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What Matsubara meant by a “golden age”
The phrase described an ambition, not an announced corporate program or a documented achievement. Matsubara said he joined SNK around three years before the 2024 interview, when the company had one office in Osaka and a few hundred employees. He recalled setting a ten-year ambition to make SNK one of the top entertainment companies, with a three-year plan as an initial step.
“We want to become a bigger company, but from the start, for example, we put together a three-year plan,” he said. The interview explains the direction he described, but provides no independently measured revenue, market-share or audience-growth results to show how far SNK had progressed.
How SNK planned to broaden its game pipeline
Matsubara’s strategy was not to abandon the franchises and genres associated with SNK. It was to build on them while making games that could reach beyond the established fighting-game audience.
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- Use familiar IP in more genres. He said SNK was bringing existing properties into genres beyond fighting games, including action games.
- Create new IP. He described teams working on new properties alongside projects based on the company’s existing catalogue.
- Revive underused franchises and genres. Matsubara said development teams were working on IP and genres that had not been used recently.
- Change internal processes. He cited updates to company rules and the process for approving new titles as part of the effort to support growth.
Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves represented a return to the Fatal Fury series after a long gap, in Matsubara’s account. He saw the franchise as a way to welcome new players to fighting games through marketing, promotions and content with appeal beyond core genre fans. Fighting games would remain a major pillar, but he argued that additional genres could reach a broader player base.
What he said about SNK’s teams and studios
Matsubara said SNK had “more than 600 employees” when the interview took place. That is an interview-time figure attributed to the CEO, not a current headcount. He described different teams with distinct roles:
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| Location or team | Work described in the interview |
|---|---|
| Osaka | Classic IP and fighting games, as well as work in new genres. |
| Tokyo | New IP, including projects Matsubara characterized as triple-A titles. |
| Retro team | A recently started team focused on remakes, reboots and ports. |
| Chinese studio | Mobile games using existing and new IP. |
The interview also described offices in Singapore, Korea and Taiwan. These organizational details reflect Matsubara’s account at the time; they do not establish SNK’s current staffing or studio structure.
Why esports remained central
Matsubara called esports a major pillar of SNK’s marketing. He pointed to SNK tournaments and the company’s participation in Evo events, and discussed the SNK World Championships, including a previous final held in Los Angeles. He said he wanted future finals to reach North America. Those comments record his plans and examples at interview time; they should not be read as a current event calendar.
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What the Cristiano Ronaldo partnership was meant to do
Matsubara said SNK’s parent company made the partnership possible in large part. He presented Ronaldo’s involvement as a way to raise awareness of SNK and Fatal Fury, calling it a significant opportunity for the company: “That’s a big partnership for us.”
The interview does not establish what campaign deliverables followed, how audiences responded, whether sales changed, or the arrangement’s current status. Matsubara said SNK expected to share more details in the future; his comment is not evidence of a specific later outcome.
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What Matsubara said about SNK’s global plans and release timing
He described a goal of expanding SNK’s global development and publishing presence, increasing development capacity, releasing more titles regularly, and growing global sales and marketing. Possible future offices in North America and Europe were part of that vision, not confirmed openings in the interview.
On timing, Matsubara said games based on new or existing IP might arrive in 2026, 2027 or 2028 because development takes several years. Those were forward-looking possibilities voiced in 2024, not verified release dates or a current roadmap.
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What the interview establishes—and what it does not
The interview offers a direct account of how Matsubara described SNK’s strategy: build the business in stages, invest in both legacy and new IP, expand into more genres, and use marketing and esports to find a wider audience. It also records his view that the Ronaldo partnership could help raise the profile of SNK and Fatal Fury.
It does not independently verify business performance, the current size or structure of SNK, the completion of planned projects, the execution or impact of the Ronaldo partnership, or the release dates of future games. The “golden age” is best understood as Matsubara’s goal for the company, not a claim that the comeback had already been achieved.
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