From this moment on, SNK USA will officially enter the closure process, and the corresponding SNK company will also shrink its business and completely withdraw from the European and American video game market. Closing the signed documents on the table, Kawasaki Hideyoshi leaned back into the chair tiredly and touched his face with his hand, trying to relieve the mental pressure during this time.

Looking back at the beginning, Hideyoshi Kawasaki felt like he was on a roller coaster. As early as July 1978, SNK's predecessor, Nippon Planning, was founded, and the main business of the small Nippon Planning Company was to design and produce computer hardware and software for various business partners. Soon after, Hideyoshi Kawasaki noticed the rapid rise of coin-operated business machines (arcades), and saw the success of other companies, especially Taito's "Space Invaders", he thought that this was definitely a very promising industry, and more importantly, it was very profitable, so under his promotion, New Japan Planning began to expand its business to the development and promotion of coin-operated arcades.

AFTER TWO LESS SUCCESSFUL TITLES, THE LONG-SCROLLING SPACE SHOOTER OZMAWARS AND THE MAZE RACING GAME SAFARIRALLY, THINGS BEGAN TO IMPROVE SIGNIFICANTLY IN 1982 WHEN THE SIDE-SCROLLING SHOOTER VANGUARD WAS RELAUNCHED, AND AS KAWASAKI EIKICHI HAD PREDICTED, HE DID MAKE SOME MONEY FROM THE COIN-OPERATED ARCADE, ALTHOUGH NOT AS MUCH AS EXPECTED, BUT IT WAS MUCH MORE PROFITABLE THAN HE HAD BEEN FOR DESIGNING AND PRODUCING COMPUTER HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE FOR BUSINESS PARTNERS.

A YEAR BEFORE THE SIDE-SCROLLING SHOOTER VANGUARD, IN ORDER TO EXPAND THE ARCADE MARKET IN NORTH AMERICA, THE NEW JAPANESE PLANNING COMPANY SET UP A SMALL COMPANY IN SUN VALLEY NEAR S. J. SUEWE, A ONE-MAN COMPANY, WHO WAS BOTH THE CEO AND THE SALESMAN, WAS TASKED WITH SELLING THEIR OWN BRAND OF COIN-OPERATED ARCADES TO VIDEO GAME HALLS IN NORTH AMERICA, WHICH LATER BECAME SNK NORTH AMERICA.

It wasn't until 1986 that Shin Nippon Planning finally made a name for itself in the arcade market, becoming a successful video game producer with the success of Athena and Fury, and it was in this year that Shin Nippon Planning officially changed its name to SNK.

It was from this time that in the last years of the 80s, and even the early 90s, SNK achieved quite gratifying results, not only launching the powerful MVS substrate, continuing the glory of the arcade market, but also launching the NEO· The GEO advanced entertainment system, which has also touched the market of home consoles that is also profitable, has also achieved good results, and many players who have been seduced by the slogan "bring the arcade home" are willing to pay a high price of $599 in order to experience the feeling of arcade at home.

Unlike the cowardly performance of its contemporaries, Genesis and Snes, NEO· THE GEO ADVANCED ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM (NEOGEOADVANCED ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEMN, OR AES) IS A COMPLETE MONSTER, AND THE MOTOROLA 68000 MAIN CPU PLUS THE Z-80ACPU AS A BACKUP HAS COMPLETELY LEFT THE OTHER TWO FAR BEHIND. When it first came on sale, AES sold for a whopping $599, and it took a few months for it to drop to $399, but it's still the most expensive.

But no matter how expensive, as a fighter in a game console, there are always people who are willing to pay for the experience of arcade at home. After all, the AES controller has a 2.5-inch (6.35 cm) tall joystick and an 11-inch (27.94 cm) long cable, and the buttons on it are the same as those of an MVS-based arcade machine — four buttons, not even in position. When the player holds the handle and holds the joystick to play the game, there is really a feeling of sitting in front of an arcade machine, except that there is no noise of video arcades.

