Basically yes :-(
The games were part of a 9 game deal that SNK asked us to develop for their customer in Dec 99. They awareded a license to TNS and then backed out of all of the support that they had offered (promised) the client. I have no fear of legal retribution here as I was at the meeting in Osaka. Then followed a pretty nasty series of exchanges involving legal reps from several areas.
All of the source promised to TNS was never provided and the games were done from scratch - SNK effectively tried to prevent the games from being released on at least one occasion, and there was some confusion over games that were released by Mega Corp in Korea - who claim that they too were licensed to release these games. The games were based on MAME and included open ROM files with some pretty gross language in text files within the ZIP'd ROM files.
So... we have just completed a version of Metal Slug which is going off for approval right now. Problem is though that there are very few staff at SNK - primarily focussed on Pachinko development and some small scale NGPC work.
Just for the record, we are now working on a series of new MVS titles (3 in hand) for release this year. SNK were offered the ability to provide info for the project and take a royalty. For whatever reason, only know to SNK, they were unable to meet the timescale for discussions/agreements, therefore they were informed last week that the project (also to be offered up to 3rd party development in Apr 01) would go ahead without SNK involvement. A little bit of sabre rattling on their part as you can imagine followed after that, but basically they are out in the cold on this one.
I was informed by a member of the company that the games that are pending release for all platforms at SNK are previous WIP titles that didn't make it out first time round.
So what lies ahead...it will be up to Aruze what they decide to do. With the possible demise of DC, SNK are not at a high point for experience in platforms to design for. I can confirm that 2 weeks ago, we offered them X Box conversions and DC conversions (the conversions are straight forward ports from the AES to platform - same graphics quality with 100% functionality)- no reply has been received on this.
Well we will continue to work on the games for MVS/AES using some new technology to prevent home bootlegging of AES conversions - sorry guys.
BTW - anyone interested in a Neo Robotron - not promising, but it's something that we are seriously looking at - the original, not a new version - would like some feedback on this and some of the other WMS games from that era - plus anything else you would like to see for MVS or AES - maybe even a gun game..........
I will include some screen shots of WIP in the near future but I am sure you will understand that they will not be made available until nearer the release date. I will put them up via neo-geo.com first in parallel with our site.
Thanks for the space
Jeff Ferrier
