Konami officially pulling out of releasing console games.

[Otaking]

Konami announce they will be concentrating fully on mobile games.
I know everyone saw this coming but now it's official.
http://jin115.com/archives/52080348.html

"We will pursue mobile games aggressively," says Konami's new CEO Hayakawa in an interview with Nikkei Trendy Net.

"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."

"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."

"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."

"We hope that our overseas games such as MGSV and Winning Eleven continue to do well, but we are always thinking about how to push our franchises onto mobile there too."

"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."

[Necromancer]

f*ck 'em.  With any luck, maybe they'll license their goodies to competent developers for consoles and/or pc.

[cjameslv]

Man it's not gonna be long before physical copies of games are gone completely.

[SignOfZeta]

I can't say I remember the last time I bought something from them, but it's sad to see them go. Sad and also...just weird. It wasn't that long ago that they were kicking ass on a global level with Beamani games, Castlevania, Suikoden, etc.

I guess, if you thinking about it, they more or less stopped releasing anything that wasn't Silent Hill or Metal Gear, building their company around it more or less, and when the wind changed direction the whole thing fell apart.

I don't quite get why they bought Hudson though...they went from expansion to dissolution in less than three years. Kinda shows a lack of long term planning.

[Gentlegamer]

Goodbye Konami, I'll always remember the good times.

[DragonmasterDan]

It's sad. They're historically my favorite third party console game publisher. From the 8-32 bit eras they consistently made the best third party titles. Even on the PSP I consistently found myself tracking down Konami products.

[Otaking]

Personally I think this is beginning of the end of big software publishers.
I think in the future, games development teams will be directly crowd funded by fans similar to what's happened with:

Capcom > Keiji Inafune > http://www.mightyno9.com/

Rare > Playtonic Games > https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/playtonic/yooka-laylee-a-3d-platformer-rare-vival

Konami > Koji Igarashi > https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/iga/bloodstained-ritual-of-the-night

Just watched the new Happy Console Gamer video and he says a similar thing.

[ProfessorProfessorson]

Konami has been busy digging themselves into a hole for awhile now. If this had happened like back in 2003 or sometime prior I'd be like wtf and feel kinda sad. But the Konami of 2015? No f*cks given.

[ccovell]

Man it's not gonna be long before physical copies of games are gone completely.

Well, to paraphrase Larry Ellison: "We're putting bits into boxes, and shipping them around the world?!?"

One good thing about digital downloads is at least inefficiency and wastefulness get reduced...

[Gentlegamer]

Man it's not gonna be long before physical copies of games are gone completely.

Well, to paraphrase Larry Ellison: "We're putting bits into boxes, and shipping them around the world?!?"

One good thing about digital downloads is at least inefficiency and wastefulness get reduced...

In other news, Microsoft has revealed it has the ability to not just ban your online account, but remotely brick your console.

And this is a common ability, Sony and Nintendo can do the same thing. Do you want to put your games (and they *are* your games) at the mercy of someone else?

[MrBroadway]

It's easy. Stop playing modern games. They're all shit anyway.

It's sad. They're historically my favorite third party console game publisher. From the 8-32 bit eras they consistently made the best third party titles. Even on the PSP I consistently found myself tracking down Konami products.

Same here, though not that late. Konami definitely won my heart in the 8/16 bit era, less so in the 32 bit era, and even less afterward. Still that 16 bit Konami jingle always let me know I was about play something really, really good.

[SuperGrafx]

Well, this is never a good thing to see.
But seeing as I've stayed away from the modern gen of games, it doesn't really impact me. 

Konami was certainly a powerhouse during the 8 and 16 bit eras though

[thesteve]

if they start remote bricking systems it will finely put an end to their ability to sell the systems for top$

[technozombie]

It's kind a weird state to be in where I've always thought of myself, and been thought of by others as the "gamer" and now more and more companies aren't making games for me. Mobile games, by nature of the controls, just aren't as good and yet that is where the money is I guess.

[Punch]

It's easy. Stop playing modern games. They're all shit anyway.