Konami CEO Apologizes: I Only Learned About Video Games After Becoming CEO

[AceWarhead]

In a letter begging for fan's forgiveness, CEO Hideki Hayakawa of Konami reveals that, never understood video games, saying that he only ever knew of profits and margins. Here's an excerpt from that letter:

“I was chosen to become president after the board thought my plans to solely pursue mobile games was a strong business model,” states Hayakawa, “I never really understood video games since my life has been dictated by the rules of business and profit. I simply looked at the numbers and realized that mobile games were the only real way to make money in this market. I did not realize that there were so many dedicated fans of the products that Konami made in the past.”

He goes on to speak of Kojima getting angry at his reasoning to make Silent Hill a free-to-play mobile game.

Source


I really don't know what to think of this... from one point of view, it makes sense that a good executive looks at numbers, crunches them, and makes the best decisions. At the same time, a CEO not knowing about his company's legacy is a bit odd.

 

[the_randomizer]

Eww, mobile games *shudder* glad he thought twice before going forward with that.

 

[Skelletonike]

I don't have a problem with mobile games, there are some pretty good ones, Square Enix for example made some pretty nice exclusives for android and iOS. I do have a problem with only mobile games. z.z

 

[mercuryshadow09]

Wow!

 

[MeleeMaster500]

This is a satire website, the article is false.

 

[mercuryshadow09]

This is a satire website, the article is false.

Seems so, though I think it's more of a false agenda site than a parody site from what I've read!

Edit: Seems this article is legit, it's on other major game news sites.

 

[MeleeMaster500]

It appears konami did issue an apology, but it just said they'll be focusing primarily on mobile games. The article above still has no validity

 

[Hyro-Sama]

This is hilarious. Thank you, TC.