Saudi Arabia Now Owns Nearly All of SNK
As foreign powers continue to grow their economic reach and influence, they are actively looking for new markets to gain a foothold across multiple mediums. Chinese technology giants like Tencent, for example, have been very aggressive in gaining a said foothold in the games industry with major investments in companies like Epic Games and Riot Games. It appears Saudi Arabia is now looking to get in on this, as well, with Japanese developer SNK now nearly under complete ownership of Saudi Arabia's crown prince.
SNK Corporation is one of the oldest video game companies still active in Japan, standing alongside fellow Japanese powerhouse companies like Capcom and Square Enix. Originally founded in 1978 as Shin Nihon Kikaku as an arcade game developer, the studio is responsible for popular series including Metal Slug, The King of Fighters, and Fatal Fury, among others. The company also tried to get in on the console market with the Neo Geo console line, a family of systems ranging from in-home systems to handheld devices SNK produced between 1990 and 2004.
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It was announced on April 5 that the company had, effectively, come under the ownership of Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman following a massive investment from Electronic Gaming Development Company, which is owned by the Mohammad bin Salman Foundation. The Verge reported the EGDC acquired 96.18 percent of SNK Corporation's stock shares, a more sizable investment than the previously announced 51 percent the MiSK Foundation spoke about in a press release.
«The Mohammed bin Salman Foundation’s (MiSK Foundation) investment in SNK continues a long-standing partnership with the Japanese company that
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