SNK Corporation (Shin Nihon Kikaku, lit. 'New Japan Project') is a Japanese-Chinese video game hardware and software company. Founded in 1973 by Eikichi Kawasaki as Shin Nihon Kikaku Corporation in the computer electronics industry, shifting fully into coin-op video games in the late 1970's. Initially having modest success, the company officially rebranded to SNK Corporation in 1986 and released a string of successful arcade games such as Alpha Mission, Ikari Warriors, Athena and Psycho Soldier, with all having successful home console ports. This inspired SNK to start the Neo-Geo family of arcade and console hardware in 1990. The hardware would be the home of many classic franchises, like Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting, The King of Fighters, Samurai Shodown and Metal Slug. However, revenue would slowly dry up throughout the 1990's and SNK would fall onto hard times, with multiple key staff members, including Kawasaki, departing to start their own companies. SNK would end up declaring bankruptcy on October 22nd, 2001. Properties were auctioned off and floated between developers until Kawasaki's new company, Playmore Corporation would buy all up all SNK properties in 2003 to form SNK Playmore. The company would once again achieve modest success through the 2000's and into the 2010's, but nowhere near their peak. In 2016, Hong Kong based investment firm Leyou Technologies Holdings acquired a majority stake. SNK also dropped the Playmore brand at this time. Under this new ownership, there has been a push to restore the brand name by releasing more games and making established franchises known to a new generation. Alongside producing the Neo-Geo line of arcade systems and consoles, as well as several franchises, SNK has collaborated with multiple companies on various projects, such as antagonist Geese Howard in Bandai Namco's Tekken 7 and their dedicated crossover series with Capcom, Capcom vs. SNK.

In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate[edit]

Terry Bogard, the main protagonist of Fatal Fury and regular combatant in The King of Fighters, was confirmed on September 4, 2019 to be the fourth DLC character in the Fighters Pass Vol. 1 for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. He was released on November 6, 2019, along with his stage King of Fighters Stadium and 50 music tracks not just from Fatal Fury, but also from the The King of Fighters, Alpha Mission, Ikari Warriors, Athena, Psycho Soldier, Art of Fighting, Samurai Shodown, and Metal Slug series. Alongside spirits from Fatal Fury, spirits from Art of Fighting, The King of Fighters, Samurai Shodown, Psycho Solider, and Ikari Warriors also appear. Finally, Mii Costumes of SNK characters show up as DLC, with Ryo Sakazaki from Art of Fighting and Iori Yagami from The King of Fighters as costumes for the Mii Brawler, and Nakoruru from Samurai Shodown as an outfit for the Mii Swordfighter.

Trivia[edit]

• SNK is the third company represented in the Smash Bros. series to have competed against Nintendo in the console market, after Sega and Microsoft. As with the former, however, it stopped producing its own consoles before providing content for Smash Bros.
  • Unlike the former two, one of their consoles is mentioned in-game, as the NEO GEO logo appears on one of Terry's hats.
• SNK is the fourth third-party company to be introduced to the Super Smash Bros. series as DLC, the first three being Square Enix, Atlus, and Microsoft.
• SNK's The King of Fighters series actually played a part in the creation of the Super Smash Bros. series, as Masahiro Sakurai got the idea to create a newcomer-friendly fighting game after effortlessly winning against a young couple in The King of Fighters '95.
  • Fittingly, the King of Fighters series was the first to introduce a short-hopping mechanic to a traditional fighting game, and may have inspired the use of short hops with aerial attacks in the Super Smash Bros. series, along with other mechanics like the run (likewise borrowed from SNK's Samurai Shodown), spot dodge, and roll.
  • Additionally, the concept of characters from multiple SNK games colliding in The King of Fighters also directly inspired Masahiro Sakurai for the premise of Super Smash Bros.^[1]
• SNK and Bandai Namco currently have the least amount of playable characters in Smash out of all third-party companies with a playable character, with only one: Sega, Konami, Capcom and Square Enix have three while Microsoft has two.

References[edit]