Well of course Konami would lean towards mobile. Without Kojima gone they got nothing left for home/handheld consoles.

“We will pursue mobile games aggressively,” said Hayakawa. “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.”


So essentially he's saying that they'll sell you a game in wich you can only walk to the right. And if you want to walk to the left? Well, I guess you're out of luck.....you could always pay five bucks to unlock the awesome 'walk left ability' though. I lasts 60 seconds. Also you can buy hats.

I think Konami more so than a lot of other Japanese fallen giants really struggled to move on with HD gaming. I think as they struggle to make much that appeals to the western market now, they're probably not really left with much choice but to pander to Japan's mobile market.

7th gen was basically "become relevant in the West or get left behind" whereas the industry had always previously been cater for Japan, and the west will lap up the scraps.

Pretty much this, the last two decades if not longer had Japan at the center of attention in the video games market, they were the driving force behind most games and their consoles were in the spotlight a lot more, as years passed the Western games market grew and more devs cropped up with interesting concepts and technologies, simply put Japan was losing it;s grip and the attention and power slipped away and with that it's obvious they are finding it hard to keep all that power and attention that corps like Konami feel going mobile is the only way to have both and feel more relevant because at the end of the day that's pretty much what they've always had and wanted, they can't live without being on top and being in 3rd place or being less popular like Western devs/pubs go with.

Konami though are out of their minds, the past few weeks have shown that they are more than happy to get rid of one of their best creative minds that helped make a franchise super popular while making tonnes of cash along with deciding to exit the console/pc market and just going with mobiles.

In the end I can't say I cared because I practically only liked MGS and I know Kojima made the series what it was, without him the series is dead to me once I finish V and that's it for Konami in general, in time they'll slip away to being a nobody, a hasbin that was once thought to be relevant.

so... when can I have my Gradius on my iPhone?

And on a tiny touch screen mobile phone as well.... gotta love twitch reaction games + touch screen controller inputs.... right?

Revenue-wise they are probably right, mobile gaming could become (if not already) the largest market segment by revenue. Tablets and even mobile phones will be powerful enough to run 8th gen quality games before long, and with HDMI ports and Bluetooth capability they can effectively become quasi consoles you can plug into your TV and play with a regular controller. In that way Mobile can become a threat to home consoles. 9th gen is going to be interesting.

Not really.  They have one JRPG in development for mobile and not much else.  Square knows there's not much money from mobile.  There probably never really was.  Even Rovio is losing money in the mobile space.  As far as using it for some revenue it can be alright.  But to put your entire focus mobile after the ship sailed is ludicrous.

Like Nintendo and ''teh casuals'' they'll be back

One devoted development studio is all mobile really needs though. The amount of work relative to console/PC games is a lot lower. It's not like other primarily console/PC studios and outside contractors don't also work on mobile games for them. They've got a decent number of mobile games coming out this year:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Square_Enix_mobile_games