By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Gaming Discussion - The Konami situation.

Tagged games:

I guess no Metal gear rising 2 either :(



 

Around the Network

Konami has been going down the drain for years.

I'd say that their golden age was a solid one lasting from about 2001 to 2008. Sure, Konami made games like Contra and Castlevania before that, but in those 12 years, they were one of the biggest names in the industry.

  • 2001 - Zone of the Enders, Metal Gear Solid 2, Silent Hill 2, Shadow of Memories, Circle of the Moon
  • 2002 - Suikoden 3, Harmony of Dissonance
  • 2003 - Silent Hill 3, Lament of Innocence, Aria of Sorrow, Zone of the Enders 2, Boktai
  • 2004 - Metal Gear Solid 3, Winning Eleven International, Silent Hill 4, MGS: Twin Snakes, Gradius V, Metal Gear Acid
  • 2005 - Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence, Dawn of Sorrow
  • 2006 - Winning Eleven 2007, MGS Portable Ops, Elebits, Portrait of Ruin, Lunar Knights
  • 2007 - Silent Hill Origins, Dracula X Chronicles, Contra 4
  • 2008 - Metal Gear Solid 4 and Online, Gradius Rebirth, Order of Ecclesia

I'd say things went wrong mostly in the four or so years following the release of MGS4. first of all, Winning Eleven becoming obscure compared to FIFA was a huge loss. The 2007 edition (that came out in 2006) sold over 6.5 million copies, a few thousand copies more than FIFA sold that year. The 2014 edition (from 2013) sold about 1.8 million compared to FIFA's 16.5 million. Sure, you can blame EA's quality for some of the loss, but Konami's failure to keep their big annual series at a high quality is egregious.

Second, I'd say that some of the older series were not handled well. The GBA and DS had a total of 6 new Metroid-like Castlevania games within 8 years. Why then did the series get abandoned for half a decade? The DS games had fairly consistent sales at a low cost. Silent Hill was sent from one developer to the next, with no real team ever made for that series. The abysmal handling of the 2012 releases was probably the nail in the coffin.

If Konami wants to be the Metal Gear company, that could be acceptable. But even Metal Gear was handled poorly after 2008. I understand that Kojima wanted to make Peace Walker a PSP game, but considering how the MGS series was always more popular in the West, Konami should have had a port for consoles ready at Day 1, not part of a collection released over a year later. Even as a $40 budget release, or $50 with extra features, selling Peace Walker on a platform people played games on should have been obvious.

The 3DS port of MGS3 was if anything a bigger mess. MGS3 sounds like a decent fit for the 3DS, but considering how demanding the original game was and how development seems to have been understaffed, perhaps they should have simply ported over Peace Walker instead. It would have been far easier on the 3DS hardware and would sell to people without a PSP. Of course, the release of the MGS collection a few months earlier negated that, but the point still stands. Though speaking of which, why wasn't the 3DS exclusive stuff ever brought to the HD collection? This way, neither game was the definitive version, and the 3DS version probably was a waste of money.

Speaking of the HD Collection... huh? I understand the appeal of PS2 games in HD compilations, but this was a mess. 2 and 3 were good choices, but why exclude Peace Walker from the Vita version? You know, the closest thing that poor game would have to a native platform. Why even make a Vita version if you need an additional dev to help and can't even include a third of the package? And if you are going to release the two old non-Solid games along with the PS2 duo, why is the first MGS missing? That would be like Nintendo making a Zelda compilation for the GameCube that only includes the NES and N64 games! And even what is kept is not always intact. MGS2 Substance content remains intact, but a lot of Subsistence extras for MGS3 are missing. I can understand online play, but why are the Theater, Boss Survival, and Monkey modes missing?

Last, Metal Gear Rising. This was probably the best handled game from Konami after 2008, but its development was questionable. The game was first shown at E3 2009 and not released until 2013. It required a new engine and started with a team with minimal expertise in the Action genre. The game was actually cancelled for a few months in late 2010 and early 2011 before Platinum was brought in. The final product turned out fine, but the Konami spent about two years of time and an unknown amount of money on Rising before Platinum games remade the game for them. Konami got lucky.



Love and tolerate.

Konami are pretty much dead at this point imo



NND: 0047-7271-7918 | XBL: Nights illusion | PSN: GameNChick

It seems to me that Konami, like Sega, sees console gaming as an afterthought and perhaps more of a liability than an asset, and are focusing their energies on more profitable mobile games and gambling machines. Makes me sad considering how great their games have been overall, and I was looking forward to Silent Hills.



I shed a tear when i think about the greatness they produced during the NES and SNES era, and how shitty they have become. I guess as console-game makers they are pretty much done, except for yearly iterations of Metal Gear Solid and PES



Around the Network
melbye said:
I shed a tear when i think about the greatness they produced during the NES and SNES era, and how shitty they have become. I guess as console-game makers they are pretty much done, except for yearly iterations of Metal Gear Solid and PES


They were actually among the best developers during the PS1 and PS2 eras, and they were the only third party worth a shit on the Nintendo 64. In fact, I liked Konami's N64 games better than I did Rare's N64 games. But their output has dropped rapidly since 2010 or so.

Part of the problem with the games division of Konami is that the company as a whole is fairly profitable, but their console games aren't. If console gaming were a bigger part of Konami's business I think they'd have done more to shore it up and keep folks like Kojima, Iga, Yoshitaka Muriyama, and Keiichiro Toriyama happy.



Konami killed itself.

That's the situation.



i buy metal gear solid 5, the best game this year. but then ? no konami games more.



KazumaKiryu said:
u buy metal gear solid 5, the best game this year. but then ? no konami games more.

Does Konami even have more upcoming games? After MGSV, is there anything else gaming related from Konami (aside from the inevitable DLC for MGV) in the upcoming months/years?



You know it deserves the GOTY.

Come join The 2018 Obscure Game Monthly Review Thread.