It would seem Konami is taking a stronger stance against multi-platform development as smartphones and tablets become the publishers ”main platform” as there’s ”really no point in dividing the market” anymore.
New CEO Hayakawa says mobile is the closest platform to Konami, and it’s ”where the future of gaming lies.” He also stresses they must move on from selling in-game ‘items’ to ‘features’.
”We will pursue mobile games aggressively,” CEO Hayakawa told Nikkei, courtesy of translation on NeoGAF. “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.”
Traditional micro-transactions for items must also be surpassed by selling features instead.
“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 said.
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.”
Are major projects like Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain part of a now dying breed?
”We hope that our overseas games such as MGSV and Winning Eleven continue to do well,” he continued. “But we are always thinking about how to push our franchises onto mobile there too.”
Konami’s place as a significant publisher in the console space seems at an end, what with MGS5 the only thing presently on their schedule and the cancellation of Silent Hill entries. Not to mention that the Metal Gear series itself appears to have a less certain future now.
