Konami Struggles Through 2013

[FoolKiller]

Hmm...

Step 1.

Stop alienating your Xbox fanbase. Both the ZOE and Silent Hill collections came out buggy as hell and have been told no patch will be forthcoming. Either do it properly to begin with or pay the fees to put a patch on 360. Don't screw over the customers. After buying the Silent Hill collection and learning of me getting worse treatment than my PS3 cousins, I decided to hold back on getting the any other collections, and I'm glad I did.

Step 2.

For fuck's sake, just re-release Suikoden and Suikoden II. Even on original Playstation. Note the ridiculous prices they have online for these games. There is a demand there for your products. Fill it.

Step 3.

Do Step 2 for anything else you possess. Twin Snakes perhaps. Silent Hill.

 

[shrekfan246]

They're not investing enough in new IPs. You can't rely on renowned franchises forever. Unless you're Nintendo.

Not even a new Silent Hill by Team Silent would do that well in this day and age.

That is where you are wrong. Konami's only meal ticket right now is their existing IP. They don't have the talent, direction, or just good business sense to try a new IP.

Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realise you know the members of Konami personally, and are aware as to how creatively talented they all are. My bad.

*What a silly, silly comment, GA*

I dunno, I think GA just exemplified why most companies attach brand-names to titles even if having its own unique title wouldn't make any difference. New IPs don't sell, because people don't care. So much has been done already that anything they could pull out would just be accused of knocking off other franchises, so why not just build something new in an established franchise?

[sub][sub][sub]I am being facetious, but I've seen that point of view rather startlingly often...[/sub][/sub][/sub]

OT: As long as their poor business decisions don't impact Metal Gear Solid, I'll be okay. I don't particularly care about anything else Konami does, especially after they apparently botched the Silent Hill HD 'Collection' as badly as they did.

 

[DrunkOnEstus]

Plus One Million for you, sir! That's exactly what I was thinking coming in to this article. They have some amazing franchises that they've let just flutter in the wind for half a decade, when they could be basically printing money with them.

Why thank you! Konami just...drives me insane. I used to be a huge Bemani-head, we had a Bemani arcade where I'd spend 6 hours a day after school playing Drummania, DDR, Beatmania, and Pop'n'Music. I also have a $300 Beatmania turntable in my closet, as well as a $200 metal DDR pad. I love the Silent Hill franchise, and Metal Gear Solid 2 is one of my favorite games ever.

Now...I don't know what the hell their deal is. Guitar Hero and Rock Band scared them out of the music scene, and their response was that God awful Rock Revolution thing. Metal Gear Solid 4 didn't really play like MGS, when it was a game. Silent Hill is a parody of what it used to be. The franchises they don't use make them look like they're terrified of money, and that's when they aren't spending years mismanaging them.

They don't know how to treat their customers right, or communicate with them. The Silent Hill HD collection was a joke that should have been refunded or patched more or something. The people they use to speak in public outside of Japan (on the rare occasions that they do) barely understand English and behave like crazy people, and we walk away not knowing what their plans are or what the heck we just looked at. I'm astonished that we even know that a new Metal Gear is coming. I'd say that without Metal Gear or Kojima at this point, they would be a small-scale pachinko and cell phone game maker with like 50 employees.

 

[GAunderrated]

They're not investing enough in new IPs. You can't rely on renowned franchises forever. Unless you're Nintendo.

Not even a new Silent Hill by Team Silent would do that well in this day and age.

That is where you are wrong. Konami's only meal ticket right now is their existing IP. They don't have the talent, direction, or just good business sense to try a new IP.

Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realise you know the members of Konami personally, and are aware as to how creatively talented they all are. My bad.

*What a silly, silly comment, GA*

I dunno, I think GA just exemplified why most companies attach brand-names to titles even if having its own unique title wouldn't make any difference. New IPs don't sell, because people don't care. So much has been done already that anything they could pull out would just be accused of knocking off other franchises, so why not just build something new in an established franchise?

[sub][sub][sub]I am being facetious, but I've seen that point of view rather startlingly often...[/sub][/sub][/sub]

Problem is you assume my point on Konami is universal for all developers which is wrong to assume that. I loved dishonored for a new IP and bought it on release week. Thing is Bethesda has a mostly positive experience with new IP's and existing titles for me so I had no problem checking out a new IP by them. The same goes for any developer that actually has a good track record.

