game trailblazer

Chapter 309 SNK's "Sweet Song"

"Swish", Hideyoshi Kawasaki quickly signed his name on the document. From this moment on, SNK America will officially enter the closing process, and the corresponding SNK company will also shrink its business and completely withdraw from the European and American video game markets.After closing the signed documents on the table, Hideyoshi Kawasaki leaned back on the chair exhaustedly, touched his face with his hands, trying to relieve the mental pressure during this time.

Recalling the beginning, Hideyoshi Kawasaki felt like riding a roller coaster.As early as July 1978, SNK's predecessor, the new RB planning company, was established. At first, the small-scale new RB planning company's main business was to design and produce computer software and hardware for different business partners.Soon after, Kawasaki Hideyoshi noticed the rapid rise of coin-operated business machines (arcade machines) and saw the achievements of other companies, especially the success of TAITO's "Space Invaders". The industry with the potential for development is more importantly profitable, so under his promotion, the new RB planning company began to expand its business to the development and promotion of coin-operated arcade machines.

After experiencing two less successful works, the vertical scrolling space shooting game "OZMAWARS" and the maze racing game "SAFARIRALLY", when the horizontal scrolling shooting game "VANGUARD" was launched again in 1982, the situation began to improve significantly, and Kawasaki Yingji expected In that way, I really made some money from coin-operated arcade machines. Although it was not as much as expected, it was already more profitable than designing and producing computer software and hardware for business partners.

One year before the birth of the side-scrolling shooting game "VANGUARD", in order to expand the arcade market in North America, New RB Planning Company established a small company in Sun Valley near San Jones, California, and arranged for a man named John Suwei The guy is in charge. In this one-person company, he is both the CEO and the salesman. His task is to sell their own brand of coin-operated arcade machines to North American video game halls. This small company later became SNK North America. .

It was not until 1986 that the new RB Planning Company finally made a good reputation in the arcade market. With the brilliant achievements of "Athena" and "Rage", it became a successful video game manufacturer. In [-], the new RB Planning Company officially changed its name to SNK.

That is to say, from then on, in the last few years of the 80s, and even in the early 90s, SNK's performance was quite gratifying. Not only did it launch a powerful MVS substrate, which continued the glory of the arcade market, but it also launched a MVS substrate. The NEO·GEO advanced entertainment system with advanced technology has entered the same lucrative home machine market, and has achieved good results. Many players who are bewitched by the slogan "bring the arcade machine home" are willing to spend $599 The high price is to experience the arcade feeling at home.

Different from the cowardly performance of Genesis (Sega) and Snes (Nintendo) at the same time, NEO GEO Advanced Entertainment System (NEOGEO ADVANCED ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEMN, referred to as AES) is completely a monster. Motorola 68000 main CPU and Z-80ACPU as backup have completely turned the The other two were far away.When it first went on sale, AES was priced at $599, and it took a few months for it to drop to $399, but it is still the most expensive.

But no matter how expensive it is, as a fighter in game consoles, there are always people who are willing to spend money to experience the feeling of an arcade at home.After all, the rocker of the AES controller is 2.5 inches (6.35 cm) high, and the wire length is 11 inches (27.94 cm). The buttons on it are the same as the arcade machine with the MVS board - four buttons, and even the position is the same. .When the player fixes the controller and holds the joystick to play the game, except for the noisy sound of the video game hall, there is really a feeling of sitting in front of the arcade.

Due to the good business development, SNK North America, which is in charge of the arcade business, left San Jones Sun Valley and moved to Torrance, where SNK Home Entertainment, which is in charge of the home console business, shared the same office building. Later, the two companies merged For SNK America, the company Hideyoshi Kawasaki signed the paperwork to close today.

After 1994, due to the addition of Sony Computer Entertainment, the home machine market gradually became more prosperous, and the corresponding arcade machine market began to become depressed.To make matters worse, pirated arcade machines are crazily seizing the already small market share. Later, arcade emulators appeared, which hit SNK, whose arcade business is the main business and home machine business has not improved much. It was so big that it even reached the point of hurting muscles and bones.

