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Konami: "Mobile is where the future of gaming lies."
News reported by 
(Editor)
May 15, 2015, 16:39
 
Farewell, yet another classic developer from my childhood

Konami will soon only be making games for mobile platforms. Your thoughts?

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05/15/15, 16:39
 
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Pretty much this.



Posted by 
 on: 05/15/15, 16:44   Edited:  05/15/15, 16:46
Not to pick nits but it doesn't say they will only be making mobile games? Just that "the company will be shifting its focus away from console development and instead toward mobile game development".

Still, how many days until Kojima announces a Kickstarter project that is essentially Metal Gear Solid without the name?

...although maybe this is slightly less likely than some other developers considering how much he talked about wanting to get away from the series.

Posted by 
 on: 05/15/15, 16:47   Edited:  05/15/15, 16:49
Good luck with that, asshats. I just hope they're open to re-releasing their old games on Virtual Console type services in the future, 'cause that's the Konami (and Hudson) I care about.

Posted by 
 on: 05/15/15, 16:47
He didn't exactly say they would only make mobile games from now on. But it wouldn't surprise me. They could probably carve out a decent mobile business in Japan. I wish them luck.

I'll miss Castlevania. All their other franchises are whatever.

Posted by 
 on: 05/15/15, 16:50
In Japan it kinda is though, the 3DS is the only dedicated gaming device that sells decently, but even the 3DS isn't doing that great.

I think this sucks, obviously, but I can't entirely blame them for it. The growing divide between the West and East and what that means for the future of Japanese development in totally scary, IMO.

Posted by 
 on: 05/15/15, 16:51
I expect most of the big Japanese companies to be focused primarily on mobile games by the end of the decade. It's the only section of the market that isn't shrinking over there.

Posted by 
 on: 05/15/15, 16:53
It's an unpopular opinion with us traditional gaming enthusiasts but honestly they might be right. Consider that from a global perspective the big markets for console games are Europe, Japan, and NA. That leaves several markets available who have phones. People are growing increasingly familiar with phones as well, many kids play games on them rather than dedicated gaming devices. The rate of iteration is also typically much higher for mobile device technology than it is for consoles. By the end of the PS4's lifespan it wouldn't surprise me if the new phones of the day were capable of outperforming it. Phones, like PCs, like consoles are just devices. There isn't anything inherent with them as far as making games for them any more. In the event everything did go mobile or PC controllers would still be around and games would still be developed with them in mind.

I doubt Konami is thinking this far ahead though. The only reason they are coming to this conclusion is that they have bungled nearly every good aspect of their traditional gaming portfolio.

Posted by 
 on: 05/15/15, 18:26
Zero said:
Still, how many days until Kojima announces a Kickstarter project that is essentially Metal Gear Solid without the name?

...although maybe this is slightly less likely than some other developers considering how much he talked about wanting to get away from the series.

Hopefully he and Del Toro can figure something out with Silent Hills But Not Called Silent Hills.

@Stephen

As red as the mobile market ocean is, though, I can't help but be reminded of Atari's development strategy in the early 80s, which was to make as many games as possible as quickly as possible and hope that something stuck--and we know how that turned out.

Five years ago it wouldn't have been surprising to see Konami say that "Facebook is where the future of gaming lies" (since that's what a ton of people were saying five years ago), and today no one says that. I don't doubt that consoles as we know them will either go away or radically change within the next fifteen years, but since the NES, traditional console and PC games have been the only type of game product that's been stable in drawing people in.

...Off the top of my head.

Posted by 
 on: 05/15/15, 20:13   Edited:  05/15/15, 20:19
And without putting random actors in the game.

Posted by 
 on: 05/15/15, 20:15
@nate38
Mystical Ninja/Goemon?



Where the future of gaming...lies. Indeed.

Posted by 
 on: 05/15/15, 21:31
@Zero

I really strongly hope that Kojima's next project isn't anything like Metal Gear. He has been claiming to want to finish the series for years, and I have been wanting to see what else he was capable of when he put as much effort into it as he does those games... with all of the disappointment over Silent Hills being cancelled, I'd love to see him give a middle finger to Konami and just start up a new horror project with Del Toro. They'd have to start over using Unreal 4, or whatever, but it'd be worth it!

