As revealed during SNK's Investor Relations panel in Korea earlier this week, SNK is working on an all-new Metal Slug game, as well as new iterations of the NEOGEO. This news appeared on the Korean site Ruliweb and disseminated on Twitter. While the majority of the panel covers, as you might expect, financial information for Korean investors, the meat of the information came during a question-and-answer session with one Kim Seon-jin. Whether or not we'll see any detailed information about the first Metal Slug game in over 10 years, or a new NEOGEO console any time soon remains to be seen.
https://twitter.com/gatoray_kof/status/1118032224153006080
Still, SNK did elaborate somewhat on their ongoing projects. Kim made clear that the new Metal Slug project is not related to the ongoing partnership with Tencent, who tasked one of their subsidiary studios with making a Metal Slug game for mobile devices. Instead, SNK will work on the new Metal Slug game after work on King of Fighters and the new Samurai Showdown game. What this means for the upcoming King of Fighters XV, currently slated to release in 2020, remains to be seen. The recent SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy also saw modest success, shipping 300,000 units globally, prompting SNK to think about deriving more games from across different IPs.
Additionally, the more surprising news is that a new Neo Geo console is apparently in development. Based on the success of the NEOGEO Mini, SNK decided to push forward with its hardware development division. The NEOGEO Mini's total sales are valued at over "20 billion won," or roughly 17.5 million USD. Whereas the NEOGEO Mini was described as a "closed" system, the NEOGEO 2 (and 3!) will be more open, and not simply successors to the Mini. Because of the sheer lack of details, it's unclear at this time if SNK will be producing another home console like the AES version of the NEOGEO, or if it will be a free-standing arcade cabinet. Either way, hopefully, we see more from SNK soon.
