters is big. So hopefully they will still be making games in the future.
  • I'm sure all readers here have at one point experienced video games on the neogeo console.

    WTF is this?
  • Not NEO GEO. Baseball Stars and Crystalis were two of the very best titles to come out for that system, and rank highly among my all time favorite video games.

    Thanks, SNK for hours and hours of childhood fun.
    • Baseball stars! oh my gosh we loved that game.

      for weeks on end, my friends and i would gather round the old nes and play round after round, having one team continually lose so the other team got lots of money for better players.

      man. those were the days =)

      glad someone pointed these games out.
  • I remember that neogeo was 32 bit gaming, back when snes and genisis were 16 bit.
    the damn thing was so expensive though.
  • Capcom hired SNK's 80 best people and bought their franchises. So SNK's logo may be dead, but their people and franchises live on.

    Capcom hires SNK. [segaweb.com]
  • It wasnt the decline of arcades that killed em it's their own propietary games. When you release a console that only 10% of American kids can even consider affording you'll never make the money to become a corporate super power. Nintendo's consoles were like pizza stores in NY... fuckin everywhere, and cheap. They also couldnt sell their systems at a loss like MS does cuz you cant sell licenses to your own company (duh). It's not like they got to see any of my quarters either, the owners of those coin ops kept em all.

    When I think of why SNK failed I think of games that were too good to be affordable. Arcades gave their stuff impact but the home market == longevity. They gave it a hell of a go but (IMO) they put their eggs in the wrong basket.

    When I found out that their fantastic home system was gonna cost $600 upfront and $300per game I laughed.
    • You miss the point of this game system. It was intended to bring arcade quality games into the home; for those who could afford. The idea was not to use an arcade as a marketing tool of the consol but to bring the arcade into the home using a consol system.
  • The following year they released simple games such as Ozama Wars

    Umm! The "Ozama Wars - The saga continues..."
    Now I know where Dubya's inspiration came from ;-)
  • Damn, that sucks. SNK made probably my second favorite game of all time, TNK III, which I still play on my C64 to this day (first favorite is Castle's of Dr. Kreep).

    Blah...
  • Besides the myriad errors in the article, there's typos and things that barely qualify as english. How does this qualify for slashdotting?

    The system itself was a powerful multiprocessor based system, an ability to display 4096 colors onscreen at once, the miniscule 64k of memory was all that was needed because the games themselves ran directly from the cartridges. Which is also why they reached 330 megabits in size (though in later years reached over 700 megabytes!)


    What language was this originally written in?

    I love seeing games on slashdot, but if any long-winded geek can ignore basic rules of grammar and skip the whole proof-reading process then maybe we shouldn't bother, hmm?
  • When I heard SNK of America was going under, I bought as many games as I could. They are in general excellent (Bust-A-Move Pocket has saved me on may long flights). Considering the drought of good games that we had during the Game Boy Color years (Olsen Twins Day Planner etc.) the NGPC was a godsend. It sits next to my Game Boy Advance and I play it often.
    There is an emmulator called RAPE, last time I checked it did not have sound or controller inputs. Still, you could at least see the title screens of the cool little games that were never translated.
  • Ok, I can't even remember my source (somewhere on the web) so it may not be reliable and I haven't done any research on the subject before posting this, but... I recently read that SNK has a new handheld system coming out and square is going to be porting many of their final fantasy games to it. Assuming this is true, SNK is far from dead.

    ---
  • When SNK appeared with the Neo-Geo, they were smack in the middle of the rush to create Street Fighter knockoffs and at the very tail end of the rush to create platform-oriented beat-em-ups that was in full force for the previous five years. Yes, Capcom was doing the same thing, though they get credit for Street Fighter II in the first place. But anyone trying to pick nits about which company was more innovative or original is missing the big picture. Both were just creating the mass market junk of the time.

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