Konami

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Konami Corporation (コナミ株式会社 Konami Kabushiki-gaisha) is a Japanese leading developer and publisher of numerous popular and strong-selling toys, trading cards, anime, tokusatsu, slot machines, arcade cabinets and video games. Konami is famous for games such as the Metal Gear series, Dance Dance Revolution series, Castlevania series, Contra series, Pro Evolution Soccer series, Yu-Gi-Oh! series, Silent Hill series and Gradius series.

The company was founded in 1969 as a jukebox rental and repair business in Osaka, Japan, by Kagemasa Kōzuki, the still-current chairman and president. The name "Konami" is a conjunction of the names Kagemasa Kozuki (current chairman and president), Yoshinobu Nakama, Tatsuo Miyasako.

Konami is currently headquartered in Tokyo and additionally operates health and physical fitness clubs in Japan. Konami also operates United States activities in El Segundo, California for video games and Paradise, Nevada for the casino gaming industry. Its Australian gaming operations are located in Sydney, and distribution of Konami's games in Australia is handled by Mindscape. Distribution of KOE's games in Australia was to be taken over by Red Ant Enterprises in February 2009, but Jason Hill from The Age and ASIC, a government body, announced that the company went into External Receivership and Administration, which then led KOE to re-sign with Atari Australia, now Namco Bandai Partners. On January 5, 2010, Kunio Neo, President of Konami of Europe announced Mindscape would be Australia's local distributor after a failed distributor change made Konami change back to Namco Bandai Partners, then Atari Australia.

Konami franchises

Games without sequels

Beatmania games Beatmania is a series of rhythm video games that was first introduced by Konami in Japan on December 1997. It contributed largely to the boom of music games in 1998, and the series expanded not only with arcade sequels, but also moved to home consoles and other portable devices, achieving a million unit sales. The Bemani line of music games from Konami is named after the series, and was first adopted in the arcade release of Beatmania 3rdMix and kept ever since. The series came to an end with the last game being Beatmania The Final, released in 2002.

Boktai games Boktai is a video game series for the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS handheld consoles. The title is an abbreviation of the series' full Japanese title Bokura no Taiyō (ボクらの太陽) or Our Sun. They are recognized for using a solar sensor that is a key element of gameplay. The Boktai games are produced by Hideo Kojima, creator of the Metal Gear series, who also came up with the initial game design and concept.

Castlevania games Castlevania is known as Akumajō Dracula (悪魔城ドラキュラ, Akumajō Dorakyura, lit. Devil's Castle Dracula) in Japan. The series debuted in Japan on September 26, 1986, with the release of for the Family Computer Disk System (FDS), followed by an alternate version for the MSX 2 platform on October 30. Although the MSX 2 port (localized in Europe and Brazil as Vampire Killer) was released first outside of Japan, the series did not receive wide attention outside of Japan until the FDS version was ported to cartridge format for the Nintendo Entertainment System and localized for North American and European releases of Castlevania in 1987.

Contra games Contra (魂斗羅) is a video game series composed primarily of run and gun-style shoot-'em-ups. The series debuted in 1987 as a coin-operated arcade game simply titled Contra, which was followed by the release of Super Contra in 1988 and several sequels produced for various home platforms.

The in-universe use of the term "Contra" is first explained within the Japanese instruction card of the arcade version of Contra, and reiterated in most games (including Contra: Shattered Soldier), as "a title awarded to a superior soldier possessing almost super human drive and ability, while excelling in guerrilla tactics".

Dance Dance Revolution games Dance Dance Revolution, abbreviated DDR, and previously known as Dancing Stage in Europe and Australasia, is a music video game series. Introduced in Japan in 1998 as part of the Bemani series, and released in North America and Europe in 1999, Dance Dance Revolution is the pioneering series of the rhythm and dance genre in video games. Players stand on a "dance platform" or stage and hit colored arrows laid out in a cross with their feet to musical and visual cues. Players are judged by how well they time their dance to the patterns presented to them and are allowed to choose more music to play to if they receive a passing score.

Dance Dance Revolution has been given much critical acclaim for its originality and stamina in the video game market. There have been dozens of arcade-based releases across several countries and hundreds of home video game console releases. The series has promoted a music library of original songs produced by Konami's in-house artists and an eclectic set of licensed music from many different genres. The series has also inspired many clones of its gameplay and a global fan base of millions that have created simulators of the game to which they contribute original music and "simfiles", collections of dance patterns to a specific song. DDR is generally considered the first "machine dance" game, followed by games such as Pump It Up by Andamiro and In the Groove by Roxor. DDR celebrated its 10th anniversary on November 21, 2008.

Frogger games Frogger is an arcade game introduced in 1981. It was licensed for worldwide distribution by Sega/Gremlin. The object of the game is to direct frogs to their homes one by one. To do this, each frog must avoid cars while crossing a busy road and navigate a river full of hazards. Skillful players may obtain some bonuses along the way. The game is regarded as a classic from the golden age of video arcade games and was noted for its novel gameplay and theme. It was also an early example of dual-core processing, using two Z80 processors.

Gradius games The Gradius games, first introduced in 1985, make up a series of scrolling shooter video games published by Konami for a variety of portable, console and arcade platforms. In many games in the series, the player controls a ship known as the Vic Viper. In other games of the series, ships the player controls include the Lord British Space Destroyer, Metalion, Sabel Tiger, Thrasher, Vixen, Alpinia, Super Cobra, Jade Knight, and the Falchion β.

