Konami ceases triple-A console production on all but PES

Nesh said:
You are describing the result but not why it lagged or shifted
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Money. The average Japanese isn't as affluent as they were in the late 80's and 90's.

We have seen them go from releasing 10's of home consoles a year in the 80's to single digits per year in the 90's to 3-4 consoles every 3-7 years in the 2000's.

It's far easier for a Japanese person on a limited budget to justify an expensive phone that can play games, let them flirt with the opposite sex, take photos, make calls, etc. than it is for them to justify buying both an expensive phone and an expensive console.

They've slowly been moving from a lifestyle of working a lot (6 days a week, 10-12 hours a day) and spending a lot to a lifestyle of working a lot (6 days a week, 10-12 hours a day) and trying to stretch how far their money will go.

To think of it another way. They "have" to get their children a phone. They no longer necessarily feel like they "have" to get their children a console as well. And once they are living on their own with a limited budget. They "have" to have a phone. They don't "have" to have a console.

It's been interesting living in Japan for much of each year and seeing how things have transitioned from the 70's (bad living conditions) to the 80's (transition to modern western style living conditions) to the 90's (affluence and spending) to the 2000's (reality setting in and budgeting becoming more important) to the 2010's (many businesses going out of business while businesses selling used products are springing up everywhere as are 100 yen [dollar] stores and stores selling cheap products). Back in the 90's it was difficult to find stores selling used products. Those are really easy to find now.

It is incredibly stark the change in the past 10 years in Japan. Oh and during those past 10 years? Pachinko (gambling) houses have been springing up everywhere. If anything could be considered to be as popular or more likely more popular than mobile gaming, it's Pachinko. Didn't always used to be like that, but Pachinko is huge now as many people try to hide from their poverty in pachinko parlors.

Regards,
SB
 
pjbliverpool said:
Rest easy Konami fans:

http://www.dsogaming.com/news/konam...europes-community-manager-reports/#more-81044
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Rest easy? Why? Because some mid-level European manager tweets a non-specific denial (not even a denial, just a don't believe rumors meme)? If there's a false rumor going around that you are exiting a major market wouldn't that be promptly addressed by corporate? Would McDonald's, on false rumor of them ceasing offering of Quarter Pounder's w/cheese, address this from corporate and in fact take the opportunity to extole its virtues, or would instead leave it to some store manager in Brazil to tweet out a don't believe rumors non-denial?
 
Silent_Buddha said:
Money. The average Japanese isn't as affluent as they were in the late 80's and 90's.

We have seen them go from releasing 10's of home consoles a year in the 80's to single digits per year in the 90's to 3-4 consoles every 3-7 years in the 2000's.

It's far easier for a Japanese person on a limited budget to justify an expensive phone that can play games, let them flirt with the opposite sex, take photos, make calls, etc. than it is for them to justify buying both an expensive phone and an expensive console.

They've slowly been moving from a lifestyle of working a lot (6 days a week, 10-12 hours a day) and spending a lot to a lifestyle of working a lot (6 days a week, 10-12 hours a day) and trying to stretch how far their money will go.

To think of it another way. They "have" to get their children a phone. They no longer necessarily feel like they "have" to get their children a console as well. And once they are living on their own with a limited budget. They "have" to have a phone. They don't "have" to have a console.

It's been interesting living in Japan for much of each year and seeing how things have transitioned from the 70's (bad living conditions) to the 80's (transition to modern western style living conditions) to the 90's (affluence and spending) to the 2000's (reality setting in and budgeting becoming more important) to the 2010's (many businesses going out of business while businesses selling used products are springing up everywhere as are 100 yen [dollar] stores and stores selling cheap products). Back in the 90's it was difficult to find stores selling used products. Those are really easy to find now.

It is incredibly stark the change in the past 10 years in Japan. Oh and during those past 10 years? Pachinko (gambling) houses have been springing up everywhere. If anything could be considered to be as popular or more likely more popular than mobile gaming, it's Pachinko. Didn't always used to be like that, but Pachinko is huge now as many people try to hide from their poverty in pachinko parlors.

Regards,
SB
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Your reasoning doesnt explain it. Companies like Konami, Capcom, Square Enix and so many others are NOT limited to the tiny japanese market. The downfall of their globally popular franchises hasnt been a result of Japanese people changing their habits.
 
All I know is it's hard to feel sorry for Konami's departure after all the reports regarding their working conditions, the shitstorm with Kojima regarding P.T. and Metal Gear, and this thing with PES for PC being a bad port from the X360/PS3 version instead of the newer consoles.
 
