SNKP's Sinking Credibilty News Thread

Episode III: Girls, Pachislot and IP Suicide

Hey kids!
Remember when SNK Playmore didn't rely solely on the KOF franchise to keep their credibility afloat? Well, their newest cell phone game certainly won't change their reputation:

http://game.snkplaymore.co.jp/mobile/game/details.php?id=109

(Master Tasuke will be pleased; everyone else will either be disgusted, horrified, or asking themselves if it's worth supporting a gaming company that churns out garbage like this on a regular basis in exchange for one good game every 12-24 months.)

In other less-important news, SNKP is putting the finishing touches on yet another pair of pachislot games. They are "Hyper Otosan" (which stars an aging Japanese super hero) and "Sister Quest 2" (good luck trying to guess the theme of that one).
http://slot.snkplaymore.co.jp/official/hyper_otousan/
http://slot.snkplaymore.co.jp/official/sister-quest2/

In my opinion, when the Japanese economy has flatlined and the creepy otaku fanbase is your only major source of income (as well as brain-dead pachinko punks), desperate times call for dumber decisions, at least in SNKP's case. Much as I'd like to see Crystalis II, I'm afraid we're far more likely to see SNKP get acquired by a Japanese cell phone company or a third-party Korean developer (again) than a new game that is neither a fighter nor a shooter (nor a perverted witch-touching game, thankyouveramuch).

Previous episodes of "The Sorry State of SNK Playmore" can also be found at the top of these threads:
http://www.neo-geo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=209371
http://www.neo-geo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=210308
http://www.neo-geo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=214805

(By the by, SNKP also said something about KOF Sky Stage coming to X-Box Live on September 15th.)

pretty terrible.
gotta love the fact that there's
gotta be someone at the top making
these stupid decisions.

I'd almost rather them be making more pachi slots.

Eh

Wtf, is that first one gals panic/mine sweeper?

People are still bothered by this? Okay, we are no longer the only audience SNKP is targeting, but clearly they have found an audience somewhere or they wouldn't keep producing stuff like this. The company is in business to make money wherever they can find it, not to cater exclusively to the dwindling fighting game market forever.

I don't understand why people get upset about the idea of a video game developer producing games other than what appeals to them. I'll probably never play a Last Blade pachislot or any of the games listed in this thread -- including Sky Stage -- but it doesn't offend me that they exist for other people with different tastes to play.

SNK made a game fulled with lolis and I'm only find out about this now? They should port that to the DS

Robert E. Lee said:

People are still bothered by this? Okay, we are no longer the only audience SNKP is targeting, but clearly they have found an audience somewhere or they wouldn't keep producing stuff like this. The company is in business to make money wherever they can find it, not to cater exclusively to the dwindling fighting game market forever.

I don't understand why people get upset about the idea of a video game developer producing games other than what appeals to them. I'll probably never play a Last Blade pachislot or any of the games listed in this thread -- including Sky Stage -- but it doesn't offend me that they exist for other people with different tastes to play.

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Exactly that is the case, i have the very same opinion.

Personally i am happy that SNKP is still in the market, since there have also been some quality releases from them like KoF 2002 UM on the PS2.
I guess they´d be long gone without the financial income from all those pachislot games.

Well lets look at the bright side. KOF XIII is doing good and looks fun as hell, so I'm gonna forgive all this shit. I mean, yeah focusing on the negative only seems like the main thing with all those articles, but tons of neglect is apparent when they do make something cool, so you have to be fair.

The first game looks dope! I need to play that right now!
Too bad i don't have a japanese cellphone

Times have changed. We are not in the 90s anymore. SNKP like any other company hast to make money to survive, even if that means to go for some side projects like the pachislot stuff. Cause that's what it is. KOF XIII is their main project and it's looking great. So where is the problem?

SNKP isn't doing so hot in the making money department. I don't think they are really making anyone THAT happy. They certainly aren't making the money capcom does/has.

