Konami De-lists Itself From The New York Stock Exchange

[Hairless Mammoth]

Out of the major Japanese publishers, Konami is the one with the least market presence in North America. With Kojima leaving Konami, MSG will likely take a major hit to its popularity, and Konami doesn't have another hit franchise for the West to consume, which would make American investors anxious. Silent Hill and Castlevania are pretty popular, but they're still niche compared to MSG. It makes sense for them to de-list from the NYSE. They'll still release games in NA, since the games market is still there, but the investors' market for them is dried up in NA.

captcha: Red Queen. Captcha tells me that Capcom is the next on the list to de-list.

 

[Johnlives]

Does Konami have any other notable video game franchises besides Metal Gear and Silent Hill? Seriously, I'm drawn up blanks here. I'm pretty sure those two franchises (mostly Metal Gear) are all that is holding up Konami's video game division.

I think Pro Evo would be an important one, it was more popular than FIFA back in the day before they messed up the transition from PS2 to PS3 era. Even today it's the only serious competition that FIFA has and should provide some good guaranteed yearly income.

They have been moving the focus of it more to European studios over the past few years though.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

Judging by Konami's financials, they've been doing badly money-wise for the last couple years, and not just in gaming. As I saw on another site:

"their operating income fell 64.8% in 2013(to 7,696 million yen) after falling 46.6% in 2012(to 21,875 million yen); they've seen an astounding 70.9% fall in net income in 2013(to 3,834 million yen) on the heels of a rather large 42.8% fall in 2012(13,174 million yen). Going by the date of the report, it'll be a bit before we see if they hit their 82.6% forecasted growth for 2014, but their track record doesn't exactly look pretty."

Not a great place to be

 

[Ishigami]

I would have almost said goodbye Konami but that would be a lie... in reality the company can fuck right off so it is good riddance instead.
Not much longer I hope.

 

[Scrythe]

I'm actually a little curious as what this means (if anything) for their gambling division.

If I recall correctly, they have a headquarters in Las Vegas that develops their machines, and they doubled the size of the property just a couple of years ago.

 

[Mr.Mattress]

All I can say is if Konami does leave the market and does sell it's IP's, I hope Nintendo picks up a lot of their IP's, especially their Hudson IP's like Bonk, Bomberman and Adventure Island. I think Nintendo would know how to use them properly.

Whoever gets Metal Gear is going to run it to the ground, I can tell...

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Maybe they got Kojimas bill for making the new Metal Gear game. lol

 

[Blazing Hero]

If Konami goes under maybe the Suikoden IP will be bought by someone. I know it is a longshot but I REALLY would love to see the series given life again.

 

[Ishigami]

All I can say is if Konami does leave the market and does sell it's IP's

That's a good one!
When in the time of ever did a company sell its IPs for no apparent reason?
When they go bankrupt yes... but they are not going bankrupt (yet).
You can bet Konami will sit on those IPs and let them rot before offering them to the market without financial pressure.

 

[Atmos Duality]

All I can say is if Konami does leave the market and does sell it's IP's

That's a good one!
When in the time of ever did a company sell its IPs for no apparent reason?
When they go bankrupt yes... but they are not going bankrupt (yet).
You can bet Konami will sit on those IPs and let them rot before offering them to the market without financial pressure.

^This.
Unless they reach dire straits, they're going to let those IPs "Appreciate" in value relative to what the market wants before selling.

(same thing happened to System Shock 2)

But since this is an exposure-driven market (lots of offerings with relatively few major "hits"), chances are that the opposite is going to happen and those IPs will just languish in corporate Hell forever.

Depressing as hell, but that's the hideous nature of business for you.

 

[Jake Martinez]

So, Konami de-listed themselves from the NYSE because the volume of trades they make in the US (less than 3%) isn't worth the 5 million they need to pay to be regulatory compliant.

Also, for people who don't know - there is a bill working it's way through the Japanese government right now for the second time to legalize gambling casinos. Many people don't know this, but Konami doesn't do just video games. In fact, video games make up probably just a little bit over half of it's entire revenue, a good portion of the remainder comes from various business ventures, including making pachinko and pachislot machines.

Now, it's also known that while they closed Kojima's studio, they also consolidated all of their other video game engineering teams into their own divisions where previously they were attached to projects (titles). My speculation is that they are anticipating the gambling bill passing this time and they are restructuring themselves in order to produce a variety of gambling machines for the new industry. After all, they have already made products such as Metal Gear branded pachislots - so extending this seems like a reasonable business opportunity considering very few other companies will be in the position they are to capitalize on this new legislation.

I'm fairly certain that their restructure has more to do with this imminent gambling legislation than their actual financial health as a company (although the two may be intrinsically tied, I have no idea where Konami has been investing their money).

 

[ckam]

Pretty sure the LA branch is going to close down now.

 

[Gearhead mk2]

Eh, I don't really care. If Konami dies, its IPs will be picked up cheap by other devs and that would be awesome. Imagine From Software making a Castlevania, or Yager making Silent Hill. If it doesn't, those other devs will still make those games if they want to, they just couldn't legally call them Castlevania or Silent Hill. And on the Kojima thing, he hasn't wanted to do Metal Gear in a while, so I'm interested in what other stuff he comes up with. Does Konami still hold the rights to Snatcher and Policenauts?