[Rumour] Konami Reportedly Ceases Development of All AAA IP's Except PES

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Konami is a company familiar to all fans of Japanese video games. It has been under the radar of the media as of late, and for all the wrong reasons. A lot has been said and written about the poor working conditions, constant surveillance and the tense, uncomfortable atmosphere in the studios. The cancellation of Silent Hills, the latest sequel in the well-known IP despite P.T.'s great success left horror fans around the globe disappointed. The recent departure of Hideo Kojima was not the only one that hit the news - just yesterday we learned that Fox Engine's overseer Julien Merceron also left the studio. Today we hear about Konami once again, and again it's not good news.

According to Gameblog.fr's anonymous source, Konami has halted all development of AAA console titles with the exception of PES. This move falls in line with the company's plans to focus on mobile development, but it is not going to delay the release of Metal Gear Online planned for October 6th.

At present Konami did not release any statements regarding this rumour, however if it turns out to be true, it could mean that franchises we grew to love like Castlevania, Silent Hill or Metal Gear Solid will simply disappear from our console libraries. As a fan of the IP's above, and one that is currently engaged in a thorough playthrough of Metal Gear V: The Phantom Pain, this news saddens me greatly.

:arrow: Source #1 (French)
:arrow: Source #2 (IGN UK, English)
 
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Blaze163

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Just look how broken that man is after working with Kojima.

Exactly my point. I enjoy the games but every time I see something ridicuous like that it slashes the throat of my emmersion. The story is hard enough to follow at the best of times but when you start gabbing on at length about conspiracy theories, vampires, being possessed by a reattached arm and now fire whales....it's just stupid. If the series had a more serious tone to it, I personally feel it would be better for it. Have the conspiracies but keep them simple to follow. It's the same problem as FF13. I expect to be told a cohesive story as I play, not have to do homework and read a glossary in the quiet moments to have any idea who people are and why I'm supposed to care.
 
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Exactly my point. I enjoy the games but every time I see something ridicuous like that it slashes the throat of my emmersion. The story is hard enough to follow at the best of times but when you start gabbing on at length about conspiracy theories, vampires, being possessed by a reattached arm and now fire whales....it's just stupid. If the series had a more serious tone to it, I personally feel it would be better for it. Have the conspiracies but keep them simple to follow. It's the same problem as FF13. I expect to be told a cohesive story as I play, not have to do homework and read a glossary in the quiet moments to have any idea who people are and why I'm supposed to care.
Well it is serious though, it's not meant to be reality as it sits in its own universe. MGS has always had super soldiers and what not. The story isn't that hard to follow if you play through all the games and take it all, you can go through every game in the series without reading too deep into it and still enjoy and understand the story. MGS wouldn't be MGS without the abnormal, I feel the people who say "oh I don't like how it goes from serious to unrealistic" haven't played a metal gear game before.
 

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Damn! What does this mean for Dance Dance Revolution? :(
Konami's arcade music games are going nowhere. They literally announced a new installment of Pop'n Music yesterday and they even announced an official PC port of Beatmania IIDX two weeks ago.
 

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No more Castlevania ? Thats the reason I enjoyed this game a lot. No Castlevania means no Konami for me at all. Sighing.
 

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Thanks for the info "reporters". It looks like there will be some major restructuring going on @ Konami. Hope all will go smoothly, it may not be for the best but I hope Kojima comes out on top.
 

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Thanks for the info "reporters". It looks like there will be some major restructuring going on @ Konami. Hope all will go smoothly, it may not be for the best but I hope Kojima comes out on top.
Kojima is no longer a Konami employee, he left the company earlier this year. I also don't know why you'd use quotation marks - we are reporters, we report news, that's the only required qualification for the position. ;)
 

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Why wouldn't it be?
Because its the same exact game than last year's. The only thing different is the team/player roster.
I am willing to bet that they spend more money on 3d modeling rather than game-engine development.
 

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This is gonna happen more and more in the future.
AAA games are not very profitable outside of NA. In Asia the shift has been moving to casual cheaply produced MMOs and IOS games for decades.

AAA games cost too much $$$ to make and are not always profitable, its a high risk, low reward business. Even though we like some of these games, but Konami doesn't always earn a profit on them. The Silent Hill game with Del Toro would have almost certainly lost money for Konami, the thing would have been a massive beast that sucks up money, and the sales would have been mediocre at best.

You can tell that AAA are not profitable when Capcom says Street Fighter V would not be possible without Sony forking out most of the dev costs. When a game like Street Fighter is not profitable you know there's a problem

There is something very wrong with the current game industry, video games should not cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make. In coming years there will be a huge reshuffling of gaming development, the industry has become too over inflated to be profitable for many involved.

Either they need to pay devs less, or shorten development periods on games, cause 100-200 even ridiculous 500 million budgets on games is not feasible in the long term. Konami is simply reacting to a shift in the business trend, they can't afford to blow 200 million on games in fact no video should ever cost 100 million to make EVER. Its a game, the costs for development should be cheap compared to cinema and other expensive media sectors. Something is very wrong with the game industry at present, most game industry insiders will tell you that most game studios are one or two flops away from bankruptcy.

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Because its the same exact game than last year's. The only thing different is the team/player roster.
I am willing to bet that they spend more money on 3d modeling rather than game-engine development.
PES 16 is a brand new game. They got rid of all the scripted mechanics, the entire game runs on their new physics engine, everything happens organically, there are no scripted events, from tackles to shots, to ball hustles, everything happens with a sense of randomness that's true to reality.
So to answer your questions PES is a not a Legacy game with updated roster, its a brand new game with totally overhauled game engine, you will never see the same shot or same tackle twice. Its about as AAA as you'll ever get, its probably the last AAA soccer game. Konami's swan song to soccer.
 
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Because its the same exact game than last year's. The only thing different is the team/player roster.
I am willing to bet that they spend more money on 3d modeling rather than game-engine development.
Call of Duty has been using the same engine since it first came out with gradual improvements along the way, is it not AAA? What about every Unreal Engine game in existence? What about Pokemon which changes engines only when it changes platforms? The fact that PES is a sports game doesn't negate the fact that it's AAA, I don't know what kind of gameplay innovation you expect from a game that has rigid real-life rules.
 

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