Given its Metal Gear Solid, I see no point in abandoning the console space. At the very least Konami could license the IP to one of the big pubs, like Marvel, DC or a ton of other film ips are done every year. There is literally no risk in terms of potential losses for Konami as EA, Ubisoft or whoever were to license the IP would be responsible for the cost of development, marketing and distribution.

I am pretty sure MS or Sony wouldn't mind scooping up MGS as a first or second party title. Offering a profit sharing model to Konami if Konami's aversion to risk in the console space is too much for them to traditionally produce MGS as in years past.
 
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The Japanese market was made less relevant in the era Dreamcast died and Xbox was born. The death of Sega as a hardware maker immediately made that company less relevant. Japanese devs and pubs had huge amounts of success with PS2. The release of the Xbox as a platform signaled a new direction for the industry. Each iteration of Xbox has bombed in Japan but still successful on a worldwide scale. It showed that western oriented games were the future and the failure of so many Japanese devs and pubs to keep up is sad. But Konami was always still decent and prominent from what I recall, less so last generation but still. Oh well. I wish them success in the mobile sector. I hope they will at least license their IP as others have suggested so some type of justice can happen with their properties.
 
As somebody I know once eloquently put it; For Japanese the world ends where the sea starts. It's amazing to see how limited most Japanese are when it comes to change and how much resistance there is to making even the smallest of fundamental changes. I say fundamental changes because the Japanese are masters at making changes that don't really change anything just for the sake of making it look like they are doing something.

All of this was fine until not too long ago, when they could rely on the Japanese market keeping their business afloat but those days are now mostly gone for international companies.I think this is especially hitting them hard in the consumer market where flexibility is essential.
 
Nesh said:
Companies like Konami, Capcom, Square Enix and so many others are NOT limited to the tiny japanese market.
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Their mindset has been. Although releasing worldwide, their products have a definite Japanese flavour which limits accessibility.
The downfall of their globally popular franchises hasnt been a result of Japanese people changing their habits.
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It's people moving on to new genres and styles while Japanese production houses have stuck with the same formulae. Japan is still making Rock and Roll when the rest of the world has gone through punk, dance, hiphop, and is currently working through generic pop.
 
Should have used a car analogy as the Japanese are masters of generic idol/pop music.

Western labels would probably kill to count 20/30 year old males among their buyers of crappy pop.

AKB48 is probably generating enough cash to run a small country...
 
When Xbox was introduced it opened up console development to PC developers. This was not only due to the Xbox basically being a PC from a hardware standpoint, but also from a development standpoint.

Once the previously PC-only developers started bringing what had previously been de-facto PC-only genres to console and those became ultra-popular in the west, Sony had to react and facilitate development for those developers as well.

After the many handicaps that non-Japanese console developers were forced to operate under disappeared and there was a more level playing field, Japanese developers struggled to match the new competition.
 
Yeah, don't make much sense to stay in rapidly diminishing market (especially their domestic market) when fitness, pachinco and mobile markets are booming. Outside of Metal Gear brand, all their IPs are in that unconfortable low to mid tier range and indie "spiritual sequels" fill that niche better then their now overvalued IPs. As stupid as Metal Gear world, writing and plot are, that IP is also done without Kojima. Maybe reboot... but seriously, some generic minor stealth action adventure game with AAA development budget and ad budget would do just as fine or even better without Metal Gear name. I wouldn't be suprised if next Splinter Cell game (if Ubi even choose to continue with that brand) is open world game.

Metal Gear Solid 5 is perfectly fine ending for Konami in console space. I've enjoyed my first 60 hours (28% done it sats) of it. Pure stealth CQC only run.
 
Shifty Geezer said:
Their mindset has been. Although releasing worldwide, their products have a definite Japanese flavour which limits accessibility.
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I'd argue that the distinct Japanese flavor is the only reason why some storied franchises are still kicking around. If I didn't want it in my games, I'd just buy the next identikit ubisoft stealth game starring Grizzle McDouchenozzle instead of playing Metal Gear. Then there's the fact that pandering to Western tastes is something big Japanese publishers desperately tried to do for just about the entire last console generation, only to fail miserably at it. It basically killed off any interest in future entries of franchises like Silent Hill, or Resident Evil, and DmC didn't exactly set the world on fire either. It's better to cater to a loyal niche than to try and appeal to everyone by releasing soulless husks that no-one could possibly get excited for. I mean did anyone hear the roaring applause for that RE multiplayer shooter announced at TGS? - Me neither.
 
