Klassiska spelkonsolen Neo Geo kan göra comeback

SNK Corporation (株式会社SNK, Kabushiki Gaisha SNK) is a Japanese video game hardware and software company, successor to the Shin Nihon Kikaku and current owner of the SNK video game brand and Neo Geo video game platform. The Shin Nihon Kikaku Corporation was founded on July 22, 1978 by Eikichi Kawasaki. Initially called Shin Nihon Kikaku (新日本企画, lit. "New Japan Project"), the name was informally shortened to SNK Corporation in 1981 before becoming the company's official name in April 1986. SNK is most notable as creator of the Neo Geo family of arcade, home, and handheld game consoles, beginning in 1990. The Neo Geo line was halted in 2001, when financial troubles forced SNK Corporation to close on October 22, 2001. Anticipating the end of the company, Kawasaki founded Playmore Corporation on August 1, 2001. By October, Playmore had acquired all of the intellectual property of the former SNK Corporation. On July 7, 2003, Playmore Corporation was renamed to SNK Playmore Corporation, to more firmly establish itself as the successor to the SNK brand and legacy. Traditionally, SNK operated primarily as a video game developer, publisher, and hardware manufacturer, focusing on arcade games but also working on console and PC games. In 2004, the company started manufacturing pachislot machines, which the company leaned heavily into before withdrawing from the market in 2015. In 2009, the company also entered an active wave of mobile game development. Classic SNK franchises like Metal Slug, Samurai Shodown and The King of Fighters feature heavily in its recent offerings. On April 25, 2016, SNK dropped the "Playmore" name from its logo and reintroduced its original slogan, "The Future Is Now", as a means to signify "a return to SNK's rich gaming history." On December 1, 2016, SNK Playmore officially changed its corporate name back to SNK.

Neo Geo is a family of video game hardware developed by SNK. On the market from 1990 to 2004, the brand originated with the release of an arcade system, the Neo Geo MVS and its home console counterpart, the Neo Geo AES. Both the arcade system and console were powerful for the time and the AES allows for perfect compatibility of games released for the MVS. However, the high price point for both the AES console and its games prevented it from directly competing with its contemporaries, the Sega Genesis, Super NES, and TurboGrafx-16. However, the MVS arcade became very successful in stores in Japan and North America. Years later, SNK released the Neo Geo CD, a more cost effective console with games released on compact discs. The console was met with limited success, due in part to its slow CD-ROM drive. In an attempt to compete with increasingly popular 3D games, SNK released the Hyper Neo Geo 64 arcade system in 1997 as the successor to its aging MVS. The system did not fare well and only a few games were released for it. A planned home console based on the hardware was never released. SNK later extended the brand by releasing two handheld consoles, the Neo Geo Pocket, and later Neo Geo Pocket Color, which briefly competed with Nintendo's Game Boy. Soon after their release, SNK encountered various legal and financial issues - however the original Neo Geo MVS and AES continued getting new games under new ownership until officially being discontinued in 2004, ending the brand. Regardless of the failure of later Neo Geo hardware, games for the original MVS and AES have been well received. The system spawned several long-running and critically acclaimed series, mostly 2D fighters, including Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting, Samurai Shodown and The King of Fighters, as well as popular games in other genres such as the Metal Slug and Baseball Stars series. In December 2012, SNK Playmore released a handheld console based on the original AES, the Neo Geo X. As of March 1997, the Neo Geo had sold 980,000 units worldwide. The Neo Geo Pocket Color also has been given praise for multiple innovations, and a very substantial library, despite its short life.