Almost all of SNK has now been owned by Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman

Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman has acquired 96% of the renowned Japanese developer SNK. The crown prince's latest gaming investment is the latest in a line.

The Prince now controls nearly all of the developers behind Fatal Fury, Metal Slug, and The King of Fighters through his Electronic Gaming Development Company. The Mohammed bin Salman Foundation owns the Electronic Gaming Development Company.

According to a report released by the US intelligence community in 2021, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved a plan to "arrest or kill" journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.

When the investment was first proposed last year, a press release stated, "The Mohammed bin Salman Foundation's (MiSK Foundation) investment in the Japanese company SNK reinforces its continuous commitment to its goals of empowering Saudi men and women through building economic partnerships, within the Foundation's updated strategy to maximize the positive impact on youth empowerment."

The agreement was signed in February of this year, but it was just recently made public, indicating that SNK was not interested in making the agreement widely known. SNK's Korean-only papers on February 15, 2022, revealed confirmation of the investment.

This is the latest in a long line of gaming investments by Crown Prince-linked enterprises. Bloomberg reported earlier this year that the country's Public Investment Fund has invested more than 5% of its assets in both Capcom and Nexon. These investments totaled more than a billion dollars.

The fund invested over $3 billion in Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts, and Take-Two in December 2020.

If Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard goes through, it will benefit from a portion of that investment, as the agreement will see all shares bought out for $95, although the price varied from $79 to 91 per share in December 2020.

The Public Investment Fund is said to be essential to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's ambition of diversifying Saudi Arabia's economy away from oil revenues.

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