Konami however, has done nothing the past 6 years to suggest they could not only make a unique IP but that it would be something that gamers would be willing to gamble on for $60. Heck they can't even do an HD collection of their best series correctly. Silent hill HD has massive problems and required a day one patch for an HD collection. Metal Gear Solid is at its 3rd MGS collection to finally get it right.

I actually love indie titles for trying something new because the barrier of entry is around $5-15 which is great for trying new IP's but asking people to invest $60 on an unproven developer is very tough for me to do. Heck recently I just bought Don't Starve and Guns of Icarus Online which are two fantastic indie titles that combined cost me less than half of a new AAA game.

 

[Atmos Duality]

No. But on the other hand, EA and Ubisoft are not doing too well either. The only major publisher actually doing well in earnings is Activision, but that company is still 60% owned by Vivendi, a company that could enter bankruptcy at any time now, and be forced to sell all those shares on the open market.

Also, what Konami needs is clear: Suikoden VI. Maybe it won't outsell Skyrim, but it would serve to revitalize the under-served story-focused RPG market.

Much as I'd love it to, I know it won't happen.
Suidoken was always a budget JRPG butting heads with giants. As much as I'd love a breath of fresh air for the story-centric RPGs, it won't happen. Not when Konami is in a downward spiral; not in a market plagued by bombast and lowest-common denominator pandering.

It is a shame too; I wanted to see a game set specifically in Harmonia.

 

[Terramax]

I dunno, I think GA just exemplified why most companies attach brand-names to titles even if having its own unique title wouldn't make any difference. New IPs don't sell, because people don't care. So much has been done already that anything they could pull out would just be accused of knocking off other franchises, so why not just build something new in an established franchise?

I got that impression from GA too. What I'm saying is, he's wrong, and he was acting like a complete numpty.

All franchises start as new IPs. They were all successful to begin with. Therefore, it stands to reason that new IPs can be just as successful, if not even more, than established ideas. It all comes down to how good the new IP, and how it's marketed.

Games such as Assassin's Creed, Dead Space, Mass Effect, Uncharted, and Gears of War are all new franchises to this generation and all have made big bucks. Where is Konami's hit new IPs?

 

[Gregg Johnson]

It's sad, because there is a GIGANTIC (well, kinda big-ish) Facebook group called the Suikoden Revival Movement that's based around trying to get Konami to revive the franchise. They do mass e-mailing to the company, had what amounted to a postcard day as well, but Konami just keeps brushing them off and saying, "Yeah... no." Which is stupid, considering the only thing they're REALLY asking for right now is the release of Suikoden II on the Playstation Store, so Konami can look at the numbers it would be pulling in and see how much interest there would be in a sequel.

Really, that shouldn't be too much work for them, but they still don't want to do it, and it's stupid. Just plain stupid.

 

[Terramax]

When Sega released the Dreamcast, they bolstered it with a library of new IP: Shenmue, Jet Set Radio, Power Stone, REZ, ChuChu Rocket, Headhunter, Skies Of Arcadia... many of them critically acclaimed, and adored to this day. And yet, four years later, Sega decided to shut down their entire hardware division.

If new IP couldn't save Sega, I don't see how they could save Konami. Not unless they had one fell of a unique drawer.

Bwahahahaah. Come now, Jeff. I like to think you're smarter than this. You KNOW Sega's downfall was a due to COMPLETELY different circumstances to Konami.

However, on the unlikely chance you're not, the fact is, Sega would've failed not matter what they did. They are an arcade company. Arcade games were no longer in fashion. Publishers like EA and Konami, funnily enough, wouldn't support them, the PS2 was looming, with a DVD drive giving it the 1-2 punch, consumer and retail confidence was at an all-time low, they were in serious debt, and the West and East divisions were not communicating with one another well enough.

And those are just the reasons at the top of my head.

 

[Callate]

EA posted a profit for the 1st quarter 2013 of $323 million and that's a decline from $400 million last year. The big publisher's rarely have losses but the declines in profit and on hand cash are increasing right when game new game sales are slowing and the publisher's need money for the next gen when development costs will increase. That is not a good situation.

The numbers I've seen ([link]http://www.statista.com/statistics/185596/net-profit-of-electronic-arts-by-quarter-since-2008/[/link]) suggest that EA has only just been running a profit from Q1 2012 to Q4 2013, and when the timeline is bumped back as far as Q1 2009 the over-all picture gets a lot less rosy.

Agree with the overall assessment regarding ready liquid assets and the next generation, though.