Strider77 said:

SNKP isn't doing so hot in the making money department. I don't think they are really making anyone THAT happy. They certainly aren't making the money capcom does/has.

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Although, to be fair, Capcom is an industry leader with a lot of projects in a lot of different areas of the industry. There are few companies doing as well as Capcom.

SNK's long history of botched marketing and inability to see the big picture is well codumented. This is just a result of that.

I've said it before, I'll say it again. It's sad to see these IPs get miined for such markets, but if it means SNK-P gets some revenue stream to make the KOF XIIIs, then that's what they've got to do.

I'll only take umbrage if that's ALL these characters get used for. If it ever gets that bad, you can bet your ass I'll be hoping for a bigger company to come in and buy the IPs.

Taiso said:

SNK's long history of botched marketing and inability to see the big picture is well codumented. This is just a result of that.

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My view on SNKP despite my like of KOF XIII still stands.

This and the fact SNKP has the worst debugging staff on the planet. 99% of the reason many games are never touched again or are total failures is due to the fact that the games are by large broken as shit. This can be seen with KOF XIII. While popular, is a flash in the pan until its lost to the same damn problem that ruined every single KOF except for 98. Being broken in the long term. So much so that the games themselves lose the base entirely except in regions so poor, there is no oppositional play choice.

Even Garou is broken as hell.
So many SNK games have dominant issues that corrupt the over all package I could write a book on the subject.

This company has burnout syndrome, and the oversight is the worst shit on the planet. Its like they put money into developing these games, and totally destructive gameplay issues don't get noticed because the debugging staff is moronic. Then the whole company suffers due to a lack of professionalism in the smallest area of importance.

SNKP deserves its bed historically. Players aren't idiots, and they won't take your product seriously if its loaded with easy 100% combos, cancel based infinite exploits, exploitable lock glitches, etc.

This is the only active company who makes games they destroy themselves due to oversights and not firing that fucking moronic staff that ruins ANY potential future classics. Nobody knows how badly I love this company and its games, and how badly i want them to make something truly quality, so the same critics can't come out and prove me to be and idiot for liking the product. I can't even argue with my opponents anymore as a fan, and that's the worst let down from this company. Its like a bullseye just doesn't exist with them. I could stand in front of these people's faces, speak the most fluent japanese and explain it all, and nothing will change. I seriously am beginning to believe that SNKP actually enjoys failing.

KOF XIII looks so cool, but look at all the bullshit thats been found already that immediately threatens the pace of the game.

Taiso said:

SNK's long history of botched marketing and inability to see the big picture is well codumented.

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Keep in mind that SNK's long history of botched marketing and inability to see the big picture BEGAN with them continuing to put ALL their eggs into the fighting game genre basket, well past its best-by date.

Capcom realized 2D fighting games were starting to ebb, and began to develop other genres. If Capcom had continued to put ALL their focus into 2D fighters (like SF3, which completely bombed at the time), they'd now be in as bad of shape as SNKP. Games like Resident Evil saved them. But SNK buried their heads in the sand and carried on as if they could stop time in 1995 through sheer force of will. As if 2D fighters would always be the money makers they were in the early 1990s.

SNKP pursuing these weird new genres that don't appeal to us (the audience of the past who couldn't keep them afloat through changing times) now isn't an example of them not being able to see the big picture; it's a sign of them finally waking up to the modern reality.

Robert E. Lee said:

Keep in mind that SNK's long history of botched marketing and inability to see the big picture BEGAN with them continuing to put ALL their eggs into the fighting game genre basket, well past its best-by date.

Capcom realized 2D fighting games were starting to ebb, and began to develop other genres. If Capcom had continued to put ALL their focus into 2D fighters (like SF3, which completely bombed at the time), they'd now be in as bad of shape as SNKP. Games like Resident Evil saved them. But SNK buried their heads in the sand and carried on as if they could stop time in 1995 through sheer force of will. As if 2D fighters would always be the money makers they were in the early 1990s.

