SNK Playmore has been acquired by a group of Chinese investors, Gameindustry.biz is reporting.
Ledo Millennium has paid $63.5 million for 81.25 percent of the company's shares, purchased from former SNK CEO Eikichi Kawasaki and his wife Natsuyo Kawasaki.
Chinese companies Oriental Securities and Shunrong Sanqi have also joined together to invest in Ledo Millenium. Oriental Securities subsidiary Dongfang Xinghui will be the majority shareholder.
Dongfang Xingui CEO Zheng Jianhui has stated that he aims to emulate "the Marvel formula" when it comes to making the most of SNK Playmore's vast selection of IP, which includes Fatal Fury, King of Fighters, Metal Slug and Samurai Shodown. Xingui also aims to collaborate with Chinese companies to develop games, anime, manga, TV shows and movies.
SNK began life back in 1978 as Shin Nihon Kikaku. During the '80s it would create a series of arcade titles before cooking up its Neo Geo arcade standard. The system would host the vast majority of SNK's most famous games, many of which are available on the Wii Virtual Console.
When SNK ran into financial troubles in 2001, founder Eikichi Kawasaki started another company, known as Playmore. He would then purchase SNK's IP and rename his new venture SNK Playmore. In recent years the company has struggled to gain the attention of a new generation of players. An attempt to revive the Neo Geo brand - a handheld console called the Neo Geo X - gained media attention but ended in a confusing farce as SNK Playmore took legal action against the maker of the device, Tommo Inc.
Comments 38
Keep seeing these takeover and wondering why Nintendo never puts in an offer..
@firstnesfan Outside of IP - which I doubt Nintendo would be interested in - SNK doesn't really have much to offer these days. No real internal development talent to speak of.
Wouldn't the Franchise be just called..."The King of Fighters?"
Because that's all The King of Fighters is.
Samurai shodown 2 is the king of fighters, last blade is nifty also
'Do a Marvel'? Warning. 1000 bad movies incoming.
release samurai spirits 64, 64 warrior's rage and V special and I'm cool.
@firstnesfan Pretty much what @Damo said. They arent really worth it at this point. Also, SNK is best known for traditional fighting games, and those best suited for arcade / wide spread releases.
Nintendo wouldnt benefit from them being a 1st / 2nd Party dev.
A 3rd Party contract would be rather cool though
@TruenoGT Very true People get way to atrached to IPs / big dev names these days. Great games dont usually come from a single person. Its the entire team that works the magic.
Great ideas cant be realised with an incompetent team, And a competend team cant work with shoddy ideas.
Simply buying out "talents" just for the sake of it is completely useless, unless you have the vision and means to put them to use properly.
It would be interesting for the Neo Geo brand to try and compete with Nintendo handhelds seeing as how there really isn't much of competition in the handheld market. Don't get me wrong, I love Nintendo to win but since many still would like to see competition, I think SNK fits in because they make underpowered technology like Nintendo and if they put their heart and soul into it, then the rest is a cakewalk.
But alas......Nintendo still rules to this day!
But it makes me wonder....why would Chinese people have interest in gaming knowing that its been banned for a long time all of a sudden? Nobody over China would know of the brand IP's now...... so what gives?
Can we at least have Neo Geo games on the Wii U VC at least? The support on the Wii VC carried on way after the Wii U came out...
Why are guys complaining? Great news for SNK fans.
It all sounds very ambitious and I love sweet retro glory coming back with mega power, but I have to wonder if this is the last we hear of this project? Just kind of feels like that's how these things tend to go, ya know?
@Artwark I doubt they'd even be able to compete with the PSV.
Maybe they will go after that free money and put in some VC games. I have a hard time believing making games run on VC is as hard as we are lead to believe. I just don't buy it. Now converting the classics to 3D might take some doing.
As long as this doesn't slow/ stop the ports / re-releases being done on Neo Geo games... I'm cool with it.
I actually almost spilled my drink when I read this...I'm pretty happy about this.
If true that is great. These IP were my teenage years. Still waiting for a great Garou sequel. Wonder what these new owners could do or if it is another Hudson purchase. Or Atlus gaining access to Sega's IP catalog.
I played SNK's games back in the day til this day. I find them to be timeless and I love those 24 bit graphics.
@Angelic_Lapras_King This.
Edit: Also, weren't we supposed to be getting Neo Geo Pocket Color games on the 3DS Virtual Console? Whatever happened to that?
Love me some neo geo games. I wish there were more Garou mark of the wolves, pulstar, blazing star, last resort, galaxy fight, waku waku 7 and much more on the wiiu VC.
Yes, because the Chinese have a very long history of quality.
Seriously though, I dread this and it scares the jeepers out of me.
I thought SNK has gone full mobile???
Their ios port is okay but still no physical button is a deal breaker. How they suppose to make money with 2.99 game and not even famous.
Need a new direction.
A Marvel vs. SNK game would be awesome, I'm just tired of seeing Street Fighter crossover way too much.
Bit of Ikari warriors (I'd prefer Saurus's Shock troopers though) on 3DS would be a good fight. An Samurai Showdown (not really a King of fighters or Fatal fury fan).
I love love LOVE SNK of yore but since the early 2000's they have really been wasted. I wonder if many of the original developers are still there.
I just want someone to bring SNK's original NES version of Crystalis to Virtual Console. Or remake it. (NOT the Game Boy Color abomination.) Please.
In recent years SNK has not done a good job of taking advantage of their large stable of IPs. I wish the new owners the best with that, but I am also skeptical. This could lead to a resurgence of the brand, or it could lead to a series of quick sequels to SNK series that are uninspired and designed to make quick money off of loyal fans.
By saying that they want to do a Marvel, I assume this means that they want to use King of Fighters as a main thrust (similar to the Avengers movies) and then follow-up with games that focus on certain sets of characters. How is that different from what SNK has done all along?
@NintendoFan64 I think that was just a Dream Addition thought up by fans. The 3DS VC is pretty much dead anyway, but now the Wii U has so much more download space, we could have all the Neo Geo games again and in addition Neo Geo CD and others.
Come on Nintendo, that's good 100+ extra games on your service!
Get bought by Disney
The King of Fighters is to this day my favorite fighting franchise, even more so than Street Fighter or Smash Bros. That said, nothing of worth can come out of this. I want new games that do justice to SNK's legacy, not bad movies and multimedia efforts.
@Artwark
I have a Neo Geo Pocket Color. Its amazing. But it failed back then, and think of the recent Neo Geo X... Sorry bud.
Hmm... I don't know about this, SNK is one of my favorite companies out there. I hope this turns out well for em.
@Angelic_Lapras_King Aw. I honestly thought it was real. And while Neo Geo and Neo Geo CD games would be nice, considering that we don't even have any of Sega's consoles on the Wii U's virtual console, I don't have much hope.
Metal Slug is awesome.
"OKAY!"
@NintendoFan64 Japan has PC Engine and MSX on their Wii U VC so 3rd party consoles arnt out of the question completely. Perhaps SNK's new owners would be more willing to port the library over more download stores.
@Angelic_Lapras_King THEY DO!? I honestly had no idea!
This is terrible news. Guess I'm done rebuying any of those classics. Glad I have the complete rom set playable on my psp and my wii. I'm not giving any money to the Chinese for my gaming.
@Mbrogz3000
Your PSP and Wii were both made in China, genius...
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