Well, that was unexpected!  Dreamcancel has just reported that the Chinese company Leyou Millenium, a subsidiary of Leyou technologies has bought 81.25% of shares from original founder of SNK, Eikichi Kawasaki and his wife, Natsuyo.

For the intricate details, and who owns what, go over to the article at DC.  Let’s just review what this means for the fans.

Does this mean your favourite character will now get included as DLC or not?  Not really – The main concern of Oriental Securities (owner of Leyou) is to make decisions on top level financial direction, so things like whether to develop more console games or work on smartphone releases (ahem) or pachinko or anime tie ins.  As majority shareholders they can veto any major decisions rather than local decisions, such as game content – it’s more about the strategy, though even that should be up to the manager and planners.  They do their jobs and the shareholders will then examine the performance of the directors who manage them.  The shareholders can even nominate a new director, if the current isn’t satisfactory.  They can generally influence the running and direction of the company.

The CEO of Oriental Securities is quoted to be interested in following the Marvel formula.

So… that could mean more anime tie-ins, more anime, more games, more spin offs, more merchandise, more cross overs, whatever the shareholder thinks would earn the company more profit.  That could mean less console and more PC/Smartphone based activity, considering the lift on consoles in China and recent industry indicators by Konami and Namco, it’s a little worrying.  But it should be safe to say IF SNK are developing KOFXIV, they’re not going to just halt development, that would be a huge waste of investment.

So, stay calm, and carry on.