Konami Shifting Focus to Mobile Gaming

According to a recent NeoGAF translation of Hideki Hayakawa’s interview with Nikkei Trendy Net, and as confirmed by japanese website jin115, Konami seems to be shifting their focus towards mobile phones as their main platform.

On the interview, Konami’s new CEO states: “Our main platform will be mobiles. Following the pay-as-you-play model of games like Power pro and Winning Eleven with additional content, our games must move from selling things like “items” to selling things like “features.” If this sounds like a bad joke, I can assure you it is not.

Hideki Hayakawa

“We saw with these games that even people who buy physical games are motivated to buy extra content. The success of Power pro especially has motivated us to actively push more of our popular series onto mobile than ever before.” Hayakawa also mentioned that “at the end of the day, the platform that is always closest to us, is mobile. Mobile is where the future of gaming lies.”

He continues on to saying that while they still hope that overseas releases such as MGSV and Winning Eleven do well, they are still thinking about how to really push their franchises onto mobile, overseas.

After parting ways with Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima, canceling Silent Hills and removing the widely famous P.T. demo from the Playstation Network, it seems Konami isn’t done with the new changes. Let’s hope the Konami we all grew up loving doesn’t go down with the new management.