SNK Playmore has come out with nice games like The King of Fighters and Metal Slug. They also have a huge presence in North America. But there have been a lot of rumors circulating that the Osaka-based firm was planning to close its US offices in the summer of 2008.
However, that is not the case as SNK Japan spoke to gaming blog Kotaku and said that they are NOT closing the US offices. They explained, “It (the rumor) is not true. We are just planning to move to LA. Currently we have an office in NJ, but we should have the branch office in West Coast, because of time differences and access are much better than NJ. Also, Ignition USA is located in LA (Marina Del Ray), so recently we have done co-publishing announcement with them.”
SNK Japan mentioned that they will be keeping their NJ office till the end of the year and then move to LA. They also plan to refurbish and revitalize their ‘US corporation’. Ben Harman is expected to retire as he has crossed sixty. They also said that they cannot close down the US offices as SNK is working on King of Fighters 12 for next generation consoles.