SNKP pursuing these weird new genres that don't appeal to us (the audience of the past who couldn't keep them afloat through changing times) now isn't an example of them not being able to see the big picture; it's a sign of them finally waking up to the modern reality.

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A reality smarter companies dealt with by seeing the bigger picture and developing games of multiple genres for the home console market. They saw the change coming. SNK clearly didn't. Or if they saw it, they ignored it. Same end result.

Then again, Capcom has always been a friend of home consoles. They have a LONG history of supporting consoles with plenty of releases, many well beyond their viable lifespan. It's just a market Capcom was infinitely more familiar with.

It could be argued SNK tried to do the same thing with titles like Koudelka, but for one reason or another, those things never took off.

I expect the whole company to go out of business within the next few years.

There is no chance that SNKP will ever get the resources, manpower, money to make some quick selling modern kind of shooter/racer/fighter/rpg.

They will continue to make a little cash with cheaply developed pachislot games with the old well known characters and throw out a quality title for their old audience every once in a while, like the KoF series.
These titles may not be perfect in terms of quality, but at least enjoyable to me so i support these efforts by buying that stuff.

KoF Skystage may not be a state of the art shooter, but at least you can have fun with it and it doesn´t cost you a fortune like some average Neo fighters from 15 years ago.

hoop-jones said:

I expect the whole company to go out of business within the next few years.

There is no chance that SNKP will ever get the resources, manpower, money to make some quick selling modern kind of shooter/racer/fighter/rpg.

They will continue to make a little cash with cheaply developed pachislot games with the old well known characters and throw out a quality title for their old audience every once in a while, like the KoF series.
These titles may not be perfect in terms of quality, but at least enjoyable to me so i support these efforts by buying that stuff.

KoF Skystage may not be a state of the art shooter, but at least you can have fun with it and it doesn´t cost you a fortune like some average Neo fighters from 15 years ago.

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I'm buying Sky Stage, myself. I'm no judge of quality shooters, so I won't have a hardcore mentality about it. I'll just buy it and enjoy/be frustrated by it.

I have already played it, since i own Neo Geo Heroes - Ultimate Shooting for the PSP.

I am also in no way an expert for shooters, but rest assured that you can have fun with the game. It adds nothing new to the genre, it does not look spectacular but it´s still a decent shooter well worth buying on XBox live arcade.
And for me it was a welcome variation of the old KoF fighting games.
Maybe Cave should have made Sky Stage .

Are there any differences between the Sky Stage build on Ultimate Shooting and the XBLA title (that you know of?)

Taiso said:

Are there any differences between the Sky Stage build on Ultimate Shooting and the XBLA title (that you know of?)

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From what I've heard the PSP version is a direct port of the arcade version, never played the arcade though so I don't know if it's accurate

The XBLA version I'm sure is a straight arcade port

As far as i know, the original Sky Stage game on the PSP is identical to the XBLA title.
It might well look a bit better on the 360 though.

The PSP version offers another kind of new or different version of Sky Stage with more SNK characters and other stages in addition.

I must admit that i have just taken a quick look on it, since i got it in the mail about a week ago and haven´t had much time to play it since then.
I may have seen the first 3-4 stages of both games, but not more.

Taiso said:

A reality smarter companies dealt with by seeing the bigger picture and developing games of multiple genres for the home console market. They saw the change coming. SNK clearly didn't. Or if they saw it, they ignored it. Same end result.

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Ironically, I think the thing that ended up hampering them the most at the point they should've been making the switch-over along with every other halfway intelligent developer/publisher was the unbelievable level of success they'd had with MVS. It had done so much for them, so well, that they didn't abandon it when they should have (to the joy of everyone here, including me).