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Sonic said:
The Japanese market was made less relevant in the era Dreamcast died and Xbox was born. The death of Sega as a hardware maker immediately made that company less relevant. Japanese devs and pubs had huge amounts of success with PS2. The release of the Xbox as a platform signaled a new direction for the industry. Each iteration of Xbox has bombed in Japan but still successful on a worldwide scale. It showed that western oriented games were the future and the failure of so many Japanese devs and pubs to keep up is sad. But Konami was always still decent and prominent from what I recall, less so last generation but still. Oh well. I wish them success in the mobile sector. I hope they will at least license their IP as others have suggested so some type of justice can happen with their properties.
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I think it had less to do with the hardware and more to do with the software. The PS2 era saw alot of western devs migrate from PC to consoles and offering titles that suited western tastes more.

Look at the top selling PS1 titles. For the most part, outside of Core Designs (TombRaider series) and Naughty Dog (Crash Bandicot), the top of the list is almost all from japanese devs. The PS2 top selling list is dominated at the top by RockStar's GTA series (3 out the top 5 titles) while most of the mid tier titles are dominated by western developers. The PS3 is literally just japanese titles sprinkled here or there with western dominating the list from top to bottom.

I wouldn't point to the introduction of the Xbox as a signal of a new direction, I would point to GTA 3.
 
dobwal said:
I wouldn't point to the introduction of the Xbox as a signal of a new direction, I would point to GTA 3.
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Xbox also brought Call of Duty to the consoles, something that would not have happened had the Xbox not appeared. It also sparked the FPS and to an extent TPS genres on consoles. Which now happens to be the most popular genre on both consoles. Many of the most successful console developers are now also former PC only developers who never would have jumped into consoles if not for Xbox. Bethesda is also another developer that is huge on consoles now but was brought on board by the Xbox franchise, and later branched out to PS. Same goes for Bioware. And Irrational Games, although they don't exist anymore.

Xbox basically paved the way for up til then non-traditional console games to appear on consoles. Consoles were dominated by platformers, RPGs, driving games, and fighting games up until that time. All genre's that have been in decline since the advent of Xbox and the influx of western PC developers into the console development scene.

Not necessarily saying it's a good or bad thing, just the reality of the console landscape now. Personally, I like console gaming better in the PS1 era. PS2/Xbox era is when my interest started to wane. Especially with JRPGs changing from turn based or phased turn based to real time (bleh).

Regards,
SB
 
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Nesh said:
Your reasoning doesnt explain it. Companies like Konami, Capcom, Square Enix and so many others are NOT limited to the tiny japanese market. The downfall of their globally popular franchises hasnt been a result of Japanese people changing their habits.
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Except none of them are in a particularly good place now are they?

Square Enix was on the ropes in danger of going bankrupt in a few years had FFXIV (an MMO) not been hugely successful, as well as getting a large cash infusion from Microsoft (the Tomb Raider deal). Lets not forget that both Squaresoft and Enix were in trouble and needed to merge in order to stay alive. And that was when both companies separately was healthier than they are today. However, they made some bad investments at the time which put them in danger.

Capcom is somewhat solid, but even there the executives were considering selling off the company as future prospects didn't look good.

Konami. Well, we see where Konami is now. And thank god they are going to exit AAA development after some of the most boneheaded decisions to ever make it into a game. Look at my post in the PC MGSV thread if you want to know what I'm talking about. MGSV while good is obviously not a finished game with much of it being cut prior to launch and the 2nd chapter obviously being rushed.

All of them used to be able to survive just making Japanese games. Games got more expensive to make, but sales expanded along with that up until PS2 and came crashing down with PS3. Not only can Japan no longer sustain purely AAA Japanese centric game development as easily as in the past, but Japanese gamers are less interested in those AAA Japanese centric games. Especially when they can get their Japanese centric gaming fix cheaper on other platforms.

And much of that is driven by the fact that the average Japanese gamer cannot spend as much (in inflation adjusted Yen) as they could in the past. As I mentioned. In the mid to late 80's it wasn't uncommon to see a home where there was 5-8 consoles. Some of those consoles having a gaming library in the single digits! Many of which only had golf titles available! In the 90's that was reduced quite a bit to 2-4 consoles. In the 2000's you might have had 1-3 (if you include handhelds). In the 2010's you're far more likely to see households with just a single console.

Their spending habits have changed. Quite drastically. If you have lived in Japan for the past 40-ish years you'd be able to see this quite clearly. They buy electronics less often. They buy consoles less often. They buy cars less often. They buy clothing less often. Basically they buy everything less often than they used to. They also buy cheaper foreign products much more frequently now than they did a decade ago, because it's cheaper. When asked they'll often admit they think the quality is worse, but that they can't afford to only buy Japanese products any longer. It isn't something limited to console gaming, but it is something that affects console gaming.

Japanese developers are far more reliant on the Western audience now and that affects their ability to freely spend money on Japan centric AAA titles, which in turn is also going to impact how attractive they are to a Japanese audience that spends less on console gaming than they did a decade ago.

Regards,
SB
 
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