The Saudi's bought a controlling stake in SNK yes?
I'm not sure how the companies finances are at this stage. Almost all the time people say they are too strapped to attempt 2-D anymore.
If that is still the case they need to go the Sega route & provide some source code to on quality outside studio & let them work their magic (ala Sonic Mania). A solid example of this would be the KOF XII/XIII engine. It would be grerat to see them offer updates in the form of packs (a few new characters, backrounds, somgs, even huds, etc) for a price. I would pay top dollar for that.
Between half assed hardware execution (Neo Geo Mini) & "Meh" in house 3-D graphics I find it hard to get excited about the current SNK.
Getting DLC for KOX XIII, even this late (hey, Age of Empires did it!), would be pretty awesome, but animating even just one character for that game took up an incredible amount of time. I believe it was 18 months from start to finish? The return on investment for that would sadly not be worth it.
Anyways, from my understanding, SNK has been pretty profitable since they were reborn yet again in 2016. KOF 14 sold well enough, Sam Sho did better than expected, and KOF 15 has been their highest selling game as a company to date IIRC. They're definitely on an upward trend.
I'm definitely on board for contracting outside studios to help work on titles, provided they're good ones. They kind of already are with their mobile F(uckyourwallet)2P games. They have a treasure trove of IPs and some are long overdue for getting their day in the sun again. That said, they can't just rely on that solely as while those IPs are solid gold to Neo nerds like us, the vast majority of the gaming world today wouldn't have the foggiest idea what the hell they are.
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