Konami

Konami Corporation
コナミ株式会社
Type Public
Founded March 21, 1969
Headquarters Tokyo, Japan
(U.S. operations in El Segundo, California and Paradise, Nevada)
Sydney, Australia (Video Games licensed by Konami Australia Pty Ltd, distributed by Atari Australia Ltd)
Key people Kagemasa Kozuki CEO
Hideo Kojima
Koji Igarashi
Industry Video game industry
Entertainment industry
Health and fitness
Products Castlevania
Chouseishin
Contra
Dance Dance Revolution
FlatOut (Japanese publishing)
Gradius
Metal Gear
Pro Evolution Soccer (PES)
Silent Hill
Suikoden
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Winning Eleven
Yu-Gi-Oh (video games and TCG)
(see complete products listing)
Revenue ▲¥297.4 billion (2008)[1]
Operating income ▲¥33.8 billion (2008)[1]
Net income ▲¥18.3 billion (2008)[1]
Website www.konami.com
Konami headquarters in Tokyo Midtown

Konami Corporation (コナミ株式会社 Konami Kabushiki-gaisha?) (TYO: 9766 NYSE: KNM SGX: K20) is a leading developer and publisher of numerous popular and strong-selling toys, trading cards, anime, tokusatsu, slot machines, arcade cabinets and video games. Konami is famous for games such as the Metal Gear series and Silent Hill series. The company was founded in 1969 as a jukebox rental and repair business in Osaka, Japan, by Kagemasa Kōzuki, the still-current chairman and chief executive officer. The name "Konami" is a conjunction of the names Kagemasa Kōzuki, Yoshinobu Nakama, Hiro Matsuda, and Shokichi Ishihara, who were partners acquired by Kozuki and the original founders of Konami Industry Co., Ltd in 1973. Konami also can mean "small wave(s)" in the Japanese language and also can mean "fool friend(s)" in the French language. Konami is represented by the goroawase number "573". "Five" in Japanese is go, changed to the voiceless form ko; "7" in Japanese is nana shortened to na; "3" in Japanese is mittsu, shortened to mi; "573" = ko-na-mi. This number appears in many Konami telephone numbers and as a high score in Konami games like Dance Dance Revolution as an example; in some other games like Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, the number is occasionally used as minor self-reference to the company.

Konami is currently headquartered in Tokyo and additionally operates health and physical fitness clubs in Japan. Konami also operates United States activities in El Segundo, California for video games, and Paradise, Nevada for the gambling industry. The location in Paradise, Nevada is located across the street from one of the runways at McCarran International Airport.

Contents

History

On March 19, 1973, Kozuki transformed the business into Konami Industry Co., Ltd. and began work on manufacturing "amusement machines" for arcades. Their first actual game machine was not created until 1978. They began to achieve success with hit arcade games such as 1981's Frogger, Scramble, and Super Cobra.

Between 1982 and 1985, Konami manufactured and sold game software for home PCs, producing games for the MSX and Nintendo's Family Computer ("Famicom") game consoles. This new business was in addition to, not in place of, the arcades, and many hit console games of this time period were ports of the arcade versions. Konami of America Inc. was established in Torrance, California in 1982 but moved to Wood Dale, Illinois in 1984. Also in 1984, Konami expanded to the United Kingdom and established Konami Limited.

Konami began to achieve great success when the Famicom took off, being released in the United States as the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Many of the NES/Famicom's bestselling titles were produced by Konami, including Gradius, the Castlevania series, the Contra series, and Metal Gear. Konami was one of the most active and prolific third party development studios for the NES, which led to conflict with Nintendo of America's licensing restrictions. During the heyday of the NES, Nintendo of America controlled the production of all licensed NES software titles, and limited third party developers to a maximum of five titles per year. Several companies found a way around this restriction by founding quasi-independent subsidiary corporations, effectively doubling the number of games that they could release during the year. In the case of Konami, this subsidiary was known as Ultra Games, and a large number of Konami titles were published in North America under their banner, including the original Metal Gear, Gyruss, Skate or Die, the first two Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games and Snake's Revenge (an American-made Metal Gear sequel made specifically for the western market). In Europe, faced with a similar restriction placed by Nintendo's European branch, Konami established Palcom Software Ltd. to the same end. By the early 1990s, Nintendo of America had relaxed many of its licensing restrictions, and, no longer needed, Ultra was shut down in 1992, with the remainder of its staff being reabsorbed into Konami's official American branch.

In 1992, members of Konami left to form Treasure Co. Ltd, which, like Konami, is also well known in the video gaming community for creating high caliber shooters and action games.

In 1998, Konami released Dance Dance Revolution, a Dance Simulation game that revolutionized the music game industry.

