Saudi Arabian prince wants SNK to grow as a Japanese company, rather than relocate 

A recent presentation by the CEO of SNK has revealed what plans the majority shareholder, Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, has in store for the game company’s future. Apparently, the prince is an avid gamer and has high expectations for SNK’s growth. 

Founded in Osaka, Japan in 1978, SNK enjoyed remarkable success in the 1990s, thanks to the popularity of its arcade fighting game series such as King of Fighters, Fatal Fury and Samurai Shodown. In this decade, SNK also entered the home console market, with various iterations of their Neo Geo console. SNK would file for bankruptcy in 2000, but managed to successfully rebuild itself. 

News of the Saudi Arabian royal family’s investment in SNK hit international media back in 2022. At this time, the prince’s MiSK Foundation (Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Foundation) owned approx. 96% of SNK’s shares- making it the majority shareholder. This led to concerns in the media over Saudi Arabia’s poor human rights record (especially regarding women, minorities, and its ongoing role in the war in Yemen), as well as worries that this would impact the content of SNK games, particularly depictions of female and LGBT characters. However, at the time, SNK producer and designer Yasuyuki Oda was quoted as saying that the situation has no effect on the company’s creative output (source: Games Industry.biz). 

As reported on Japanese game dev news site gamemakers, SNK CEO Kenji Matsubara recently gave a presentation about the company’s current circumstances and growth strategy at the Game Creators Conference ‘24. Currently, the Saudi Arabian prince’s foundation owns 100% of SNK’s shares. Matsubara recalls asking the prince in an online meeting about what he wants to do with SNK. 

It seems that Matsubara thought that the prince might wish to move SNK to Saudi Arabia and grow the company there, or develop games using SNK IPs in the West, and voiced these concerns. However, in response, the prince passionately demanded to see SNK grow bigger as a Japanese company and to “shine brightly on the world again,” like it did in the 1990s.  

Matsubara went on to outline the company’s plans for future growth- explaining that SNK aims to become one of the top ten game publishers in the world in ten years’ time. To achieve this ambitious goal, the company has not only worked out a long-term strategy but is also looking at the short term, precisely calculating how many titles it plans to release within a 3-year period.  

Although SNK is well known in Asia, brand recognition in America and Europe is lacking in comparison. SNK has offices in China, but it doesn’t have any in the West. It seems that the Japanese video game developer and publisher is moving to address these issues. According to gamemakers’ report, the company is also working with outside partners to increase the number of game releases and to try making more titles outside the fighting game genre.