The history of Konami: from jukeboxes to the largest holding with anime, games and arcade machines
Holding Konami Holdings Corporation includes about twenty companies around the world. They produce games, animated series, films, are engaged in real estate and health products from corsets to simulators. This whole empire appeared after four Japanese entrepreneurs founded a company for rental and repair of jukeboxes in 1969.
We mostly know Konami from games and series like Contra, Silent Hill and Metal Gear.
Konami was founded in 1969 and got its name from the names of the founders: Kagemasa Ko zuki, Yoshinobu Na kama, and Tatsuo Mi yasako. Kagemasa Kodzuki is still the chairman of the company. The business began with the rental and repair of jukeboxes, but in the wake of the growing popularity of arcade machines, in 1973 the company decided to switch to them.
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It took another five years for the company to develop and release its first slot machine. Among the first games was Space King - another clone of the Space Invaders from Taito . Commercial success came to Konami in the early 1980s with the release of Super Cobra games with helicopter shooting, Scramble with the same gameplay, but on a spaceship, and Frogger with frog attempts to get to the swamp.
Frogger, where you need to cross the road, and then - move through the reservoir.
In 1982, Konami began to produce and sell games for personal computers and opened an office in California in the United States - Konami of America. Soon the company began releasing games to MSX and MSX2 standards, which were popular for household computers in Japan in the 1980s and developed by the Japanese division of Microsoft. For seven years, the company has released seventy games, including Antarctic Adventure - the race for the penguin, Vampire Killer - the version of Castlevania, as well as games from Hideo Kojima: Metal Gear, Snatcher and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake.
The story of Konami is closely related to Hideo Kojima, who rose to vice president of Konami Digital Entertainment and is now in a difficult relationship with the studio. In the 1980s, the 20-year-old Kojima wrote stories to magazines, but the stories were so big that they refused to be published. But he managed to realize his talent in game design - in creating the plot, gameplay and games in general in Konami. And here he was not always lucky - the company canceled some games. The importance of this designer for the company is shown, for example, by sales: in 2009, out of 26.81 million copies of games sold by Konami, 4.75 million were Metal Gear games.
In October 1984, Konami shares were listed on the Osaka Securities Exchange.
Metal Gear is one of the first stealth action games.
Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake was released in 1990 for MSX2.
In 1985, the company began producing video games for the third-generation Nintendo Famicom console . Some of the games were ported to the console from the gaming machines, some were simultaneously made for MSX and Nintendo computers.
The list of best-selling games for the Nintendo Entertainment System includes Konami's games such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with 4 million cartridges sold, Gradius and Metal Gear - 1 million copies each.
Success in the NES gaming market allowed the company to increase revenue from $ 10 million in 1987 to $ 300 million in 1991.
Below is the 1989 arcade gameplay Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
In 1985, Konami released the Yie Ar Kung-Fu fighting game. Here you played for a fighter named Lee, who needs to win one-on-one battles with several armed rivals.
In 1987, Top Gun was released on the movie with the same name with Tom Cruise. This is an aircraft simulator for shooting at enemy aircraft with a first-person view. You can play right now .
In 1988, the fourth-generation Sega Mega Drive appeared on the market. The prefix is ​​still sold in the US, Europe and Brazil. In North America, she went under the brand Sega Genesis. Under this console came the game Rocket Knight Adventures, Castlevania: Bloodlines and Contra: Hard Corps. In 1995, Konami began selling games for the Sega Saturn.
In the 1990s, home computers continued to become more accessible. And for them it was necessary to do more games. In 1991, Konami released a cyberpunk detective snatcher with striptease and robots, released from the pen of Hideo Kojima, a new Castlevania: Rondo of Blood and Tokimeki Memorial love game.
In 1994, Sony began selling the first PlayStation . The prefix broke into the market, which was divided between Nintendo and Sega, and immediately showed where the crabs spend the winter. Over 11 years of production, the console has sold 100 million copies. The prefix was the best-selling until the moment when it changed in this “position” of the PlayStation 2. And even now nothing changes - Sony is leading the market of game consoles.
With the release of the new console, Konami was a logical step to launch the release of games for it. The star hour of Hidey Kojima was the release of Metal Gear Solid under PS. For the first time in the series was used three-dimensional graphics. The genre of the game has not changed, it was again a stealth action game in which it was better to kill opponents very quietly, or bypass the party altogether.
In 1999, another well-known series of games from Konami started - Silent Hill. This series can be called one of the best in the genre of survival horror. In the first game, the third person view is used, all locations are three-dimensional. To hide the flaws, the background was not “washed out” here, but was hidden by the fog. The effect got so much into the series of games that it was further used to create a special atmosphere.
