SNK Playmore Has Had Their Eye On The PC Market For "Quite Some Time"

SNK Playmore has a library of games on consoles and the NeoGeo X handheld. On Friday, SNK Playmore will release their first game on Steam, The King of Fighters XIII Steam Edition. Siliconera contacted SNK Playmore to ask them about the PC version and their plans for the Steam platform.

How did development of the PC port start and how did SNK get in touch with Valve for Steam?

The motivation to work with Valve mainly came from SNK Playmore wishing to provide quality content to our fans and the world at large. Steam was of course the obvious platform of choice when it comes to the PC market, and it’s been an absolute pleasure working with them! Our North American & European Business Dept. has had our eye on the PC market for quite some time, and starting from early this year the push to work on the Steam platform finally became a reality. That said, we needed to get the right development team and infrastructure in place.

Can you tell us about the team that handled the port? How did this group get started?

Jason Varlet, Lead Programmer: I spent months implementing most of the features – all the while working with our internal Producer. Then as the end drew near, we had an extra programmer, Jim Bulmer, join me on the programming team to help wrap it up, and a few others joined to help out in other departments too (translation / localization, marketing, etc.).

One of the features in The King of Fighters XIII Steam Edition is improved netcode. How did you improve the performance of the netcode for the PC release and will the console versions get an update?

JV: The approach of the netcode in KOF XIII SE is a completely different input delay method than what was originally used. However, there isn’t that much to it, it’s still input delay based. I would describe it as a very typical input delay method, with a few extra bells and whistles to handle PC performance issues. We just had to get the tuning of it right. That’s where our amazing, supportive community comes in! The support and feedback we have received from Day #1 of the Beta test has been instrumental to the progress of the netcode. Thanks community!

Console versions will most likely not get an update, unfortunately. So those wishing to take advantage of the improved netcode will have to pick it up on Steam.

What else is new for Steam Edition?

SNKP: Story Mode has only been revised from the arcade version. However, KOF XIII Steam Edition and console versions are the same. That said, vast improvements have been made to the game’s netcode, a number of graphics performance options, and the addition of a few “bells & whistles” such as Trading Cards support on Steam.

Was the game rebalanced at all?

SNKP: No it hasn’t been rebalanced. But the balancing from King of Fighters XIII Climax has been used.

What is SNK Playmore’s future plans with Steam? There is a large library of NeoGeo titles that could be brought over and it would be awesome to see some new entries like maybe a new Metal Slug or Twinkle Star Sprites.

SNKP: Our experience working with Valve/Steam on this project was an incredibly positive one, and we hope we can work with them more in the future. As you say, SNK Playmore has an amazing library of games!

Additional titles have already been spotted on the Steam DB – so, there’s the chance we may see those brought to Steam. We’ll also be heavily considering PC / Steam for future "new" projects too as they come, so we hope the fans support and fully enjoy this new release of KOF XIII from Friday, September 13^th!