http://gamespot.com/gamespot/stories...821015,00.html
SNK Corporation closes its doors

The game company responsible for the long-lived NeoGeo arcade hardware and games bids its fans farewell.

SNK of Japan made the latest and final update to its official Web site earlier today, posting a farewell letter in both Japanese and English that confirms that the company is indeed shutting its doors. The company also posted a final desktop wallpaper image that features many of its video game characters.

...SNK history omitted, check URL for full article...

In recent years, the company encountered severe financial difficulties and came under the financial sponsorship of Aruze Group, an entertainment company whose primary focus is pachinko and pachi-slot machines. Despite its new sponsor, SNK was unable to recover from its debts and filed for bankruptcy earlier this year. The bankruptcy proceedings were finalized last week. The company's very last NeoGeo game, The King of Fighters 2001, is being codeveloped by Korean developer Eolith, and according to video game news site The Madman's Café and ZDNet Japan, the game will be distributed by a Japanese company called Sun Amusement. In addition, there are also plans at Korean developer MegaKing to develop a new Metal Slug game for the NeoGeo MVS system.

SNK's closing marks the end of an era, both for the company's many fans worldwide and for arcade games and arcades in general.

That really sucks I spent my early adulthood wasting coins after coins on excellent games like Samurai Shodown 2, Fatal Fury Special, and King of Fighters '95.

That's okay by me.. as they just opened up a nearly "All SNK" arcade by my house.. and the memories will live forever..

Nevermind that SNK has been on the brink of closing down for a while now. I believe Capcom gutted their best designers a bit ago. SNK will live on through Capcom...be happy with that .

Actually, The King of Fighters 2001 is still going to be released, with some members of SNK working at Eolith to get the games out.

Capcom does not have the rights to SNK licenses and games though, apart from those in Capcom vs. SNK. I believe Sunsoft now has the rights.

Bad news, but I think you guys are right SNK will live on in some form or another. In japan, SNK characters are incredibly popular and have a huge fan base unlike here (where they're still popular but not to Japan's extent). In every issue of popular gaming magazines like Famicom and Gamest, people always draw fan art of characters like Nakoruru or Kyo and Iori even after all all these years. They really like the stories and characters who have rivals (me too), and with a fan base like that they won't be forgotten so easily.


I remember back in the day when I used to play a lot of fighting games I used to own the Neogeo CD system. It was pretty cool because you could get games like KOF96 and Samurai Shodown 2 and 3 for really cheap compared to the $300-400 carts. The only problem was that it was a single speed CD rom and it took almost a minute sometimes to load a match, or the character select screen lol. Now that I think about it, it was kind of funny, no one would tolerate that now especially for a fighting game.

Perhaps there will be another Capcom vs. SNK title or hopefully some other company will pick up metal slug in the future.

Someone has indeed picked up the rights for Metal Slug 3. I forgot exactly who - it's on Madman's Cafe if you want to find out.

in that wallpaper, who's the black and white dude in the middle?

--HN

K', from KOF '99-'01, you mean? The one right in fron to Mai Shiranui?

Sunsoft still exists? I thought they closed their doors a long time ago.
Maybe I just haven't been paying attention to game publishers though...

No this is another Sunsoft, not related to the old Sunsoft, publisher of Aero the Acrobat.

In front of the big blue "S" in SNK/below Haomaru.

--HN

Thanks for the memories..