Jikkyō Powerful Pro Yakyū series Jikkyō Powerful Pro Yakyū (実況パワフルプロ野球, lit. "Live Powerful Pro Baseball"), also known simply as Power Pro or Pawapuro to non-Japanese speakers, is a traditionally Japan-only baseball series created by Konami. It is known for its big-headed characters, and addictive arcade-style gameplay. It is long running in Japan, starting out in 1994 for the Super Famicom. It is one of the long-lasting titles in Japan with most number of game entries, like Winning Eleven/PES Series (also from Konami), Super Robot Wars Series (Banpresto), and Final Fantasy Series (Square Enix)

Karaoke Revolution games Karaoke Revolution and its many sequels are video games for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Nintendo GameCube, Wii, Xbox, and Xbox 360, developed by Harmonix Music Systems and Blitz Games and published by Konami in its Bemani line of music games. The Original Concept for Karaoke Revolution was created by Scott Hawkins and Sneaky Rabbit Studios.[1] Technology and concepts from the game were subsequently incorporated into Harmonix's game Rock Band.

Legend of the Mystical Ninja games Ganbare Goemon (がんばれゴエモン?, lit. "Go for it, Goemon!"), known as Legend of the Mystical Ninja, Mystical Ninja, and Goemon in North America and the PAL region, is a long-running video game series produced by Konami.

Metal Gear games The Metal Gear (メタルギア, Metaru Gia) series is a series of stealth games created by Hideo Kojima and developed and published by Konami. In the series, the player takes control of a Special Forces Operative (Solid Snake in most games) repeatedly facing off against the latest incarnation of the eponymous superweapon "Metal Gear": a bipedal walking tank with nuclear launching capabilities. The series is famous for pioneering the stealth game genre, for its lengthy cinematic cut scenes, intricate storylines, fourth wall-breaking sense of humor, and its exploration of the nature of politics, warfare, environmentalism, censorship, genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, loyalty, reality, subjective vs. universal truths, and other philosophical themes. The series has achieved great success, selling more than 50 million copies as of late 2010-early 2011.

Parodius series The Parodius series is a series of horizontally-scrolling shooters developed by Konami. The games are tongue-in-cheek parodies of Gradius, hence the name (Parodius is a portmanteau on Parody and Gradius). It also parodies many other Konami franchises, including, Antarctic Adventure, Castlevania, Xexex, Axelay, Thunder Cross, Taisen Puzzle Dama, Space Manbow, Ganbare Goemon, Lethal Enforcers, Tokimeki Memorial and Twinbee.

Pro Evolution Soccer series Pro Evolution Soccer (officially abbreviated as PES and known as Winning Eleven in Asia and South America) is a football video game series developed by Konami (formerly by its division Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo). The series has been produced under the guidance of Shingo "Seabass" Takatsuka.

Saw series Saw is a horror franchise distributed by Lions Gate Entertainment that consists of seven films and two video games, published by Konami.

Silent Hill games Silent Hill (サイレントヒル, Sairento Hiru) is a survival horror video game series consisting of seven installments published by Konami and its subsidiary Konami Digital Entertainment. The first four games in the series, Silent Hill, Silent Hill 2, 3 and 4, have been developed by an internal factor, Team Silent (a development staff within former Konami subsidiary Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo). The latter three games, Silent Hill: Origins, Homecoming, and Shattered Memories, as well as the upcoming eighth and ninth installments, Downpour and Book of Memories, respectively, have been developed by various external developers.

Suikoden games Suikoden (幻想水滸伝, Gensō Suikoden) is a role-playing game series originally created by Yoshitaka Murayama. The game series is loosely based on the classical Chinese novel, Shui Hu Zhuan by Shi Naian and Luo Guanzhong. Shui Hu Zhuan is rendered as 水滸伝 in Japanese, and read as Suikoden. Each individual game in the series center around relative themes of politics, corruption, revolution, mystical crystals known as True Runes and the "108 Stars of Destiny" — the 108 protagonists who are loosely interpreted from the source material.

Tokimeki Memorial games Tokimeki Memorial (ときめきメモリアル, Tokimeki Memoriaru, lit. "Heartbeat Memorial") is a popular dating simulation series by Konami. It consists of 6 main games in addition to a large number of spin-offs. The games are notable in the dating sim genre for being highly nonlinear. Their nickname amongst their fans is the contraction TokiMemo.

Yu-Gi-Oh! series Yu-Gi-Oh! (遊☆戯☆王, Yūgiō, lit. "Game King" or "King of Games") is a Japanese manga created by Kazuki Takahashi. It has produced a franchise that includes multiple anime shows, a trading card game and numerous video games. Most of the incarnations of the franchise involve the fictional trading card game called Duel Monsters (originally known as Magic & Wizards), where each player uses cards to "duel" each other in a mock battle of fantasy "monsters". The Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game is the real world counterpart to this fictional game on which it is loosely based.

Zone of the Enders games Zone of the Enders (ゾーン オブ エンダーズ, Zōn obu Endāzu), commonly referred to by the acronym Z.O.E., is a franchise created by Hideo Kojima, owned by the video game publisher Konami, and expanded on by the animation studio Sunrise. The original Zone of the Enders is a game created for the launch of the Sony PlayStation 2, which has so far spawned a single PS2 sequel, a Game Boy Advance side-story, an OVA movie and a twenty-six episode television anime series.


This article has been partly taken from Wikipedia