Hacker News Reader

Comment by zitterbewegung | Hacker News Reader

I think this will backfire and just make Death Stranding and Kohjima more popular. As a developer Konami is really struggling and I wouldn't be suprised that it closed down soon or got consolidated .

View on HN

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the assumption that Konami shuttered all their console games to focus on pachinko machines because the profit margins are just too delicious to pass up.

They're developing another game with the engine used for MGSV, but you could account that to just trying to recoup costs involved in making that engine. Otherwise I don't know of other console or pc game projects of theirs.

As far as I know there's another MGS spin off they are working on and they continue developing and releasing their annual Pro Evolution Soccer. With the latter my guess is they want a piece of the money-making pie that is Ultimate Team and works so well for EA Sports' FIFA series.

> Otherwise I don't know of other console or pc game projects of theirs.

They don't need to, Pachinko (their newer machines use fox engine it seems) exists.

The article says they focus on mobile after printing money with Dragon Collection franchise.

It's interesting to compare them with Capcom, who almost seemed like a sister game company from the NES through PS1 days. Both had a diverse stable of consistently high quality games across a lot of genres. So it's crazy that Konami has practically become a pachinko business while Capcom is still seeing creative and commercial success pretty much on the same strategy they were 20 years ago - nurturing along the old successful franchises and occasionally introducing new IP and spinoffs. It's amazing how comfortable Street Fighter V feels after basically not playing fighting games since the mid 90's.

My take is that Konami seems to have lost a lot of their creative mojo during the industry's creative nadir in the early 00's, when sports and gritty FPS franchises reigned.

> As a developer Konami is really struggling

From the article:

"Konami is on track to post a record group operating profit of 40 billion yen for the year ending in March 2018."

Doesn't sound much like struggling to me. Apparently it's mostly on the back of mobile games though, not AAA console titles.

that profit is on the back of pachinko money laundering business they are running right now.

That's about $400 million profit for the fiscal year, using the naive 1 yen = 1 cent exchange rate.

I think he meant in terms of traditional video games. That income is from pachinko

Definitely. This tale has the Streisand effect written all over its future.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com