Moving into mobile game publishing
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain has been out for just over a week now. As the dust settles, we can finally remember that Konami hasn’t been the most likable publisher in the world recently. Now that its biggest game of the year is out, it looks like Konami is in the process of moving towards mobile games. And pachinko machines… lots and lots of pachinko machines.
In a report by French site Gameblog, and verified by Eurogamer, it is claimed that Konami has stopped all development of console games. All that is, except for the Pro Evolution Soccer football series.
This news has come about due to the creator of MGS V’s Fox engine, Juliemn Merceron, leaving the company due to being unhappy with the new direction Konami is going in.
After Metal Gear Online and PES 2016, Konami doesn’t have any major titles announced. Every other major publisher has a list of games stretching well into next year, but Konami has nothing. It has the rights to make the Euro 2016 football game however, so expect that to be coming.
On the one hand, this is obviously bad. No more Metal Gear, no more Silent Hill, or worse still mobile games based on the IPs.
On a positive note though, the company heading into the less publicised mobile game market means Konami can’t fuck people over much more than it has now. Plus it means there may be no plans to continue Metal Gear without Kojima Productions.
Of course, all of this is currently just conjecture. The lack of games announced is incredibly weird for such a big publisher, and the internal rumblings at Konami do point to this shift, but we won’t know anything for definite until Konami officially announces it.
Farewell, Konami. Probably for the best.
Konami arrête les jeux AAA console : Tous les projets arrêtés ou annulés (Gameblog via Eurogamer)