Kawasaki Hideyoshi was not willing to admit defeat, so he tried to save SNK's decline.First, it tried to launch the NEO·GEO optical disk system, trying to promote the sales of home machines through cheap storage media, but it failed.Immediately afterwards, he tried to transplant his own games to other companies' home consoles. At that time, Nintendo's N64 was still in its infancy, and the old Super Nintendo Kawasaki Hideyoshi didn't like it. The newcomer Sony Computer Entertainment also seemed immature to him. It was Namco who took the lead, and he didn't want SNK to mess with it, so he finally chose Sega's Saturn game console as the first choice for transplantation. Unexpectedly, the Saturn, which was still ahead at the beginning, was unable to succeed. When I embraced the PS game console, I had already missed the initial golden period.

In order to seize the arcade market, the old MVS substrate has been overwhelmed, so SNK introduced the "advanced" 64-bit arcade substrate technology at a high price, but it was cheated by the Americans and cost a lot of money. The exchanged new base board could not develop attractive games at all. The heavyweight masterpieces "Samurai Soul 64" and "Legend of Hungry Wolf 64" developed with a lot of money failed successively. The "advanced" so-called HyperNEOGEO64 base board finally could only Storage, SNK was also forced to use the old MVS substrate again, and continue to squeeze its meager little potential.

The failure of many efforts did not make Kawasaki Hideyoshi give up. Perhaps it was "Pokemon" that brought the GameBoy back to glory and gave him some inspiration. SNK chose the new market of portable handhelds as a last-ditch effort.This is the first time for SNK to play with a portable handheld, so they did some market research, and the final conclusion is that "the black and white screen can bring a longer battery life, which is one of the important reasons for the success of the GameBoy... ", so the NeoGeoPocket, which uses a black and white screen and has a slightly higher screen resolution than the GameBoy, was born.Before SNK celebrated its discovery of a new world, Nintendo just released the GameBoyColor with a color screen. Hideyoshi Kawasaki was dumbfounded and had to ask his staff to develop a portable handheld with a color screen.A few months later, NeoGeoPocketColor was born. Just when Hideyoshi Kawasaki breathed a sigh of relief, he discovered a new problem. It turns out that the most important thing about a portable handheld is not the performance and screen of the machine, but whether there are many games running on it. .

GameBoy has attracted many game companies to develop games for it by virtue of its huge global ownership, while NGP and NGPC almost only have games developed by SNK. On the one hand, there are thousands of games, and on the other hand, there are not even a hundred games, except for a very few Except for SNK's diehard players, almost all of them fell into the arms of GameBoy, so SNK's last game ended in failure again.

By the beginning of this year, SNK has accumulated a huge debt of up to 380 billion yen. At this time, even if Kawasaki Hideyoshi has any better ideas, he has no money to continue to toss him, and if the company's situation cannot be improved as soon as possible, there may even be It may not be able to survive, after all, SNK's family background is very thin.At this moment, Okada Shoki appeared, representing the pachinko giant Aruchi Group.

Aruzhi Group is engaged in pachinko business, that is, pinball gambling machines and the like. Of course, it is illegal to gamble in RB, so pachinko shops will not directly exchange money for customers. If you win on the machine, the store usually gives some specially-made and sealed prizes based on the data paper coming out of the counting machine, such as lipstick pens, ballpoint pens, etc., and then customers can take the prizes to the widow welfare club outside the store To exchange money, there is usually a sign at the door, which says "a ballpoint pen is 2000 yen" or the like, which can be regarded as a reward in disguise.

In the past, the pachinko industry was even more profitable than casinos, but now life is getting worse. Due to the introduction of some new laws, the pachinko industry has been greatly suppressed, and the loss of customers is also serious, so Ah Ruzhi The group began to turn its attention to other profitable industries, including the prosperous gaming industry.

