I actually got to sit down and talk with the new President of SNK Ben Herman and their V.P. of Sales and Marketing Eric Feiner. I had a lot of questions for them as an SNK fan and they answered all the ones they could. A lot of what they told me ended up being stuff that I can’t talk about on the site just yet. There are a few nuggets thought hat I think I can share.
SNK is planning on launching a new online store. This will be a place to purchase not just SNK games but also merchandise. Things like posters, shirts and toys will be available through the store. This is good news for SNK fans that have had few choices when it came to getting their games.
A 3D Metal Slug is in the works right now but that isn’t the only popular SNK franchise destined to make it’s make into the 3rd dimension.
A fifth Samurai Shodown game was confirmed although I can’t give you anymore details than that.
There are no plans at this time for a new Mark of the Wolves game.
The thing I took away from the meeting was just how much these guys love SNK and how much they appreciate SNK fans. They are both committed to bringing SNK games to a whole new generation of gamers via today’s consoles.
I also got a chance to see some video footage of SNK vs. Capcom at the booth. Visually the game looks more like King of Fighters than Mark of the Wolves. The animation looked good but Ben stressed that the game was still very early. The Capcom characters I saw looked like the Street Fighter 2 versions of the characters, Ryu and Ken Especially. The plan is to release it for the Neo-Geo first and then follow that up in a month or so with a PS2 version and then possibly other systems. It sounds like they have a very good relationship with Sony as they mentioned ports of older SNK games and even some compilations were scheduled for PS2 release in the future.
SNK is back guys and in my opinion it couldn’t be in better hands.
-Gabe out