Due to the good business development, SNK North America, which was responsible for the arcade business, left St. John's Sun Valley and moved to Torrance, the home entertainment company of SNK Home Entertainment, which was responsible for the home machine business, and shared the same office building.

After 1994, due to the addition of Sony Computer Entertainment, the home console market gradually became more prosperous, and the corresponding arcade market began to become depressed. What's worse is that pirated arcade machines are frantically grabbing the already small market share, and later arcade simulators appeared, which is a big blow to SNK, which is mainly in the arcade business and has not seen much improvement in the home machine business, even to the point of breaking the bones.

Kawasaki Hideyoshi was unwilling to admit defeat, so he tried to save SNK's decline. First tried to launch NEO· The GEO optical disc system, which tried to drive sales of home consoles through cheap storage media, unfortunately failed. Then he tried to transplant his own games to other companies' home consoles, when Nintendo's N64 was still in infancy, the decrepit Super Nintendo Kawasaki Hideyoshi couldn't look down on it, and the new army Sony Computer Entertainment also seemed very immature in his opinion, and more importantly, Namco took the lead, he didn't want SNK to stir up again, so he finally chose Sega's Saturn game console as the first choice for transplantation, who knew that Saturn, which was still leading at the beginning, was powerless, and when SNK saw the situation clearly and then threw himself into the arms of PS game consoles, he had missed the initial golden period。

In order to seize the arcade market, the last struggle, the old MVS substrate has been overwhelmed, for which SNK introduced the "advanced" 64-bit arcade substrate technology at a high price, but I didn't expect to be pitted by the Americans, and the new substrate that spent a lot of money in exchange for could not develop an attractive game at all, and spent a lot of money to develop the heavyweight masterpiece "Samurai Shodown 64" and "Legend of the Hungry Wolf 64" successively failed and was "advanced" The so-called HyperNEOGEO64 substrate could only be mothballed, and SNK was forced to re-use the old MVS substrate to continue to squeeze its meagre potential.

The failure of many efforts did not make Kawasaki Hideyoshi give up, perhaps it was "Pokemon" that led to the revival of the GameBoy and gave him some kind of inspiration, and SNK's last resort chose the new market of portable handhelds. This was the first time SNK had played with a portable handheld, so they did some market research and came to the conclusion that "a black and white screen can bring a long battery life, which is one of the important reasons for the success of the GameBoy......", so the NeoGeoPocket with a black and white screen and a slightly higher screen resolution than the GameBoy was born. Before SNK celebrated that he had discovered a new world, Nintendo threw out the GameBoyColor with a color screen just right, and then Kawasaki Hideyoshi was dumbfounded, so he had to ask his subordinates to quickly develop a portable handheld with a color screen. A few months later, NeoGeoPocketColor was born, and just when Kawasaki Hideyoshi breathed a sigh of relief, he discovered a new problem, it turned out that the most important thing in a portable handheld was not the performance of the machine and the screen, but the number of games running on it.

GameBoy has attracted many game companies to develop games for it with its huge global ownership, while NGP and NGPC are almost only SNK's own games, with thousands of games on one side and not even a hundred on the other, except for a very small number of SNK die-hard players, almost all of them have thrown themselves into the arms of GameBoy, so SNK's last game ended in failure again.

By the beginning of this year, SNK had accumulated a huge debt of up to 38 billion yen, and even if Kawasaki Hideyoshi had any more wonderful ideas, there was no money to continue to toss him, and if he couldn't improve the company's situation as soon as possible, he might not even be able to survive, after all, SNK's family background was very thin. Just then, Okada Soki appeared, who was coming on behalf of the pachinko giant Aryuzhi Group.

Of course, gambling is illegal in Japan, so the pachinko shop will not directly exchange money to customers, once the customer wins from the pachinko machine, the store usually gives some specially sealed prizes according to the data paper from the counting machine, such as a lipstick pen, ballpoint pen and the like, and then the customer can take the prize out of the store to the widow's welfare club outside the store to exchange money, where there is usually a sign at the door, which reads" A ballpoint pen is 2,000 yen" or something like that, which is a prize in disguise.

