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Konami Digital Entertainment undergoing personnel changes and organizational restructuring effective February 1st 2021

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ggx2ac

ggx2ac

Sales Heaven or Sales Hell?
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Oct 25, 2017
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Link: https://www.konami.com/games/corporate/en/news/release/20210115/

Click the link if you want to see the personnel changes.

Here's the third point from their news:
3．Organizational Restructuring (Effective February 1, 2021)

We are dissolving the Production Divisions to respond to the rapid market that surrounds us.

Production Division 1 (Dissolve)
Production Division 2 (Dissolve)
Production Division 3 (Dissolve)
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This information is related to Konami Digital Entertainment, the segment of the company that you know of which deals with games and Yu-Gi-Oh cards. They have 1,786 employees (As of September 30, 2020).

Those who opened the thread get to see some trivia:
Screenshot_20210125-1405562.png
 
ILikeFeet

ILikeFeet

DF Deet Master
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Oct 25, 2017
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as I mentioned in the Media Create thread, this sounds like an internal consolidation of dev teams
 
Geode

Geode

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Oct 27, 2017
4,457
How many Production Divisions did they have and what did 1, 2, and 3 make?

EDIT: Doing some quick research it looks like PD 1, 2, and 3 were made in 2015. Probably after they fired Kojima.
 
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onpoint

onpoint

Neon Deity Games
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Oct 26, 2017
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Can you please give Castlevania and Contra to people who actually care about them now then?

Fuck.

(Insert your favorite Konami franchises in the bolded slots to make your own version of this post)
 
ThereAreFourNaan

ThereAreFourNaan

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Nov 8, 2017
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Does "dissolving production divisions" mean sackign them all, or some form of reorganization outside of the original structure?
 
Astrogamer

Astrogamer

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Oct 25, 2017
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BasilZero said:
I really wish Konami didnt buy Hudson....of all the companies :(
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I mean, this is probably just a restructuring to something simpler like what Capcom and Square did a few years back. If this is just turning into a single division though, it's a little concerning as it likely means that they aren't expanding their game development
 
Wrexis

Wrexis

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Nov 4, 2017
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Looking at the promotions, one person is going from "Associate Manager, Production Department 2, Production Division 1" to "General Manager, Production Department 2".
Sounds like it's a downsizing exercise.
 
ManNR

ManNR

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Feb 13, 2019
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Goemon, Suikoden, Zone of the Enders, Metal Gear, Castlevania, even IPs like TwinBee, Adventure Island, Dino Riki...its depressing.
 
JaseC64

JaseC64

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I'm sure the big players are saving up dough to buy up all their IP or Konami itself and dump whatever they dont want. Just a matter of time. No way all these game IPs are left unused for more decades.
 
Shoshi

Shoshi

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JaseC64 said:
I'm sure the big players are saving up dough to buy up all their IP or Konami itself and dump whatever they dont want. Just a matter of time. No way all these game IPs are left unused for more decades.
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Exactly, if somebody just prepares their offer well enough and adding a clause that allows Konami to continue using all their IP for Pachinko and gacha F2P mobile and browser games — then there's maybe a chance...
 
PlanetSmasher

PlanetSmasher

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JaseC64 said:
I'm sure the big players are saving up dough to buy up all their IP or Konami itself and dump whatever they dont want. Just a matter of time. No way all these game IPs are left unused for more decades.
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Nobody is gonna spend billions - or even millions - of dollars to buy the Metal Gear IP. It's a corpse without Kojima and only a complete business amateur would think buying that franchise without Kojima has any value.
 

Deleted member 10737

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people really overestimate the value of konami's IPs. by today's standards they're mid-tier at best, and really niche at worst. there's metal gear which is kinda big, but it's also not worth much without kojima.
 
ThereAreFourNaan

ThereAreFourNaan

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mazi said:
people really overestimate the value of konami's IPs. by today's standards they're mid-tier at best, and really niche at worst. there's metal gear which is kinda big, but it's also not worth much without kojima.
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Silent Hill as a franchise sold a cumulative 9 million copies across... 8 games? It's even worse if that totals-series sales figures they released included various spinoffs. It reminds me of Shenmue in that people are always talking about it but it was never actually a massive hit.
 
darkside

darkside

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Oct 26, 2017
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Well its not like this restructuring is gonna lead to less games.