I get the feeling that Kojima might not have to go the Kickstarter route. I think a lot of publishers would be eager to have "A Hideo Kojima Game" on their box. Hopefully he ends up with his own studio again and many of his staff from Konami follow him there. This is a man who needs much more than the $5 million he could raise from a Kickstarter to make his visions a reality.

As for Konami... yeah, I saw the writing on the wall. So now it's confirmed. The game industry is changing, and there's going to be some casualties. After losing Sega, I can handle losing any other publisher with the exception of Nintendo. I'll literally cry man tears the day they abandon traditional gaming or start to suck in some other way.

Posted by 
 on: 05/15/15, 22:29   Edited:  05/15/15, 23:49
@Hinph
I think the worst possible future for Nintendo is that they go pure mobile and pure PC, if what everyone keeps saying is true and console will die and Windows will become the one platform to rule them all. Lots of gamers would actually be happy about that, maybe even the majority.

Not that I personally believe consoles are dying but I literally hear that idea every single day and it seems to be practically universally accepted as an inevitable truth, today it was on Epic Name Bro's new podcast. Consoles are doomed, PC will take over, just a matter of time.

Posted by 
 on: 05/15/15, 23:49   Edited:  05/15/15, 23:51
@deathly_hallows

I still think mobile is an entirely different demographic... with some crossover, of course. It's true that most people who casually play games here and there are probably satisfied doing so with the little time wasters on their phones, and that's great. There will always be an entirely different demographic that demands richer, deeper experiences though. We'll keep getting them one way or another, even if we have to keep doing the crowd funding thing and the old giant publishers are replaced by new, smaller companies. Considering their behavior the last couple generations, maybe that's just what we need.

I think we, as gamers, might have to learn to let go of the insanely polished visuals that keep making games more and more expensive though. It just isn't sustainable. I think the greatest era for games was the 90's and early 00's. You had relatively small teams making creative, fun, decent looking software on a reasonable budget. That's sort of the mentality that indie games are bringing back, and I think that's fantastic.

Posted by 
 on: 05/15/15, 23:58
Konami, you used to be cool.

Posted by 
 on: 05/16/15, 00:18
Hinph said:
They'd have to start over using Unreal 4, or whatever, but it'd be worth it!

Oh yeah, that's a good point--does Kojima get to keep the Fox Engine? And, like, is Kojima Productions even a thing anymore, or has it been completely dissolved now that Konami isn't working with it? Because they owned it, right? Do we even know?

Weird stuff.

Posted by 
 on: 05/16/15, 04:50
Sure. If the context of the quote can be reworded this way: Here lies the Future of Gaming.

Posted by 
 on: 05/16/15, 05:44
Gaming make NinSage so sad these days. I couldn't care less if a game is also on mobile or competitor hardware or the Atari Lynx; however, it's disheartening to see energy shifting away from the platforms I prefer.

Posted by 
 on: 05/17/15, 00:11
Mobile is the future of cheap throwaway gaming, maybe, or the future of a quick buck, but of true, original classic gaming? Ha. Konami, you disgust me. Of course, I disgust me. But that's beside the point.

Posted by 
 on: 05/17/15, 00:27
I've often wondered at the fate of the Fox Engine, poor Kojima if he loses that thing, it's his baby.

Also, Konami, you crazy, invest untold millions in developing your own world-class engine and then get out of the gaming business? Oh the irony.

Posted by 
 on: 05/17/15, 05:46
Maybe, but it's still horrible. I'd say that Konami is dead to me, but, honestly, they already were. Sad, since, back in the NES/SNES days, they were tied with Capcom for my favorite third-party.

r_hjort said:
Good luck with that, asshats. I just hope they're open to re-releasing their old games on Virtual Console type services in the future, 'cause that's the Konami (and Hudson) I care about.
I agree with all of this. Still pissed that Bomberman is dead.

Posted by 
 on: 05/17/15, 16:27
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