Disastrously, instead of shifting their primary focus onto developing for the more advanced current consoles of the time, the way Capcom did, they tried to recreate their success with MVS by creating their own next-gen hardware. Then they compounded the blunder by abandoning it when it wasn't immediately successful, rather than sticking with it, and throwing all their effort back into MVS again. Until 2003-2004. As much as I appreciated each new Neo release we managed to get, along with everyone else here, that is insane.

Robert E. Lee said:

Ironically, I think the thing that ended up hampering them the most at the point they should've been making the switch-over along with every other halfway intelligent developer/publisher was the unbelievable level of success they'd had with MVS. It had done so much for them, so well, that they didn't abandon it when they should have (to the joy of everyone here, including me).

Disastrously, instead of shifting their primary focus onto developing for the more advanced current consoles of the time, the way Capcom did, they tried to recreate their success with MVS by creating their own next-gen hardware. Then they compounded the blunder by abandoning it when it wasn't immediately successful, rather than sticking with it, and throwing all their effort back into MVS again. Until 2003-2004. As much as I appreciated each new Neo release we managed to get, along with everyone else here, that is insane.

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No doubt. Credit them for trying to evolve their own hardware (Hyper Neo 64, NGPC) to keep it 'in house' and try to take their successful business acumen to the next level.

But those consoles were not the successes they needed to be, and that probably played a significant role in their downfall. Probably not the lion's share of the blame, but I'm sure a lot of resources got taxed that would have gone to smarter use developing for Sony, Sega and Nintendo.

Another thing that probably didn't help them internationally, aside from their bad marketing, was not being able to release a lot of their Neo ports in the US at single game max retail price points. Sony was super stingy with their PS2 releases stateside due to their own business strategies, and not being able to expose gamers to SNK games back when gaming was blowing up with the PS2 generation probably didn't help. Being forced to double 'em up at budget prices definitely bottlenecked their ability to make money. Might have even soured them to the whole concept, and not being able to get in on the PS2 money train definitely slowed them down.

Taiso said:

No doubt. Credit them for trying to evolve their own hardware (Hyper Neo 64, NGPC) to keep it 'in house' and try to take their successful business acumen to the next level.

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I don't credit them that; it was exactly that which killed them. MVS was lightning in a bottle. That success couldn't be duplicated. They should have been developing on other companies' arcade hardware and new games (rather than lame ports of MVS games) specifically created for other companies' home consoles since 1994 or '95. "The Future Is Now" was actually true during the Neo's heyday. But they tried to hold onto the hardware too long, when what they should have been holding onto was the guiding principle behind the slogan. People say Neo CD was never created to compete with Playstation and Saturn. But if not, why the hell did they create it at all? Could you imagine if Capcom had developed a CPS-2 CD home console? What a dumb idea that would have been. Capcom knew that with that type of game, the money was to be made in decent ports of their games on the existing consoles, not sinking money into their own console.

SNK should have had an answer to Biohazard. Not necessarily a survival horror game or anything, but something new and groundbreaking, in eye-candy 3D, on home consoles people actually owned. 1996 was the year SNK stopped being real competition for Capcom and started fading into obsolescence. Capcom came out with Resident Evil, and SNK came out with KOF '96, AOF3, Kizuna, SamSho4, and RBFF. And Capcom's Resident Evil was more successful than all of SNK's 1996 fighters combined.

Taiso said:

Another thing that probably didn't help them internationally, aside from their bad marketing, was not being able to release a lot of their Neo ports in the US at single game max retail price points.

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Neither was Capcom for the most part, by that point (Double Impact, for example). The thing is, they shouldn't have even been trying to. Capcom knew that and had adjusted accordingly. The fact that SNK/P was still trying to base their entire survival on that type of game to the modern market is exactly what the problem was.

I think SNK was trying to assure that gamers would get the arcade experience at home staying with the Neo-Geo hardware.

Capcom made less than stellar ports because
A) people weren't that picky about them back then.
B) They saw the writing on the wall about the death of the arcade scene
C ) for those that did care it brought them back to the arcades.

Lee is 100% about everything else. SNK did not see how the market was changing