When news broke that Konami would be undergoing some internal restructuring, a lot of people jumped to the conclusion that this mean the company was quitting game development. This sparked a wave of optimism that maybe Konami would sell its properties, including Metal Gear Solid, Castlevania, and Silent Hill, to other companies, which would mean new games for those franchises.
This, of course, was a complete misconception and Konami itself had to clarify that it wasn’t shutting down its gaming division. Earlier today, it issued another statement to IGN to better explain exactly what the restructuring is in aid of.
According to a Konami spokesperson, the Production Divisions originally supervised the Production Departments, which are responsible for making games. With the Production Divisions being dissolved, Konami hopes that the Production Departments will be able to develop games more efficiently and report directly to upper management, allowing them to respond more quickly to the market and any potential market changes.
On a surface level, this sounds like good news, since it could mean Konami is gearing up to work on multiple projects or perhaps has already started. There have been insistent rumors that it’s making a new Silent Hill game, despite Konami actively denying them. It could also mean more frequent releases too, which would make up for the near lack of games from them as of late.
Konami hasn’t had any major games releases for the last few years and has appeared to actively move away from game development, which is what prompted fans’ desire for it to just sell its franchises if it wasn’t going to make any new games.
However, Konami doesn’t explicitly refer to developing console games. Last year saw Castlevania: Symphony of the Night being ported to mobile devices and a new Castlevania game exclusively for mobile was confirmed to be in development. And despite the aforementioned lack of releases, Konami has continued to make arcade and pachinko machines for Japan, meaning it’s entirely possible Konami aims to simply double-down on those markets.
Konami also continues to profit from the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise. The trading card game continues to be supremely popular, it continues to receive new anime series (the latest being Yu-Gi-Oh! SEVENS, which is receiving a video game tie-in as well), and mobile game Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links in particular has been quite the money maker for the company, with it recently celebrating its fourth anniversary.
Konami may not be a lot of peoples’ favorite company, but the reality is that it’s still making money and appears to be in a relatively comfortable position. As much as some may want it, Konami has no reason to sell off its IPs, especially since it can profit from them through ports and the like, and is nowhere close to being in a position where it might need to.
Source: IGN
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