SNK Playmore's classic title Samurai Shodown was released almost 15 years ago and, talking about the game's development with Polygon, series creators Yasushi Adachi and Tomoki Fukui explained why the game title misses the 'W' that should be in 'Showdown'.
"This was suggested to us by SNK's U.S. distributor," they explained. "They said that Spirits [from the Japanese title Samurai Spirits] doesn't really tell the consumer what the game is about, so they suggested replacing it with the word "Showdown." And the movie Shogun was popular at the time so they suggested the spelling of Shodown as a reference to Shogun."
Is is better without the 'W'?