Konami’s new CEO Hideki Hayakawa has revealed that the publisher is shifting focus to mobile platforms and will build on the “pay-as-you-play” models for the foreseeable future.
A story posted in japanese magazine Jin115.com was translated by NeoGAF user HGH and revealed some interesting information regarding the future of the world famous developer.
Hayakawa was quoted saying: “We will pursue mobile games aggressively. 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’.
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.”
Konami’s biggest franchise Metal Gear Solid has been filled with controversy these past few weeks after the departure of series creator Hideo Kojima. The developer also made a shock cancellation of the new Silent Hills video game and permenantly deleted the Playable Teaser (P.T.) from the Playstation 4 store. It was unclear as to why Kojima decided to leave Konami so abruptly but we can now assume that their new business model played some part in his decision.
Hayakawa was again quoted saying: “We hope that our overseas games such as MGSV and Winning Eleven (Pro Evolution Soccer in the West) continue to do well, but we are always thinking about how to push our franchises onto mobile there too.”
If this is indeed the case, it sounds plausible that we could be looking at future Metal Gear Solid games being released primarily on mobile platforms, with the aforementioned pay-as-you-play model. For many fans of the series this will be horrifically sad news, especially as its primary home for most of its life cycle was within the Sony Ecosystem. Who knows, maybe we’ll end up seeing Metal Gear Solid: Xperia edition?
Metal Gear Solid 5: The phantom pain is due for release September 1st.