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Fears that Konami may be eying a withdrawal from the console market appear to be accurate.
"We will pursue mobile games aggressively," Konami CEO Hayakawa told Nikkei, as per a Neogaf translation which seems to loosely be backed up by Google’s own translation. Our main platform will be mobiles.
"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. Mobile is where the future of gaming lies. With multiplatform games, there’s really no point in dividing the market into categories anymore. Mobiles will take on the new role of linking the general public to the gaming world."
Hayakawa also spoke enthusiastically about charging a premium for more than just traditional in-game purchases like items, but also actual game modes.
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’,” he added.
"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."
None of which to say that Konami is planning to exit console gaming altogether, although it does appear that its future scope will be very limited.
"We hope that our overseas games such as MGSV and Winning Eleven continue to do well,” he added. But we are always thinking about how to push our franchises onto mobile there too."
Konami’s most recent financial report named only one game in its future console release schedule – Metal Gear Solid V. And with the future of that franchise remaining uncertain and other console titles such as Silent Hills having been axed, it looks like we could be seeing the end of Konami as a big-time console publisher.
