But that means Terry's Fatal Fury Special win quote "Hubba, hubba, I'm in the pink today, boy!" would also be canon...

Forgot about that one...
Thank goodness XII wasn't canon either. Who could forget that cutscene with the Japanese newscaster speaking English that tries to attempt a French accent?

Heh, I know, though now I've listened to Terry, Geese, and Billy speak like that in games for so long that when they try to dub the characters properly like in the Maximum Impact games they don't sound right.

Though now that I mention it, I wonder if Geese or Rugal will ever come back and be a recurring boss since it probably takes too long to animate a new boss every game. You could tell with Boss Saiki that SNK didn't want to spend a lot of time on him.

I don't think better online play alone would be enough, but it would help a lot in keeping interested fans on the wagon. KOF13's netcode is around the same level as Street Fighter 4 and can be better depending on the connection, but the difference between that and SF4 is that KOF is less forgiving when it comes to combo execution. Tough execution isn't a bad thing, but it feels like a different game when lag enters the picture.

Why do you think KOF faded away in the public's eye like it did? Wasn't KOF and Fatal Fury very well known by American gamers in the 90s?

I think the downfall of arcades probably had a lot to do with it. In the '90s, if you'd never seen a Neo*Geo cabinet (which would certainly have at least one fighter in it), you clearly didn't get out much. In my area, you were more likely to see Samurai Shodown, but the point is that the Neo*Geo was a huge success as an arcade machine. Now that arcades and arcade games are much harder to find, SNK is left trying to compete with console games, where it had never had that much success.

I remember seeing those arcade machines EVERYWHERE in the 90s. It's a shame Neo-Geo never made a universal system like that after they stopped working on the original setup.

Atomiswave doesn't count.

Yes, but Street Fighter wasn't like that. Even after the arcades declined, the name "Street Fighter" stayed very relevant. Fatal Fury, King of Fighters, and Samurai Shodown were all on SNES...was their fanbase simply smaller? Maybe the Versus series maintaining so much popularity in the early 2000s was why Street Fighter stayed a relevant name while KOF (which released titles from 2000-2003) fell out of public interest.
 

I don't imagine the current SNK Playmore has come close to the success of the original SNK at its height. At the very least, they don't seem to have any designs on the hardware market. In fact, I don't think they've attempted to launch a new arcade hardware platform since the Hyper Neo*Geo 64 bombed. They rode the original Neo as long as they could, used Sammy's Atomiswave for a while, and are releasing games on the Taito X2 now.

As for the home market, my impression was that SF was always bigger there. On SNES, Street Fighter II was a system seller. SNK let Takara have a license to port its games and focused on $300 carts for its $600 console. In fact, whereas they were serious rivals in arcades, I don't think SNK has ever had the kind of presence on home consoles that Capcom has had (in the US; Japan is another story). Capcom was far more consistant in bringing games out in the US, for that matter. You might have had to get the lame PS1 versions, but I'm having trouble thinking of a Capcom fighter that wasn't brought out here. Several SNK titles, on the other hand, were only released in Japan. Plus, with SNK not always having a US branch, several of those that did were released by smaller publishers like Agetec in small print runs.

So, let's summarize this a bit. Both Capcom and SNK had tons of exposure in arcades, but SNK lagged behind Capcom on home consoles from the start, leading to more players who weren't arcade regulars being familiar with SFII in the first place. Capcom has consistantly remained strong in the home market, with SNK practically disappearing at times, so they've been more successful at remaining in the public mind. Thus, people play whatever new Capcom game and remember playing Street Fighter. People don't tend to play SNK games unless they're looking for them, so many of the people who remember their fighters don't need to be reminded, because they're serious fighting game players who never stopped playing those titles.

Thanks for the information! I had a rough idea, but seeing other's opinions are super helpful. I was pretty young during that era and only had a Genesis with SF2.

Some extra input: The original SNK went bankrupt around the year 2000. For a while a company called Eolith produced two KOF games: The absolutly horrible KOF2001 and KOF2002, which as Casey said above is one of the most popular installments next to KOF98. Later, the company came back as SNK Playmore, but most of its games either used dated graphics that wouldn't appeal to today's fans (KOF11, SamSho 5 + 6, Metal Slug) or were 3D but didn't capture the feel of the originals (KOF Maximum Impact, SamSho Sen). From what I heard, SNK Playmore also mainly focuses on its chain of pacinko machines, which are popular in Japan.

I've heard that SNK games were more popular in Mexico and other Latin America countries because the Neo-Geo was more cost effective since it could hold multiple games, but I don't think I can find anything to verify this. Otherwise Capcom has had an edge on SNK in the US, especially if you consider that most people first saw SNK characters in Capcom vs. SNK, which was made by Capcom.

Also: Yay to netcode patch http://twitter.com/#!/AtlusUSA/status/144848954306203648

First, if you like a series, gameplay, character, etc. regardless of how difficult it is to play, you should pick it up. You'll do better if you like what you're playing and you'll be more willing to stick out through the learning process. Also, I've played KOF for years and enjoyed it without ever being "good."

On an objective level, Street Fighter 4 is better for new players for a number of reasons.

a. It's the most popular game, so it has a lot of information and tutorials you can find and players to face off against. Most fighting games use the same terminology and concepts as Street Fighter, and it's arguably the best place to learn fundamentals that will apply to other games.

b. Learning how to play as one character is easier than learning how to play as three simultaneously. In Street Fighter in particular the character archetypes are more obvious: Ryu is an all-around fighter, Zangief is the heavy grappler, etc. You probably wouldn't immediately recognize King as a distance-orientated character as quickly as you would with Dhalsim.

c. SF4's execution is more lenient than KOF13's in a lot of ways. SF4 will often recognize that you want a specific special move and do it even if you don't perform the motion perfectly, while KOF13 won't. The main complaint with SF4 execution-wise is the existence of "one-frame links" or combos that require split-second timing to work, which is in KOF13 anyway.

I think "pick up and play" isn't a good word to use with fighting games because they simultaneously are and aren't. Street Fighter 4 is easier for beginners than KOF13 and Super Smash Brothers Brawl is even more pick up and play than them, but even then rabbit hole goes deep and you'll get crushed by someone who knows what they're doing. You could lose because the person knows how to do every combo, or you could lose because the person has bad execution but makes up for it with strong fundamentals and knowing what to do in every situation. I think fighting games could do a lot more in teaching people how to block, how to do mix-ups, how to win fireball wars etc. instead of just giving them a list of combos to perform. Virtua Fighter 4 did that years ago, and I'm hoping Skullgirls's tutorial will be good.

Or you could try the new demo for KOF13 and see for yourself...