Famitsu.com’s posted their interview with SNKP Executive and Chief of Gaming division Yutaka Noguchi, which in turn was summary translated by Professor of MMCAFE. Here are some highlights!
– New Pachislot regulations are one of the main reasons why SNKP decided to switch back to gaming. New releases of Pachislot machines were going to need huge changes, and when they laid down their business plans they decided it may be better to focus their resources back to gaming.
– Noguchi: “Even as of now, we’re better known as a game company than a pachislot company.”
– When SNKP took their IPs into consideration, they decided that going back into the gaming business and taking advantage of their IP would probably be better. Also, their smartphone and Steam stuff were doing well and it helped push things in that decision
– Noguchi’s heard from many people that they’re happy SNKP is back in gaming. He says it’s a market where they can hear the user’s voices more directly, but it’s also a harsh market that consumers will go away unless the games are actually fun even if it’s based on a popular IP. He hopes they’ll create fun games with the fans because that should be enjoyable for their development staffs as well.
– KOF14’s main dev members are old staff from SNK’s golden days.
– Their contact at SCEA is a fan from the NeoGeo era who’s been requesting some hardcore titles, one of the reasons why some PS4 ports are in progress.
– Noguchi predicts the Smartphone game market will still continue to grow, and SNKP will continue to focus on it.
– Metal Slug Attack is one of the main titles they’ll be focusing on in 2016
– Noguchi says that personally he’d like to release titles for the arcades as well as console.
– As one of their plans, they’re going to give out licenses that’ll fit the needs of various regions. For example with Asia, they licensed KOF98 to Tencent. They’re also hoping to license out characters, like say if Iori is popular in China and Terry is popular in North America, they’ll allow them to come out in those region’s games and whatnot.
– When asked about any collaborations with Japanese companies like “Capcom vs SNK”, Noguchi laughed and commented that they’ve just restarted their game business and there’s still a far way to go.
Photo courtesy of Famitsu: Source