Konami
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| Konami Corporaiton コナミ株式会社 |
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| Type | Public |
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| Founded | March 21, 1969 |
| Headquarters | Tokyo, Japan |
| Key people | Kagemasa Kozuki CEO Hideo Kojima |
| Industry | Computer and video game industry Entertainment industry Health and fitness |
| Products | Gradius Contra Silent Hill Dance Dance Revolution Castlevania Metal Gear Yu-gi-oh franchise (video games) Winning Eleven franchise Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Choseishin franchise (See complete products listing.) |
| Revenue | USD 2.3 billion (2004) |
| Slogan | N/A |
| Website | www.konami.com |
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 and computer and video games. The company was founded in 1969 as a jukebox rental and repair business in Osaka, Japan, by Kagemasa Kozuki, the still-current chairman and CEO. The name "Konami" is a conjunction of the names Kagemasa Kozuki, 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 means "small waves".
Konami is currently headquartered in Tokyo and additionally operates health and physical fitness clubs in Japan.
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[edit] 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 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 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 video gaming 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 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 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 fourth largest game developer in Japan after (in decending order) Nintendo Co, Ltd., Sega Sammy Holdings, and Namco Bandai Holdings.
Konami is represented by the 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. Take Dance Dance Revolution as a example. The heavy chart of the song MAX300 (DDRMAX) has a 573 total combo (counting double steps as two combos).
[edit] 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 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) and the dating simulation Tokimeki Memorial series. Konami is particularly notable for its arcade shoot-em-up games (also known as SHMUPS), such as Gradius, Life Force, Time Pilot, Gyruss, Parodius, Axelay , TwinBee and Elebits . 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, Egypt 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.
[edit] 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 [1] and a Castlevania movie. [2]
[edit] Slot machine games
Konami produces a variety of slot machines including:
- Rocky slots (They hold the license for the slot machine rights to the movie franchise. [3]
- Money in the Bank
- Solstice Gold
- African Treasure
- Atlantic Treasure
- Aloha Gold
- Cash Inferno
- Coinopolis
- Big Payoff
- Billionaires
In February 2006, the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation ordered the removal of 87 Konami casino machines from casinos in the province when an investigation suspected said machines of flashing subliminal images at players.[2]
[edit] 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 of Europe GmbH
- Konami Software Shanghai, Inc.
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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
[edit] External links
- Konami Global
- Konami Corporation (Japan)
- Konami America
- Konami of Europe
- Konami of Europe Arcade Division
- Gamespot's KCET company profile
- The History of Konami
- Konami RPG Community
Categories: Companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange | Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange | Companies listed on the Singapore Exchange | Konami | Companies headquartered in Tokyo | Companies listed on the London Stock Exchange | Video game companies | Amusement companies of Japan | Companies established in 1969 | Slot machine manufacturers
