What was the main reason for SNK's financial downfall?

Vigilante · Dec 8, 2002

Was it that the 2d games on the NG were falling out of favour, or is it because of the extra systems they made, the CD,64, Pocket Color?

tsukaesugi · Dec 8, 2002

Japan has been in a pretty heavy recession ever since the bubble economy burst in the late 80's, early 90's.

A lot of weaker companies, or maybe I should say, less-strong companies, got weeded out.

That probably had a lot to do with it.

SPINMASTER X · Dec 8, 2002

DA R0mZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzZZ!!!!!!!!!!!

l337 <a href="http://www.l337ha><0rZr0mz.net!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" target="_blank">www.l337ha><0rZr0mz.net!!!!!!!!!!!!!!</a> Its where i get mine baby!!

Shitty managament was the cause my man, and from the way things are going currently they still will have shitty management.

p.s. Are you really jamaican? I'm NG.com's no1 token jamerican right here, zeen.

Parallax Abstraction · Dec 9, 2002

A lot of it was just idiotic management for sure. Things like dropping the ball with the Pocket Colour (which could have made SNK the dominant force in portables, beating out Nintendo to the Game Boy Advance) and building outdated systems like the Hyper64. I think the type of games they make being part of a dying breed (let's face it, arcades are fading fast) had a lot to do with it too. I think also if they broadened their focus a bit (I mean, fighting games are good at all, but there were way too many of them) and made more than a couple of genres of games, they could have reached a wider audience. Hopefully, the new company will learn from these things, but I doubt it.

Captain Spain · Dec 9, 2002

Idiotic management all the way. Being bought by stoopid Aruze didn't help either...

mog · Dec 9, 2002

The fact that they tried to sell 300 dollar games to a world full of casual gamers. The CDZ was released a little too late if they wanted people to actually get into the system. Even then it was too late to get people interested in games that are superior to many of today's titles.

Don't get me wrong, I like my AES (not that I can afford games for it or anything), but they would have been in much better shape had they started with the CDZ and left carts for the arcade. I know the reason I never got one as a kid was that it just had a reputation of being a super expensive game system. I never even knew the CDZ existed at the time. Had that been around as long as the AES there's no way that my friends and I wouldn't have had one.

Wolferaizer · Dec 9, 2002

when 3D games takes ova da world...

oh yeah, SNK screwed their HN64. wat a waste of monies.

Vigilante · Dec 10, 2002

It makes sense that they should have broadened the genres. Japan is the land where RPG's rule. They should have made more rpgs fu show.(btw didn't SNK do a 3d type rpg for the PSX? I remember seeing an ad for it on a 2000 Gamepro of mine)

Were the games always at least 300$? In what ways was Aruze a failure for SNK? Did they allow themselves to be bought?

Oh to Spinmaster, I was born in Kingston Jamaica and lived there for 8 years. Then I moved to Barbados for the next 9 1/2 years. I've spent the last 3 1/2 years living in Toronto.

SPINMASTER X · Dec 10, 2002

Originally posted by Vigilante:
It makes sense that they should have broadened the genres. Japan is the land where RPG's rule. They should have made more rpgs fu show.(btw didn't SNK do a 3d type rpg for the PSX? I remember seeing an ad for it on a 2000 Gamepro of mine)

Were the games always at least 300$? In what ways was Aruze a failure for SNK? Did they allow themselves to be bought?

Oh to Spinmaster, I was born in Kingston Jamaica and lived there for 8 years. Then I moved to Barbados for the next 9 1/2 years. I've spent the last 3 1/2 years living in Toronto.<hr></blockquote>

I think SNK didn't felt they didn't have the skills/funds/resources to jump into other genres so they let fear get to 'em and kept doing what they knew they could do.

If you ask me, they should have copied capcom(again) and followed what they were doing. Capcom has its foot firmly grounded in both 2d and 3d and they have experience in current console and arcade hardware. Capcom were smart for what they did. They didn't abandon 2d but they experimented with 3d and learned how to do it good.