Atmospheres also added sounds - crying of an infant child, resounding at night in an abandoned city, crying a schoolboy in an empty school toilet, creaking seesaws, shouts. And, of course, music, one listening of which causes a feeling of anxiety. Despite the not very realistic graphics today, the game remains terribly scary. It is also complicated with riddles that sometimes cannot be solved without prompts.
The prototype of the city of Silent Hill is a real abandoned mining town in Pennsylvania - Centrelia .
In 1998, Konami created Dance Dance Revolution. The first arcade machine was presented at the Tokyo Game Show in Japan, and today there are over a hundred different game variations, including console versions. In total, in all versions there are more than a thousand songs, during the playback of which you need to fall in time with the music.
In 1997, Konami with its machine guns entered the Australian market. And in 2003, Konami of America closed the division for the production of arcade machines due to financial losses.
Below is the gameplay of the Dance Dance Revolution arcade. The speed of the player is just crazy.
In 2005, Kojima, together with his team, opened Kojima Productions with Konami. The studio has released several games from the Metal Gear line and the game Lunar Knights. In December 2006, Konami entered the top six largest igrodelov Japan on a par with Nintendo , Square Enix, Capcom, Sega Sammy Holdings and Namco Bandai.
In addition, in 2006, the movie "Silent Hill" began on the cinema on the same series of games. With a budget of $ 50 million, the film collected about $ 100 million at the box office, and after a few years, “Silent Hill 2” came out with a half the budget. In which, by the way, Keith "John Snow" Harrington played.
The company is also known for the anime series Gurren-Lagann and Death Note.
In October 2015, Hideo Kojima officially left Konami , but did not leave Kodjima Productions. His name no longer appears in the list of authors of Metal Gear Solid V - it was precisely because of this game that he was asked to collect things, because he did not have time to complete the deadlines.
Kojima has been with Konami for 29 years. After the cancellation of Silent Hills with Norman Reedus, Kojima attracted an actor to Death Stranding. Also this game attracted Mads Mikkelsen, actor of the series "Cannibal" and the film "Doctor Strange."
After the cancellation of Silent Hills, the company voluntarily left the New York Stock Exchange.
But the game in my subjective opinion could become a masterpiece, judging by the released demo version.
At the award ceremony of The Game Awards on December 3, 2016, the Metal Gear Solid V game received a statuette. Kojima, the creator of this series, was not allowed to visit the event by Konami’s lawyers. The award took the actor Kiefer Sutherland, voiced Snake in the game.
Twenty companies in several industries are what Konami is today. This is another example of how a real empire grows from a small business.
We mostly know Konami from games and series like Contra, Silent Hill and Metal Gear.
Konami was founded in 1969 and got its name from the names of the founders: Kagemasa Ko zuki, Yoshinobu Na kama, and Tatsuo Mi yasako. Kagemasa Kodzuki is still the chairman of the company. The business began with the rental and repair of jukeboxes, but in the wake of the growing popularity of arcade machines, in 1973 the company decided to switch to them.
')
It took another five years for the company to develop and release its first slot machine. Among the first games was Space King - another clone of the Space Invaders from Taito . Commercial success came to Konami in the early 1980s with the release of Super Cobra games with helicopter shooting, Scramble with the same gameplay, but on a spaceship, and Frogger with frog attempts to get to the swamp.
Frogger, where you need to cross the road, and then - move through the reservoir.
In 1982, Konami began to produce and sell games for personal computers and opened an office in California in the United States - Konami of America. Soon the company began releasing games to MSX and MSX2 standards, which were popular for household computers in Japan in the 1980s and developed by the Japanese division of Microsoft. For seven years, the company has released seventy games, including Antarctic Adventure - the race for the penguin, Vampire Killer - the version of Castlevania, as well as games from Hideo Kojima: Metal Gear, Snatcher and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake.
The story of Konami is closely related to Hideo Kojima, who rose to vice president of Konami Digital Entertainment and is now in a difficult relationship with the studio. In the 1980s, the 20-year-old Kojima wrote stories to magazines, but the stories were so big that they refused to be published. But he managed to realize his talent in game design - in creating the plot, gameplay and games in general in Konami. And here he was not always lucky - the company canceled some games. The importance of this designer for the company is shown, for example, by sales: in 2009, out of 26.81 million copies of games sold by Konami, 4.75 million were Metal Gear games.
In October 1984, Konami shares were listed on the Osaka Securities Exchange.
Metal Gear is one of the first stealth action games.
Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake was released in 1990 for MSX2.
In 1985, the company began producing video games for the third-generation Nintendo Famicom console . Some of the games were ported to the console from the gaming machines, some were simultaneously made for MSX and Nintendo computers.
