SNK

SNK Corporation (Japanese: 株式会社SNK, Hepburn: Kabushiki gaisha SNK) is a Japanese video game company. It was founded in 1978 as Shin Nihon Kikaku (新日本企画; lit. 'New Japan Project') by Eikichi Kawasaki and began by developing arcade games. SNK is known for its Neo Geo arcade system on which the company established many franchises during the 1990s, including Art of Fighting, Fatal Fury, Metal Slug, Samurai Shodown, and The King of Fighters; they continue to develop and publish new titles on contemporary arcade and home platforms. Since the 2000s, SNK has diversified from its traditional arcade focus into pachislot machines, mobile game development, and character licensing.

In 2001, due to financial troubles, the original SNK Corporation was forced to close. Anticipating the end of the company, founder Kawasaki established Playmore Corporation, which acquired all of the intellectual property of the SNK Corporation. In 2003, Playmore Corporation was renamed to SNK Playmore Corporation. In 2016, SNK dropped "Playmore" from its name. It has been owned by the Saudi Arabian MiSK Foundation since 2022.

SNK was founded in 1973 as Shin Nihon Kikaku and reorganized on July 22, 1978 as a stock company (kabushiki gaisha) under the name "Shin Nihon Kikaku Corporation". When Eikichi Kawasaki noticed rapid growth in the coin-operated video game market, he expanded Shin Nihon Kikaku to include the development and marketing of stand-alone coin-op games.

The company was nicknamed "Shin Nihon Kikaku" in katakana at first; however, since 1981, it has been changed to "SNK" by taking the initials from the Roman alphabet (Shin Nihon Kikaku). The English copyright notation was also "SNK CORPORATION". It established itself in Sunnyvale, California, to deliver its own brand of coin-operated games to arcades in North America. SNK chose John Rowe to head its American operation.

The first two titles that SNK released were Ozma Wars (1979), a vertical space shooter, and Safari Rally (1980), a maze game. Game quality improved over time, with SNK outsourcing development of the games Sasuke vs. Commander (1980) and Vanguard (1981) to then-inexperienced Tose. SNK licensed various games to Centuri for distribution in North America, motivating it to start manufacturing and distributing games by itself when profits exceeded projections. In part due to the success of Vanguard, SNK began to gain fame and reputation. An American branch named SNK Electronics Corporation opened on October 20, 1981.

In April 1986, the company name was changed to SNK Corporation, adopting the initialism SNK as its trade name. This is because the Ministry of Justice at the time did not allow the registration of business names in alphabets. In November 1986, the American subsidiary SNK Corporation of America was born in Sunnyvale, California. In March 1988, SNK staff moved to a building in Suita, Osaka, Japan.

At this point, the Japanese operations of SNK Corporation had shifted their focus solely toward developing and licensing video games for arcade use and later for early consoles. Between 1979 and 1986, SNK produced 23 stand-alone arcade games. Highlights from this period include Mad Crasher (1984), Alpha Mission (1985), and Athena (1986), a game that gained a large following when it was ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1987. SNK's most successful game from this time was Ikari Warriors, released in 1986. It was licensed and ported to the Atari 2600, Atari 7800, Commodore 64, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Apple II, ZX Spectrum, and NES. After Ikari Warriors, SNK released two sequels: Victory Road (1986) and Ikari III: The Rescue (1989).

At the time, Japan was affected by the video game crash of 1983. The console manufacturer Nintendo remained in business throughout and after the crash. SNK became a third-party licensee for Nintendo's Famicom (known as the NES outside of Japan) system in 1985. It opened a second branch in the US, called SNK Home Entertainment, based in Torrance, California. The branch handled the North American distribution and marketing of the company's products for home consoles. John Rowe had already left the company to form Tradewest, which went on to market the Ikari Warriors series in North America. Paul Jacobs took over Rowe's position over both halves of SNK America. He is known for having helped launch the company's Neo Geo system outside of Asia.