SNK's i guess you could say "stubborness" killed them in the end along with their shitty management(what a deadly combination). If they wanna succeed in their 2nd life they better grab some NAOMI, Gamecube, Xbox and PS2 hardware and get to work.

to vigilante, Wow cool, so you've lived in a couple different places thats neat. I'm half jamaican half american and have lived in the US and Germany and I know this sounds crazy but i've never been to JA yet! yeah yeah i know i should have but i will go sometime soon.

buster_broon · Dec 10, 2002

Originally posted by Wolferaizer:
when 3D games takes ova da world...

oh yeah, SNK screwed their HN64. wat a waste of monies.<hr></blockquote>

he has it - the hyper 64 was a failure from the start and they put far too much money into it

evil wasabi · Dec 10, 2002

the fact theat they stuck with the neo so damn long, and still are, bad management, being bought by aruze, only making 1-2 genres of games (fighters and um, metal slug) and the fact that arcades have been on the decline. if your not an interactive crazy music game, you dont make money any more.

Lashujin · Dec 10, 2002

I was really, really into the pocket heavily during the downfall of SNK, and one thing I've seen written on here many times was that the pocket was a financial failure, when in fact it was the best thing SNK had going for it near the end. I remember reading in mags like EGM and such that the pocket was doing relatively well, I even knew several (non-SNK fanboys) people who were thinking of buying it. The sales figures were fairly good. The only reason SNK shut down was because aruze bought it, thats it. Aruze basically came in and dictated that SNK shut down all their offices except for the japanese office, and that all their products in those countires get cancelled. They had all this stuff ready to come out the door too, EX. MAtch of the millenium two was near completion at the time, and Aruze, or should I say Abuze, ruined it. From there on it was just downhill in japan at aruze's guide. I remember an announcment that SNK was going to focus on 3d titles more, right near the end and word was that this was completely at the command of the new Abuze leaders in the company, as Abuze threw out several top SNK guys

BTW, Aruze "buying" SNK is not really correct either, from what I've been told it was a hostile takeover.

[ December 10, 2002: Message edited by: Lashujin ]

Argentina94 · Dec 10, 2002

Originally posted by Vigilante:
It makes sense that they should have broadened the genres. Japan is the land where RPG's rule. They should have made more rpgs fu show.(btw didn't SNK do a 3d type rpg for the PSX? I remember seeing an ad for it on a 2000 Gamepro of mine)

Were the games always at least 300$? In what ways was Aruze a failure for SNK? Did they allow themselves to be bought?

Oh to Spinmaster, I was born in Kingston Jamaica and lived there for 8 years. Then I moved to Barbados for the next 9 1/2 years. I've spent the last 3 1/2 years living in Toronto.<hr></blockquote>

Toronto? I'm hosting a Neo Geo get together in January. If you're interested, check out the Unrelated forum. I'm in North York.

k'_127 · Dec 10, 2002

we stopped buying NEO games when the carts' prices reached $ 300 . the last game we bought was fatal fury 3 . we planned to buy KOF 96 after that but we ended buying a playstation instead and that's when we stopped buying neo-geo games completly . my brother sold the system with all the games few years later

Vigilante · Dec 11, 2002

Hostile takeover huh, that sucks. Playmore is fully in control now right.

2 questions. When did Aruze takeover SNK, and how much were Neo game carts originally?

EVIL NICK · Dec 11, 2002

Not having Crystalis ( or Crystalis 2 ) on the Neo was also a big reason of their downfall... <img src="graemlins/tickled.gif" border="0" alt="[Tickled]" />

Gamefan · Dec 11, 2002

I feel the main reason for their demise was due to bad marketing. I mean, the system was priced way too high, and so were the games. You cannot market a $700 machine and also sell the games for an average price of $300. This along with very little game genres caused SNK to start a slow downward spiral. Also, I feel that seeing this from a management point of view, caused the executives to perform drastic changes and thus the reason for poor management.

