Metal Gear Solid on mobile? It’s all the more possible with statements made from Konami’s new CEO, Hideki Hayakawa.
In an interview with Nikkei Trendy Net, Hayakawa said that “we will pursue mobile games aggressively.” This is according to a translation by NeoGAF user HGH. “Our main platform will be mobiles. Following the pay-as-you-play model of games like Power pro and Winning Eleven with additional content, our games must move from selling things like ‘items’ to selling things like ‘features.’”
With the increased prominence of smartphones and tablets, Hayakawa went on to say that, “Gaming has spread to a number of platforms, but at the end of the day, the platform that is always closest to us is mobile. Mobile is where the future of gaming lies.”
And what about popular Konami franchises ending up on mobile? “We hope that our overseas games such as Metal Gear Solid: V and Winning Eleven continue to do well, but we are always thinking about how to push our franchises onto mobile there too.”
Earlier this year we reported that Nintendo would also be entering the mobile space, but based on rhetoric from CEO Satoru Iwata, it may not be as aggressive as Konami. For Nintendo, dedicated gaming hardware will be its main focus. Just like Iwata, Hayakawa feels that “mobiles will take on the new role of linking the general public to the gaming world.”
Konami recently made headlines when it canceled the highly anticipated Silent Hills, a horror game that was in development with both film director Guillermo Del Toro and celebrated game developer Hideo Kojima.
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is set to come out in September of this year, and it may actually be Kojima’s last.
H/T IGN | Photo via The Conmunity – Pop Culture Geek/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
