The writing has been on the wall for a few weeks now and it looks like Konami are moving away from console games and concentrating on the mobile market.
“Gaming has spread to a number of platforms, but at the end of the day, the platform that is always closest to us, is mobile,” said Konami CEO Hayakawa to Nikkei, and translated by Neogaf. “Mobile is where the future of gaming lies. With multiplatform games, there’s really no point in dividing the market into categories any more. Mobiles will take on the new role of linking the general public to the gaming world.”
“We will pursue mobile games aggressively,” he added, “our main platform will be mobiles.”
Whilst they have not specifically stated that they are withdrawing from the console market Konami only have one game on their release schedule, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.
“We hope that our overseas games such as MGSV and Winning Eleven continue to do well,” said Hayakawa, “but we are always thinking about how to push our franchises onto mobile there too.”
Japanese publishers seem to be having a tough time, Sega recently revealed they made a loss last year and failed to reach sales targets for Aliens: Isolation and the last Sonic game. Square Enix seem to doing well, although a lot of their output including Tomb Raider and Deus Ex now comes from western studios.
With Konami focusing on mobile games it looks like the next time we walk in to Silent Hill it will be on a very small screen.
UPDATE: Added for lols.
I see the future: Silent Hill Touch. Pay $1.99 to clear the fog now, or wait six hours for it to disappear.
— Andrew Reiner (@Andrew_Reiner) May 14, 2015
UPDATE 2: Just a little FYI, Konami have a really strong presence in the Japanese mobile gaming market, which is why they refer to “the platform that is always closest to us”. This is not something new for the company, more a of a refocus. However, outside Japan their main presence is in the console world, only time will tell if they can replicate their mobile success outside of Japan.
UPDATE 3: It appears that PES will continue.
Hey guys just want to say to please stop worrying, the future of PES is safe ? We have an incredible future ahead, can't wait to show you ?
— Adam Bhatti (@Adam_Bhatti) May 13, 2015
Source: NeoGAF
Kennykazey
Konami will either merge with a different company (Square-Enix, Bandai-Namco) or start leasing out their IPs. I don’t see any other options for them now.
CrawFail
They’re putting too many (all) their eggs into too little baskets (one). The mobile market is massively saturated and based pretty much on trends and viral “hits”. No matter their focus on the mobile platforms, if their ideas aren’t up to scratch they won’t make money.
Just because the console market has dwindled for them it doesn’t mean people wouldn’t have bought their products. It’s their OWN fault they don’t sell much on home consoles, three franchises isn’t really much for a publisher of Konami’s size and reputation to rely on.
Instead of making good, consistent money across several platforms, they obviously want ALL the money and as quickly as possible and obviously at the detriment to artistic integrity and loyalty to fans of their output.
They aren’t the first company to succumb to greed. They won’t be the last. Fuck Konami and their utter contempt for the consumer, the industry, their employees past and present and their complete disregard to franchises they’ve built.
If they can’t support themselves, I can’t support them.
I’ll buy MGSV used, thank you very much.
paxpacis
So finally getting Nemesis and Salamander on my Vita?