SNK
SNK is a Japanese video game company. It was founded by Eikichi Kawasaki in 1978 as the Shin Nihon Kikaku Corporation (新日本企画), initially as a stock company, but, within a year of its foundation, saw a burgeoning arcade market and began producing arcade cabinets. The company started going by "SNK Corporation" in 1980, and officially changed its name in 1986. SNK fell into financial troubles in the late 1990s, and, in 2000, it was bought by the pachinko company, Aruze. SNK failed to rebound and declared bankruptcy in 2001. The intellectual property of SNK was bought by Playmore, a company created by SNK's original founder, Eikichi Kawasaki so he could regain control of his company. From 2003-2016, the company was called "SNK Playmore," before officially dropping the "Playmore" portion of the name and returning to just "SNK" once more.
Personal
As a child, even though I didn't pay attention to who made the video games, I knew of a couple SNK titles like Ikari Warriors, and I certainly heard about the Neo Geo and its mythical price tag. I had played a handful of their games on consoles and in the arcade, but the brand mostly stayed under my radar through my teens and early twenties. While doing research for the Video Game Music Preservation Foundation on the company's composers, I played a large portion of SNK's catalog from the 1980s to early 1990s and discovered that the bulk of their games were pretty awful. I'm surprised the company survived to the 1990s to make their more popular fighting games.
Video Game Platforms
Consoles
Handhelds
Games
These are the games SNK worked on that are important to me. For all SNK games, see the categories for games developed or published.
- Guerrilla War - ARC - Marquee.jpg
Media
In the later 1980s, SNK America published a newsletter called "SNK Super Player"
Excerpt from Retro Gamer magazine.
Links
