SNK's gaming division had to downsize and cut a lot of corners due to their most expensive game ever,
The King of Fighters XII (the most expensive 2D fighting game ever).
How expensive the game was? Well, production was planned for 3 years (same as SF3, the most expensive until then), but they didn't even get close to finishing it for the early 2008 release. They took
another year (meaning the contract with Taito had to be reworked)... and the game
still wasn't finished, despite people getting fired and three other games (Iroha, KOFMIA2, KOFMI3) being cancelled to redirect resources to KOF XII.
After 4 years, the game was released incomplete in 2009, and only
now the "real" game is 90% done, to be released as KOF X
III, in July:
The producer has already said that if KOF XIII flops, then
they're done for.
Specially when SNK fans have been complaining about too many straight ports of Metal Slug, KOF, etc for almost a decade. I wasn't surprised
at all to see the crazy control-scheme for MS. I've been a SNK fan since the 80's (Ikari Warriors), and i know how
damned if they do, damned if they don't things are ("
OMG, it's too similar to the last game", "
OMG, they changed it!" - that has happened to
every SNK series since 1995).
More information about the production story and the complex, all-new development process can be found with any easy google search and has been beaten to death already in dozens of forums.