Of course, SNK is not the only one that can be chosen by Aruzhi Group in the entire game industry. With the fierce competition in the past few years, there are many people who have played to the verge of bankruptcy, such as Sega. Without strong support, they may not be able to sustain it for a long time, and even many game companies that are doing well and the company size is not too large are good targets.In the end, Aruzhi Group will take a fancy to SNK. Okada Saki doesn’t know the specific reason, but there are rumors that the president’s son likes SNK games. It is said that there are a lot of things such as NEO GEO and NGPC in his family. , but this statement is too ridiculous, at least Okada Sangki does not believe it.

Kawasaki Hideyoshi still remembers the first time he met Okada Saki. It was a day in early February, and the weather was a bit cloudy and cold, just like the environment where SNK was in at that time.On such a day, Okada Sangki appeared in front of him and told him very kindly that Aruzhi Group wanted to "cooperate" with SNK.Of course, this is a polite statement. In fact, Aruzhi Group wants to hold SNK. Although Hideyoshi Kawasaki is unwilling to take this step, the debt of 2 billion yen finally made him succumb.

After the two parties signed the agreement, SNK issued 500 million new shares according to the agreement, and raised 50 billion yen from Aruzhi Group for the company's future development. Before that, SNK had a total of 483 million shares , so Aruzhi Group became the major shareholder holding more than 50% of the shares as it wished, and then acted as the guarantor of the 380 billion yen debt as the major shareholder of SNK. Although the debt could not be forgiven directly, at least Those creditors are not pressing so hard anymore, Kawasaki Hideyoshi can take a breather and pay back slowly.

But Hideyoshi Kawasaki was not happy for long, and the situation changed suddenly in March.Aruzhi Group used its status as a major shareholder to turn SNK into its subsidiary, and then began to exchange personnel internally, and laid off some employees of SNK Company, and many old employees simply quit.This is not over yet. The Kawasaki family, which lost control due to the decline in equity, was even kicked out of the board of directors. It just gave Kawasaki Hideyoshi the false title of "SNK America" ​​president, which is also the document meeting for SNK America to close its doors. The reason for his signature, of course, he can only agree. Now that SNK America has closed its business, he, the nominal president, only has the name of a consultant left in the group.

Recalling the changes in the past few months, Kawasaki Hideyoshi feels as if he has passed away. Half a year ago, he was the helm of a company, but he did not expect to be reduced to a marginal figure now. If he hadn’t saved his hand at the beginning, he might be completely driven out now. It's not impossible to get out.In fact, in addition to the Aruzhi Group, there are other people who have revealed their willingness to purchase, such as Xu Yeming, a Hong Kong man who mentioned it, but after knowing that SNK’s debts are 380 billion yen, there is no news. Otherwise maybe he would be different today.

But the matter has come to this point, it is useless to regret or be annoyed, it is better to think of a way and see how it can get the place back.Kawasaki Hideyoshi is an ambitious person, and he can't bear to be inferior to others. If it weren't for too much debt, he would not accept the suggestion of the Aruzhi Group. Now he is even marginalized by the other party, and he is even more upset, so He decided that something had to be done.

Hideyoshi Kawasaki started to act three months ago. After so many years in the game industry, he knows what is the most important resource of a game development company. It is not an office building or a theme park, but those experienced developers personnel, as well as famous game brands such as "King of Fighters" and game development rights, as long as these two points are grasped, SNK is still his Kawasaki Hideyoshi.Fortunately, Aruzhi Group is still a newcomer in the game industry. It thinks that everything will be fine if it controls SNK.

Taking advantage of the opportunity of being ignored, Hideyoshi Kawasaki quietly contacted many old employees of the former SNK company, especially those experienced game developers, and agreed with them to leave the Aruzhi Group when necessary and start a new business.But the game brand and game development rights are not so easy to get, so Hideyoshi Kawasaki decided to endure it first and wait for the right time.

(End of this chapter)