Then again, I could just be talking out of my ass too.

GAMEFAN

Winston Goh · Dec 12, 2002

One thing for sure, neo cart are priced differently in different country.

Let see.

Neo System In USA was US$500 when released.
Neo System In SGP was SG$500

Neo Game Fatal Fury was US$300 when released VS
SG$300

Big different in price...exchange rate being 1US$ to SGP$2++

ttooddddyy · Dec 12, 2002

Good point Winston

I wonder what the Japan-US price difference was at the time of release ???

FeelGood · Dec 12, 2002

One of the few things we have to work with are the # of titles released each year.

93 : 7 new cart releases.
94 : 12 new cart releases.
95 : 15 new cart releases.
96 : 16 new cart releases.
97 : 4 new cart releases.
98 : 7 new cart releases.

Their problems seemed to occur in 1997, but I would say that they were going down after Samurai Shodown II, arguably the greatest neo geo game ever - but hands down the best seller ever on MVS and home formats. They made so much money from SSII, but obviously didn't put enough of it in savings. Then in 1996~1997 they began to fund their new system, the Hyper Neo Geo 64. You can see the effect of that in 1997, with only 4 Home releases. And so you see it is a combination - SNK only had one blockbuster game, and they tried to get intot he next gen stuff with a 64 bit machine. It backfired. Bad management, yeah. A lot of other things too. A Japanese business with international sales has to deal with the rise and fall of their yen value too. Back in 1998 it was 150Y:$1 - then in early 2000, before they closed, it was 100Y:$1. International sales suffer when the yen is strong. It was kind of strong in 1995~6 too. Something to think about I guess.

Orochi_invisibleink · Dec 12, 2002

Originally posted by Captain Spain:
Idiotic management all the way. Being bought by stoopid Aruze didn't help either...<hr></blockquote>

dont forget all the rom whores <img src="graemlins/smirk.gif" border="0" alt="[Smirk]" />

VinylBoy · Dec 12, 2002

It's not necessarily the games they did (or did not) release, nor is most of it due to other things like ROMS, bootleggers and other "freaks" in the industry. SNK just didn't keep up with the way things were moving in the industry. The arcade scene was dying all over the world, including in Japan. SNK's main focus had always been the arcades, with somewhat of a minimal interst in the home market. As arcades continued to dwindle in attendance numbers (and revenue), so didn't SNK's funds. Home ports could have saved them, but many of them were very poor (like the PSX ports of many SNK games). As the video gaming market became more and more home based, SNK's main outlet for making money started to get low... and with all of the stupid business decisions made by complanies like Azure, it only helped accelerate the problem.

IMO, this is what probably happened to cause the actual financial fall of SNK. Regardless, Playmore is now in the picture and the SNK tradition continues. So who cares about past financial woes as long as we still got the games?

mog · Dec 12, 2002

I'm still convinced that it's because they tried to step into the home console industry with a system and games that were too expensive to sell. Which I suppose falls under poor management. The way they were running things it would have been better for them to just concentrate on MVS rather than do home releases. They were selling a very expensive product to a market that, at the time, was comprised mostly of children. No matter how good something looks, with the SNES and Genesis around with a cheaper system and cheaper games, high quality couldn't compete with low price.

Wolferaizer · Dec 12, 2002

... then came a few weeks later after da release of NG pocket colour...

"uh ah, WTF is that B&W Neo pocket?"

Wolferaizer · Dec 12, 2002

Originally posted by mog:
No matter how good something looks, with the SNES and Genesis around with a cheaper system and cheaper games, high quality couldn't compete with low price.<hr></blockquote>

well on that time, Neo was regarded as most powerful console eva!

but today, u cant compare Neo to those nextgen console. it is outdated & not worth getting it unless u r collector.

What was the main reason for SNK's financial downfall?

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