King of Fighters NeoWave to begin beta testing

TOKYO--Announced through its official site, SNK Playmore will begin beta-testing its new arcade game The King of Fighters NeoWave starting tomorrow in Osaka, Japan.

The title will be SNK Playmore's first release on the Atomiswave platform, which the company will use for all its future arcade releases. Atomiswave is Sammy's low-cost, cartridge-based JAMMA-compatible system (JAMMA is an arcade standard in Japan) that runs on the same CPU as Sega's Dreamcast and Naomi systems. The Atomiswave is currently in use in America and Japan, but Sammy is planning to bring the machine to other regions, especially countries where the NeoGeo is currently popular.

SNK Playmore's shift toward the Atomiswave was spurred by the hardware limitations of the NeoGeo hardware, which is 13 years old. It is also expected to decrease the piracy losses that have affected the company's development costs in the past. SNK Playmore's final release on its current NeoGeo platform will be Samurai Spirits Zero Special, which is scheduled for shipment to arcade vendors on April 22.