SNK USA is back

[Guest Renegade]

From Gamedaily

 

SNK Returns to the U.S.

 

This year's E3Expo will mark the re-introduction of a fabled brand to North American gamers, one that is certain to induce waves of nostalgia in older gamers.

 

SNK is returning to the show—and North American operations—under the name SNK NEOGEO USA Consumer Corp. Ben Herman, who will head up the company as president, took some time with GameDaily to talk about SNK's return.

 

The SNK brand has remained active in Japan, controlled by Playmore Corp., which owns all intellectual property rights to past SNK franchises and has continued to issue updated installments for certain series. Playmore is overseeing the SNK revival in North America as well.

 

Herman, is no stranger to SNK, serving as vice-president of sales with SNK Entertainment (the previous North American incarnation of SNK, which folded in June of 2000) in the past. He is leaving his current position as an eastern sales manager for Nintendo to return to SNK.

 

The new company has its sales reps picked and, according to Herman, "contracts are in the mail." "Here in the states we are coming back to do consumer," Herman said. "We've always had a company that was doing arcade, which was renamed recently to SNK NEOGEO USA Corp." The consumer side of the business, based in Marlboro, New Jersey, was established as a separate entity, hence the new name.

 

SNK NEOGEO USA Consumer has already been licensed by Nintendo to deliver Game Boy Advance games. PlayStation 2, PS one, GameCube and Xbox licensing deals are also being conjsidered. "Whether it's the current generation (of consoles) that we develop for, or its new platforms in 2004 or 2005, we are going to develop for them," said Herman. "We make games in Japan for PS2, and we plan to convert them—and make others—for play here in the states."

 

SNK is setting up shop at this year's E3 in the West Hall, booth # 3008 and will have playable (Japanese) versions of Metal Slug Advance and King of Fighters 2001. It will also be showing video footage of SNK vs Capcom. "We have not released any games in the U.S. since King of Fighters '99," explained Herman. "I've got a backlog of games from 2000, 2001 and 2002. Down the road we will have Samurai Showdown coming and a Metal Slug 3D game will also come out eventually."

 

There is good news for fans of SNK's Baseball Stars series as well. Herman told GameDaily, "I'm not going to stop until we get Baseball Stars," adding that he wants any future Baseball Stars property to contain the ability to play online.

 

Herman said that one thing making SNK's re-entry to the market much easier is the way he, and SNK, exited the industry almost three years ago. "When we left the market, I wanted to make sure that SNK left clean and did a good job of taking back product and writing checks. That's one of the things that buyers have been quoting to the reps, noting that SNK went out, but took care of closing the business the right way."

 

SNK NEOGEO USA Consumer Corp. will stick to software exclusively, no hardware this time around.

 

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The thought of a new Samurai Showdown game just makes me mark out so badly.

 

Although a 3d metal slug has the potential to really suck.

[Guest mach7]

Good lord, please let Showdown be a multi-console game!

[Rendclaw 0]

screw Shodown, I WANT MY BASEBALL STARS!!!!!

[Guest Cavi]

Shodown V from "confirmed" by someone in-the-know a few weeks ago. The series lead artist/character designer will not be working on the game though (not to mention who knows how many of the old staff they have around).

[Guest Renegade]

Redrawn sprites is all I ask for.

 

That and a character select screen which looks nothing like playmores first attempt at KoF