Japanese game developer Konami has today announced that mobile gaming is now its main focus going forward, CNET is reporting. A key executive of the company behind the smash hit Metal Gear Solid game series, said that Konami will “pursue mobile games aggressively”, with smartphones being considered as its “main platform”.
Hideki Hayakawa, the president of Konami, said in an interview with Nikkei that the future of gaming is in mobile. He added that gaming has spread to a number of platforms, but at the end of the day, the platform that is always closest to us, is mobile. “Mobile is where the future of gaming lies”, Hayakawa said. “With multiplatform games, there’s really no point in dividing the market into categories anymore. Mobiles will take on the new role of linking the general public to the gaming world.”
Hayakawa also highlighted that free-to-play design driven games would be a key focus going forward:
“Following the pay-as-you-play model of games like Power Pro and Winning Eleven with additional content, our games must move from selling things like ‘items’ to selling things like ‘features,'” he said. “We saw with these games that even people who buy physical games are motivated to buy extra content. The success of Power Pro especially has motivated us to actively push more of our popular series onto mobile than ever before.”
Even though Hayakawa’s latest statements aren’t surprising as the company has mentioned its intention to expand its mobile game operation multiple times in the past as well, they do however reflect Konami’s diminishing interest in game consoles.
