Players who like "Samurai Shodown", "King of Fighters", "Metal Slug" and other works must be familiar with the name SNK, although after several twists and turns, SNK has lost its momentum, but presumably no one can deny SNK's strength as a fighting game developer. In November 2020, Saudi Arabia's MiSK consortium bought shares in SNK, and SNK ushered in a new period of change. In this second period, our media partners 4Gamer.net interviewed three key figures at the center of change, Kazuhiro Fujishige, Tomoichi Ichikawa, and Yuji Togito, and in this second period of entrepreneurship, the goal of the entire SNK is to make the company the world's top 10 publisher.
Original: https://www.4gamer.net/games/999/G999905/20220422141/
Below, highlights are summarized:
There won't be much interference from the Saudi side, except for one member of the board from MisK, all that remains are old people in the gaming industry. For example, there is the studio director and executive producer of the original EA, the executive vice president of the original Activision Blizzard, and the original SIE's Atsushi Morita, who provided a lot of advice for SNK;
Led by Kenji Matsubara, the current president of SNK, the overall goal of SNK is to become the world's top 10 distribution company within ten years. But this does not mean that SNK will become a company of another style, which will be expanded on the original SNK today. For example, when SNK is mentioned now, most of the ideas are battle fighting games, but these games alone are far from becoming the publishers of the Top10;
In the new office in Tokyo, other types other than fighting games will be developed, focusing on Kazuhiro Fujishige, Tomoichi Ichikawa, and Yuji Tsato. The current Tokyo office has about 30 people (12 people in development), and will expand to about 150 to 300 people in three or five years. In addition, there is a mobile game development studio with about 150 people in China, which is also expected to expand to the same size;
There are several topics to be produced in the future, but the key is to create "new value" for both SNK and the market. So the first thing SNK wants to start is to launch a work with the scale and quality that a 3A-level masterpiece should have on the home game console;
Because of this oil king's capital injection, there is no need to worry about money. At the same time, 10 years of time are also given, and there is no need to worry about time. Usually some unsatisfactory places may also use the release date, financial report, budget and other reasons to find excuses, this time whether it is money or time can not find excuses, so there is no way to make compromises on quality.
At least three AAA titles will be launched in a decade.
From left to right, they are Yuji Tsato, Tomoichi Ichikawa, Shigeru Fuji, and Hiroshige.
Fujishige and Hiroshige
SNK's Second Software Development Business Director, who was in charge of the network business for many years during the Glorious Tekumo era, served as the brand leader of the Wazawa Light Brand Group. In the SEGA era, he was mainly responsible for the smartphone production business, and as the product leader, he launched the "Project Sekai Colorful Stage!" feat. Hatsune Mirai".
Chiichi Ichikawa
SNK Second Software Development Division Deputy Business Director, served as the head of the Wazawa Light Brand Group during the Glorious Tkumo era.
Yuji Saito
Chief Artist of SNK's Second Software Development Division, who has conducted cutscenes for children's stop-crying works such as Dragon among Men and Binary Domain. In the smartphone business, he served as the head of the design leadership and art department.