PS3 Fanboy

Some of you might remember our post about King of Fighters XII coming to the PS3 in 2009. That seems like a long time from now, but don't worry old school fighting fans -- 2008 won't be going down without a little SNK love. The SNK-Capcom website tells fans that the AOU 2008 expo in Tokyo's Makuhari Messe convention center will feature King of Fighters XII in video format.

Not much else is know about what will be shown at AOU, but we do know that KoF XII will use a whole new game engine and rehashed old character sprites will be a thing of the past. The game is expected to come out first in the arcades by June/July 2008, running on the Taito Type X². A PS3 port (and possibly an Xbox 360 port) will follow in 2009.

Sony continues to taunt North American and European PS3 owners today by releasing a huge amount of PS1 titles for play on the PSP or PS3. Weighing in at a staggering 13 titles, this batch has a heavy emphasis on fighting games -- especially the King of Fighters series which has three new games alone! Here's the full list:

Guilty Gear
King of Fighters '95
King of Fighters '96
King of Fighters '97
Little Princess: Maru Oukoku no Ningyou Hime 2
Real Bout Garou Densetsu Special: Dominated Mind
Samurai Spirits: Kenkaku Yubinan Pack
Septentrion
Spectral Force 2
Spectral Tower
Suna no Embrace

In addition to the huge list of PS1 titles above, Sony is also releasing a free demo of a XI, also known as Devil Dice. Meanwhile, we get Championship Sprint -- joy. For North American and European users desperate for new content, Guilty Gear in particular looks like a nice purchase. It was kind of hard to find back in the day in America and it should be fairly easy to play for those of us not fluent in Japanese. The King of Fighter's games come heavily recommended too ... if only for Mai Shiranui. Double-sided tape FTW!

[Via PSP Fanboy]

Expensive, risk, risky, pricey, expensive, risk... we've heard all of this nonsense before! SNK, you are crazy. Yet, wise. SNK's marketing manager Yoshihito Koyama has gone on record with Kotaku saying, "My first impression is that it's expensive ... the PlayStation 3 is a risk." We can't blame SNK for being cautious -- they're not a very large firm and developing for the PS3 may indeed be a very dangerous risk.

However, SNK is eager to embrace the Nintendo Wii. They wish to use the Wiimote to incorporate a new dimension of play into their planned Metal Slug Anthology release. Also of note is that SNK still plans to release some games on the PS2, such as King of Fighters: Maximum Impact 2. Fighting games get such long titles! Anyway, SNK is waiting until 2009 to get cracking on the PS3. By then, development costs may decrease, more hardware in more homes (making for more software sales) and of course, the ulterior motive: making sure the PS3 doesn't crash and burn. We certainly hope that's not the case. Since the PS3 can neither drive nor fly.