Konami Is Remembering Its Fans Again, and It’s Wonderful News
At one point in time, Konami looked absolutely unbeatable. The company presented a number of classics over the years, starting with 8-bit bangers like Contra and Castlevania and continuing onward with classics like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Silent Hill 2 and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles In Time. Not to mention original favorites like Rocket Knight Adventures. Who remembers that one?
Then, boom. The company kind of abandoned its fans in favor of…Silent Hill gambling machines? Not to mention the only kid of taste we were getting from Metal Gear was whatever the hell that Survive game was. Even Contra kind of fell off the rails with Rogue Corps, though I still enjoyed it more than I thought it would.
One year I remember Konami having a booth at E3. And there was nothing to it. Carpeting and a little house that showed trailers from what the company was doing. It were a mere shell of the dominance it had shown years before when it had the Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty trailer showing every hour on the hour, gathering a crowd as it did it.
But I think it’s waking up. And about time, too.
Over the past couple of years, I think Konami has brushed aside its corporate beliefs (the same ones that forced Hideo Kojima and Koji Igarashi to leave the way they did) and has finally come back to giving fans what they really want. They already announced a formal return to Silent Hill 2, with Bloober Team in charge; they’re reportedly working on new Metal Gear and Castlevania games that, surprise, aren’t mobile releases; and their classic collections have been insanely good.
The Castlevania Collection and Advance Collection have been hits; the Contra collection is excellent (and even includes the 8-bit original!); and, well, Cowabunga Collection has already sold a million copies and rising. That’s a lot of pizza, dude.
I think sometimes a company can just fall in a lull, y’know? They think that a business model goes so much a certain way. The problem is they leave the fans that got them there in the first way as a result, hoping that something — like those damn pachinko machines — will take off. But then they see the errors of those ways and go back to what worked. That’s what I think we’re seeing from Konami right now.
Will it continue? Who knows. But they’re on the right path, and Silent Hill 2 should be a big hit when it drops sometime this year. I just hope it keeps announcing the games we want to see, and not so much the “business ventures” that got them in deep crap to begin with. Apologies to Iga and Kojima prolly wouldn’t hurt either, but one step at a time.
Nice to see you back, Konami. Now, while we’re at it, let’s talk Rocket Knight Adventures revival.
Have a good weekend, gang!
