Shin Nihon Kikaku Playmore

lol I kind of agree with what you are saying kuma. One thing I can say in their defence though - perhaps if the 2D market was in a much better state these days they would have much more cash to take the same risks that the old SNK did, but seeing as 2D doesn't sell as much anymore (not in the western world anyway), they can't afford to... and I suppose they don't want to end up bankrupt again. If they have a choice between putting out another rehash KOF that they know will do great in the arcades, or spending thousands on a totally new game with all new sprites and risking that it might not do very well, I guess they think the choice is clear... that's business unfortunately.

Someone on neo-geo.com recently put it this way - look at the game that some feel is one of the old SNK's best ever titles: Mark of the Wolves. They took a huge risk with that, by cutting out all the Fatal Fury regulars but Terry, putting an ungodly effort into making amazing animation and solid gameplay, but what did they get back out of it? A game that might still be VERY well thought of amongst the vast majority of fans, but also one that didn't perform anywhere near as good as a new KOF game where the content is maybe 60-70% the same as the previous years incarnation. I'm not ripping on KOF because I still love the series, but I suppose it's frustrating when a title that has had a whole lot of love put into its creation doesn't sell as well as it deserves. That's probably a large part of why we haven't seen a sequel yet, because regardless of whether or not Playmore still have the talent to make a worthy sequel, creating one would be a large risk due to the amount of work and more importantly MONEY they would have to put in...

Still, things are picking up, and it seems like we are getting quite a large amount of games this year that are all fairly exciting. SS6 looks like it might be at least reasonable, I'm quite excited at seeing how KOF XI turns out, and I'm EXTREMELY excited about Neo Geo Battle Coliseum, because Playmore does look to have put more effort into its creation (with the long development time and all the loke tests etc, as well as making new sprites for some old highly requested characters), so maybe the future is getting brighter. Whether or not we will ever see a new and great Last Blade or MotW sequel is a different story though... we can but hope

Kaz