In 1999, Konami moved its U.S corporate offices from Buffalo Grove, Illinois to Redwood City, California. The Buffalo Grove location remained open strictly for the manufacturing of Konami's arcade video games.

In 2003, Konami of America closed down their arcade division due to heavy losses; the entire Buffalo Grove location was shut down along with it. All machine inquiries and new machines will be handled by Betson Enterprises.

Also in 2003, Konami teamed up with the Japanese film production company, Toho Company, Ltd. in creating their own genre of tokusatsu TV series, known as the Chōseishin Series, in attempt to emulate and rival the success of Toei's Super Sentai genre.

In 2005, Konami became the majority owner of Hudson Soft. Konami has an office and gaming production facility in Paradise, Nevada for its casino gaming equipment subsidiary, Konami Gaming.[2]

In 2005, Konami was the sixth largest game developer in Japan after Nintendo Co, Ltd., Square Enix, Capcom, Sega Sammy Holdings, and Namco Bandai Holdings.

In 2007, Konami Corporation of America moved its U.S head office from Redwood City to Konami Digital Entertainment's office in El Segundo, California.

Games

Main article: List of Konami games

Konami has created and produced some of the biggest and most memorable video games over the past 15 years. Genre-defining titles attributed to Konami include the vampire-hunting RPG Castlevania series, the survival horror Silent Hill series, the action/shooter Contra series, the platform/adventure Ganbare Goemon series, the espionage action Metal Gear series, the console role-playing Suikoden series, the music-oriented Bemani series (which includes Dance Dance Revolution, Beatmania, Guitar Freaks, Drummania, and pop'n music, among others) and the dating simulation Tokimeki Memorial series. Konami is particularly notable for its arcade shoot 'em up games such as Gradius, Life Force, Time Pilot, Gyruss, Parodius, Axelay , and TwinBee . Konami's games based on cartoon licenses, especially the Batman: The Animated Series, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Tiny Toon Adventures series, are still remembered fondly, but other American productions like The Simpsons, Bucky O Hare, G.I. Joe and The Goonies all have seen release at some point in the past by Konami either on arcades and/or video game consoles. Recent cinematically styled franchises from Konami are the continuing Silent Hill survival horror game franchise, and the Metal Gear series, which underwent a public renaissance with Metal Gear Solid. Another successful franchise is Winning Eleven, the spiritual sequel to International Superstar Soccer, which is extremely popular in Asia, Latin America, Middle East and Europe, where it is sold by the name Pro Evolution Soccer. And in Japan, it is known for the extremely popular Jikkyou Power Pro Yakyuu (or Power Pro) baseball series. Zone of the Enders 1 & 2

Konami is also known for its password, The Konami Code, which traditionally gives many powerups in its games. Although variants also exist, as in the Parodius series, and button naming can differ depending on the controller used, the classic Famicom or NES combination is: Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start. Although use of this code in more recent Konami productions has been sparse.

Movie production

In 2006, Konami started producing movies based on their popular franchises. Konami produced the Silent Hill movie (released in 2006) and has announced that they will produce a Metal Gear Solid movie [3] and a Castlevania movie. [4]

Slot machine games

Konami produces a variety of slot machines including:

Konami structure

In 2005, Konami Corporation merged with six of its subsidiaries.

In 2006, Konami Corporation divided the Japanese video game enterprise at a new subsidiary, Konami Digital Entertainment Co., Ltd. and Konami Corporation shifted to the holding company.

Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo

Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo, (aka KCET, KCE Tokyo, Konami TYO, and Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo Co., Ltd.) is a former subsidiary of Konami Corporation. Konami absorbed KCET along with several of its other subsidiaries in 2005. KCET was a Tokyo-based game developer responsible for many of Konami's most notable franchises, including Winning Eleven, Castlevania, Dance Dance Revolution, Gradius, and Silent Hill.

Konami Computer Entertainment Japan

Konami JPN Ltd., formerly Konami Computer Entertainment Japan (KCEJ), is a video game developer and subsidiary of Konami Corporation, located in Tokyo, Japan.

The development house has worked on titles for a wide variety of platforms, ranging from Game Boy to PlayStation. KCEJ is split into two different development teams, located in two offices in Tokyo. KCEJ East has worked on the PlayStation 2's Reiselied and 7 Blades as well as a number of dating sims for the PlayStation, Sega Saturn, and Game Boy. KCEJ West is known for the best-selling Metal Gear Solid series, and the Beatmania and GuitarFreaks series.

On April 1, 2005, KCEJ (along with KCET and KCES) merged with its parent company. Hideo Kojima (the company's former vice president) has formed his own subsidiary, Kojima Productions.

Logos

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Financial Highlights
  2. ↑ Konami Opens New Gaming Production Facility in Las Vegas
  3. ↑ Yahoo
  4. ↑ IGN
  5. ↑ Slots Hero

External links