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 wasn't created until
1978. They began to
achieve success with hit arcade games such as
1981's
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
Illinois in
1984. Also in 1984,
Konami expanded to the
United Kingdom and established Konami Limited.
In
February 2003, Konami adopted a new
logo for its 30th
anniversary. This was the previous logo. (1986-2003)
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 the critically savaged
Snake's
Revenge (a
Japanese-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 the more draconian 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 community for
creating high caliber shooters and action games.
In 1999, Konami moved its U.S corporate offices
from
Buffalo Grove, Illinois to its current
location in
Redwood City, California. The Buffalo
Grove location remains 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 inquires and new machines will be
handled by
Betson Enterprises.
Also in 2003, Konami teamed up the Japanese film
production company,
Toho
Company, Ltd. to create their own
franchise
of TV series in the
Tokusatsu genre, known as the
Chōseishin Series, in order to
compete with
Toei's
Super
Sentai series
In 2005, Konami became the majority owner of
Hudson
Soft. Konami has an office and gaming production facility in
Las Vegas, Nevada for its casino gaming
equipment subsidiary, Konami Gaming.
[1]
Konami is today the 4th largest game developer in
Japan after
"Nintendo
Co, Ltd." (1st), "Sega Sammy
Holdings" (2nd) and "Namco
Bandai Holdings" (3rd).
Konami is represented by the number
"573". "5" in Japanese is "go", changed to
unvoiced 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.
In 2006, Konami is producing movies based on
their popular franchises. The
Silent Hill movie was produced by Konami and
Team
Silent and released on April 21st, 2006. Konami announced that they will
produce a
Metal Gear Solid movie and a
Castlevania movie.
Games
Main article:
List of Konami games
Over the years, some of the biggest and most
memorable video games have been created by Konami. Genre-defining titles attributed
to Konami include the dating simulation
Tokimeki Memorial series, the vampire
hunting
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, and
Drummania, among others). Konami is particularly
notable for its side-scrolling shoot-em-up games (also known as
SHMUPS), such
as
Gradius,
Parodius,
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,
Wild West C.O.W.-Boys of Moo Mesa
and
Steven Spielberg's movie
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 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.
Konami is also notorious for its famous 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.
Movie Production
In 2006, Konami started producing movies based on
their popular franchises. Konami produced the recently released
Silent Hill movie and has announced that they
will produce a
Metal Gear Solid movie and a
Castlevania movie.
Konami structure
In
2005, Konami Corporation merged with six of its subsidiaries.
- Konami Corporation
-
Konami Computer
Entertainment Tokyo, Inc.
- Konami Computer
Entertainment Japan, Inc.
- Konami Computer
Entertainment Studios, Inc.
- Konami Online, Inc.
- Konami Media
Entertainment, Inc.
- Konami Traumer, Inc
- Konami Sports Life
Corporation
- Konami Sports Corporation
- Konami Corporation of
America —
Holding company U.S.
- Konami Digital
Entertainment, Inc. formerly Konami of America Inc.
- Konami Corporation of
Europe B.V. — Holding company Europe, formerly Konami Limited
Konami Software Shanghai, Inc
Official
