Sega and Nintendo stole the headlines in the 90s, but SNK stole the imaginations of a generation with its exquisite Neo Geo machine, a console that fully delivered on the promise of arcade quality video games in your own home: it was, after all, an arcade machine you could effectively put under your own TV.
First released in its full-spec MVS arcade cabinet before the home version – dubbed the AES, or Advanced Entertainment System – followed early in 1990, the Neo Geo still stands out as a console with an allure all of its own. Maybe it’s how relatively unobtainable they were to contemporary audiences – the console came in at around £500 while games would cost up to £200 a piece – or maybe it’s how it arrived just before 3D gaming took hold, its 2D action titles still standing out as a high watermark for the form, but the Neo Geo’s appeal hasn’t dulled in all the years since.
SNK slipped into the shadows at the turn of the century, the collapse of the fighting genre which was its main trade as well as the commercial failure of the Neo Geo leading to its bankruptcy in 2001. The company changed hands over the years, and changed its strategy in the process, moving from pachinko machines to compilations and new takes on established properties, but it wasn’t until 2016 that fully glory was restored, the SNK name being retained alongside that iconic tagline ‘The Future is Now’.
Momentum has been gathering ever since, with key members from SNK’s past returning to help forge the next chapter in the company’s history. After 2019’s successful Samurai Shodown reboot, a new King of the Fighters is due later this year, with a new Metal Slug and even word of an all-new console imminent. Before all that, though, we got together some of those who helped make the SNK name so revered to give us an insight into its 90s heyday, and into what made these games so special.