Konami explains its mobile-first future

Konami, you’ve changed. YOU’VE CHANGED MAN! Right now, it looks like the veteran publisher and developer is getting ready to completely ditch console gaming and head towards the warmer climates of the mobile market. And gambling, possibly. Thing is, Konami isn’t going entirely mobile. They’ll just be a mobile-first company in the future.

That’s according to Konami PR Director Jay Boor, who clarified statements that new CEO CEO Hideki Hayakawa recently said in a Nikkei Trendy interview that was translated by NeoGAF. Those early reports “lacked the necessary context and caused unrest within our key stakeholders including our community, members of the press, our partners, and our fans,” Boor said to Ars Technica.

While Konami will still focus a lot of effort on the mobile market, they aren’t abandoning the console market at all. “Our aim is to continue to build up a comprehensive portfolio of console, arcade, and card game titles for each IP while also making the best possible use of the mobile devices that accompany our customers in their daily life, thus expanding the limits of entertainment and appealing to more and more customers,” Hayakawa said in a fully translated interview.

So if our business to date has operated like a string of individual stores, then this revised approach makes us a major department store.

Boor also apologized for the “great deal of anxiety” caused by Konami, which included the “mobile first” interview, major organizational shake-ups, Silent Hills being cancelled and the apparent split with Metal Gear Solid’s Hideo Kojima. According to Boor, Metal Gear Solid is still a property that will remain with Konami, saying that “we have nurtured them with care over many years since their inception, and will continue to produce products for both franchises, but we are not currently at a stage where we can announce the path these future titles will take.”

I think that future direction may be on a handheld screen, not a TV.

Last Updated: June 1, 2015