Although I can't imagine its good news for PES which I've felt like doesn't have much of a future although its been kind of prodding along.
 

Deleted member 51691

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MysticGon said:
If they did they would still be allowed to make games for Nintendo platforms so it's a win-win for them.
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Would they? The idea behind MS acquiring Konami (as unlikely as it is) would be to acquire a handful of beloved IP as exclusives to bolster Game Pass. Not sure how Switch versions factor into that. It's not exactly the same situation as Minecraft.
Dodongo said:
I'm still amazed that they couldn't capitalize on the success of Netflix Castlevania.
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This. A legacy collection and licensing SOTN/Rondo of Blood to Sony were half-hearted attempts at best. They could have easily hired WayForward or Inti Creates on the cheap to make a new 2D Castlevania game to coincide with a new season of the series.
 
Dodongo

Dodongo

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I'm still amazed that they couldn't capitalize on the success of Netflix Castlevania.
 
Duxxy3

Duxxy3

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Think of how much money they'd be making if a new Silent Hill or Castlevania come out during this pandemic.

Whoops.
 
PachaelD

PachaelD

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mazi said:
people really overestimate the value of konami's IPs. by today's standards they're mid-tier at best, and really niche at worst. there's metal gear which is kinda big, but it's also not worth much without kojima.
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Well to be fair everyone seemed to underestimate Momotaro selling 1.6 million (physical!) units in Japan so they at least have something to work with.
 
Ariakon44

Ariakon44

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This made me look up Konami Holding's financials for the first time, and wow, I didn't realize just how big Konami is outside of gaming. The company's market cap is $8.5 billion. Which then led me to click on a link to Bandai Namco...which has a market cap of about $20 billion. These companies are a lot more varied than I thought they were.
 
ThereAreFourNaan

ThereAreFourNaan

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Ariakon44 said:
This made me look up Konami Holding's financials for the first time, and wow, I didn't realize just how big Konami is outside of gaming. The company's market cap is $8.5 billion. Which then led me to click on a link to Namco Bandai...which has a market cap of about $20 billion. These companies are a lot more varied than I thought they were.
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Yes the company is big and successful, people just don't like it because it doesn't cater to traditional gamers anymore.
 
daninthemix

daninthemix

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ThereAreFourNaan said:
Silent Hill as a franchise sold a cumulative 9 million copies across... 8 games? It's even worse if that totals-series sales figures they released included various spinoffs. It reminds me of Shenmue in that people are always talking about it but it was never actually a massive hit.
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Yeah it's one of those IPs that's enormous on forums but tiny in the real world.
 
Shoshi

Shoshi

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Jan 9, 2018
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There is probably possible to do a neverending series of Silent Hill and Castlevania (just see the Bloodstained Castlevania-addon! It hurts to see) plus if the buyer could choose which developer for each game we could have magic like Housemarquee or some Japanese indie dev doing Contra, Gradius, Salamander. Tetsuya Mizoguchi taking care of Dance Dance Revolution.
 
MysticGon

MysticGon

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stealthyfrog said:
Would they? The idea behind MS acquiring Konami (as unlikely as it is) would be to acquire a handful of beloved IP as exclusives to bolster Game Pass. Not sure how Switch versions factor into that. It's not exactly the same situation as Minecraft.

This. A legacy collection and licensing SOTN/Rondo of Blood to Sony were half-hearted attempts at best. They could have easily hired WayForward or Inti Creates on the cheap to make a new 2D Castlevania game to coincide with a new season of the series.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I think the Blue Dragon DS game, Ori ports and Banjo in Smash show an limited openness to work with Nintendo where it makes sense. I doubt the next Momotaro game would be an Xbox exclusive.

PES might also follow the path of MLB The Show and stay multiplatform despite being the property of a platform-holder.
 
spman2099

spman2099

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Oct 25, 2017
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Konami was an absolute titan. They probably still have the best IPs in the industry, and they are just sitting on them. It is super depressing.
 
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