You would have heard of Konami, Enix and Squaresoft if you had a game console in the last three decades. Square Enix and Konami are gaming giants that were competing with firms such a Nintendo and EA and dominating the gaming industry with the most adored games.
Earlier this week, Hideki Hayakawa, President of Konami told that his firm would follow the mobile games in an aggressive way. He stated that their main platform will be mobiles. Square Enix that was formed by RPG specialists Enix and Squaresoft in 2003 also announced similar statements during their quarterly earnings meeting.
It is not surprising to see these companies move from the conventional console platform to the mobile platform as there is almost 50 percent increase in the annual income year after year in the sales of mobile games and MMO subscription charges.
Square is telling the investors that it is harder to make a fortune in the lucrative console market, and that they are shifting their focus on the mobile platform. There are huge implications due to this shift. Firstly, they need to come up with more high profile games for the smartphones and tablets. Even Nintendo that is the dominant in the development of self-centered hardware and software is in plans to release mobile games.
This also makes a loss for the traditional gamers as these firms control a few of the most memorable gaming franchises, though the modern titles have outshined them lately. The console games are uniform every year with Call of Duty, Assassin’s Creed and other similar survival horror and sandbox themed games. The movement of the publishers to mobile means more of the same type.
When it comes to the quality of the titles on mobile, the offerings from Square Enix and Konami such as Final Fantasy and Star Wars card game are pathetic as there is minimum content in the freemium model. The free version of these games lacks a lot of features such as controller compatibility and support. The games are short and simple with a limited free-to-play model.
Those games that have been released for the mobile platform such as Metal Gear Solid are difficult to adapt to the touch screen platform without any changes to the gameplay. So far, the players would have found it frustrating to play on the touch screen devices, but this situation is improving gradually.
The developers are coming with gaming specific hardware such as Nvidia’s Shield lineup and external controllers. Android TV with deep controller integration has become a haven for the effective games.
The best possible result of the mobile transfer for the firms such as Square Enix, Nintendo and Konami is to include classic games of quality ports with new and enticing original titles. However, they will be profitable as we are familiar with the characters and settings already.