The list of best-selling games for the Nintendo Entertainment System includes Konami's games such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with 4 million cartridges sold, Gradius and Metal Gear - 1 million copies each.
Success in the NES gaming market allowed the company to increase revenue from $ 10 million in 1987 to $ 300 million in 1991.
Below is the 1989 arcade gameplay Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
In 1985, Konami released the Yie Ar Kung-Fu fighting game. Here you played for a fighter named Lee, who needs to win one-on-one battles with several armed rivals.
In 1987, Top Gun was released on the movie with the same name with Tom Cruise. This is an aircraft simulator for shooting at enemy aircraft with a first-person view. You can play right now .
In 1988, the fourth-generation Sega Mega Drive appeared on the market. The prefix is ​​still sold in the US, Europe and Brazil. In North America, she went under the brand Sega Genesis. Under this console came the game Rocket Knight Adventures, Castlevania: Bloodlines and Contra: Hard Corps. In 1995, Konami began selling games for the Sega Saturn.
In the 1990s, home computers continued to become more accessible. And for them it was necessary to do more games. In 1991, Konami released a cyberpunk detective snatcher with striptease and robots, released from the pen of Hideo Kojima, a new Castlevania: Rondo of Blood and Tokimeki Memorial love game.
In 1994, Sony began selling the first PlayStation . The prefix broke into the market, which was divided between Nintendo and Sega, and immediately showed where the crabs spend the winter. Over 11 years of production, the console has sold 100 million copies. The prefix was the best-selling until the moment when it changed in this “position” of the PlayStation 2. And even now nothing changes - Sony is leading the market of game consoles.
With the release of the new console, Konami was a logical step to launch the release of games for it. The star hour of Hidey Kojima was the release of Metal Gear Solid under PS. For the first time in the series was used three-dimensional graphics. The genre of the game has not changed, it was again a stealth action game in which it was better to kill opponents very quietly, or bypass the party altogether.
In 1999, another well-known series of games from Konami started - Silent Hill. This series can be called one of the best in the genre of survival horror. In the first game, the third person view is used, all locations are three-dimensional. To hide the flaws, the background was not “washed out” here, but was hidden by the fog. The effect got so much into the series of games that it was further used to create a special atmosphere.
Atmospheres also added sounds - crying of an infant child, resounding at night in an abandoned city, crying a schoolboy in an empty school toilet, creaking seesaws, shouts. And, of course, music, one listening of which causes a feeling of anxiety. Despite the not very realistic graphics today, the game remains terribly scary. It is also complicated with riddles that sometimes cannot be solved without prompts.
The prototype of the city of Silent Hill is a real abandoned mining town in Pennsylvania - Centrelia .
In 1998, Konami created Dance Dance Revolution. The first arcade machine was presented at the Tokyo Game Show in Japan, and today there are over a hundred different game variations, including console versions. In total, in all versions there are more than a thousand songs, during the playback of which you need to fall in time with the music.
In 1997, Konami with its machine guns entered the Australian market. And in 2003, Konami of America closed the division for the production of arcade machines due to financial losses.
Below is the gameplay of the Dance Dance Revolution arcade. The speed of the player is just crazy.
In 2005, Kojima, together with his team, opened Kojima Productions with Konami. The studio has released several games from the Metal Gear line and the game Lunar Knights. In December 2006, Konami entered the top six largest igrodelov Japan on a par with Nintendo , Square Enix, Capcom, Sega Sammy Holdings and Namco Bandai.
In addition, in 2006, the movie "Silent Hill" began on the cinema on the same series of games. With a budget of $ 50 million, the film collected about $ 100 million at the box office, and after a few years, “Silent Hill 2” came out with a half the budget. In which, by the way, Keith "John Snow" Harrington played.
The company is also known for the anime series Gurren-Lagann and Death Note.
In October 2015, Hideo Kojima officially left Konami , but did not leave Kodjima Productions. His name no longer appears in the list of authors of Metal Gear Solid V - it was precisely because of this game that he was asked to collect things, because he did not have time to complete the deadlines.
Kojima has been with Konami for 29 years. After the cancellation of Silent Hills with Norman Reedus, Kojima attracted an actor to Death Stranding. Also this game attracted Mads Mikkelsen, actor of the series "Cannibal" and the film "Doctor Strange."
After the cancellation of Silent Hills, the company voluntarily left the New York Stock Exchange.
But the game in my subjective opinion could become a masterpiece, judging by the released demo version.
At the award ceremony of The Game Awards on December 3, 2016, the Metal Gear Solid V game received a statuette. Kojima, the creator of this series, was not allowed to visit the event by Konami’s lawyers. The award took the actor Kiefer Sutherland, voiced Snake in the game.
Twenty companies in several industries are what Konami is today. This is another example of how a real empire grows from a small business.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/399829/
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