In the past, the pachinko industry was even more profitable than the casino, but now life is gradually 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 the Arukchi Group began to turn its attention to other profitable industries, including the booming gaming industry.

Of course, SNK is not the only one in the entire game industry that can be selected by the Aruzhi Group, and with the fierce competition in recent years, there are many people who have played to the verge of bankruptcy, such as Sega Company, if it were not for the support of CSK Group's Okawa Gong, it may not be able to hold on, and even many game companies that mix well and are not too big are also good targets. In the end, the Arashiba Group will take a fancy to SNK, and Okada Soki actually doesn't know the specific reason, but it is rumored that the president's son likes SNK's games, and it is said that the family also has a lot of collections such as NEO· GEO, NGPC and the like, but this statement is so nonsense that at least Okada Achiki doesn't believe it.

Kawasaki still remembers the first time he met Okada Aiki, one day in early February, and the weather was a little cloudy and cold, just like the environment in which SNK was located at that time. On that day, Okada Soki appeared in front of him and told him very kindly that Arushi Group wanted to "cooperate" with SNK. Of course, this is a polite statement, in fact, the Arozhi Group wants to control SNK, and although Kawasaki Hideyoshi is reluctant to take this step, the debt of 38 billion yen finally makes him succumb.

After the signing of the agreement, SNK issued 5 million new shares as agreed, and raised 5 billion yen from the Aruschi Group for the company's future development, and SNK had a total of 4.83 million shares before, so the Arushi Group became more than 50% of the shares as desired , then as the major shareholder of SNK, he became the guarantor of the 38 billion yen debt, although he could not directly forgive the debt, but at least those creditors were not pressed so tightly, and Kawasaki Hideyoshi could take a breath and slowly repay it.

But Kawasaki Hideyoshi 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 his subsidiary, and then began internal personnel exchanges, and easily laid off some employees of SNK, and many old employees simply jumped ship. This is not the end, the Kawasaki family, which lost control because of the decline in equity, was even kicked out of the board of directors, but also retained a false title of "SNK America" chairman for Kawasaki Hideyoshi, which is also the reason why the documents of SNK America's closure will be used for him to sign, of course, he can only agree, now that SNK America is closed, he, the nominal chairman, has only one consultant left in the group.

Looking back on the changes in the past few months, Kawasaki Hideyoshi has a feeling of being a world away, half a year ago he was still at the helm of a company, but he didn't expect to be reduced to a marginal figure now, if he hadn't kept a hand at the beginning, maybe it is not impossible to be completely kicked out now. In fact, in addition to the Aruzhi Group, there were other people who revealed their willingness to buy, such as the Hong Kong man Xu Yeming once mentioned it, but when he knew that SNK's debt was 38 billion yen, there was no news, otherwise he might be a different person today.

But at this point, it's useless to regret or be annoyed, it's better to think of a way to see how you can get the field back. Kawasaki Hideyoshi is an ambitious person, he can't bear to be subordinate, if it weren't for too much debt, he wouldn't accept the suggestion of the Aruzhi Group, and now he is still marginalized by the other party, he is even more unhappy, so he decided that he had to do something.

Hideyoshi Kawasaki started to act three months ago, and after so many years in the game industry, he knows what is the most important resource of a game development company, not office buildings, not theme parks, but those experienced developers, as well as famous game brands such as "The King of Fighters" and game development rights, as long as he grasps these two points, SNK is still his Kawasaki Hideyoshi. Fortunately, the Arushi Group is still a newcomer in the game industry, and it thinks that everything will be fine if it controls SNK, and it is not clear that Kawasaki Hideyoshi is doing those small actions behind his back.

Taking advantage of being overlooked, Kawasaki Hidekichi quietly contacted many of the former SNK employees, especially those experienced game developers, and agreed with them to leave the Aruschi Group and start a new business if necessary. But the game brand and game development rights are not so easy to obtain, so Kawasaki Hideyoshi decided to hold back and wait for the right time.

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