Has a ''revered'' company ever crashed as hard as Konami.

Step 1 - Kill the Castlevania franchise.

Step 2 - Lose one of the biggest names in gaming and basically killing one of the 5 biggest franchises in the entire industry.

Step 3 - Release a demo to massive hype and acclaim working with said big name and horror icon, cancel it due to your f*ck up.

Messy.

Since when is MGS in the top five biggest franchises in the industry? I doubt it'd be in the top ten.

Tough to say. We don't really know the full story. It's rumoured they're hitting gambling/mobile games pretty hard, which are profitable markets.

I guess Capcom and Square Enix last gen got hit pretty hard.

Konami hasn't crashed, this is all intentional. The investors and the company itself doesn't care about gaming. Don't confuse what they are doing with incompetence.

@Planeforger: Seriously? Since MGS 1 blew up on the Ps1.

The only franchises i'd say that are bigger are Mario, Gran Turismo, Grand Theft Auto, Halo and Zelda. Staying strictly to consoles.

Seems like this is the case.

No.

Aside from Sega, I can't really think of any.

Capcom is very close.

In the gaming space? Nah.

@cyclops10: Seriously. MGS1 wasn't even in the top five on the PS1.

Just looking at Nintendo alone, you could name five individual games that have sold more copies than the entire MGS franchise combined.

MGS is huge on the Playstation, but it's not a big fish in the wider industry.

sales=/=quality

@stereointegrity: The TC described it as one of the top five biggest franchises in the industry. It definitely sounded like he was talking about sales.

@Planeforger: its a top selling game for konami or isnt MGS konamis best selling game? w.e. thats what MGS is to knoami

Maybe we'll get lucky and they will exit the gaming business; selling off all their gaming-related properties. The question is who would buy it all. Most likely another Japanese company. I would think Square Enix would be the most likely.

Konami hasn't crashed yet, they are just in the skid heading towards the brick wall.

If they screw up MGS5's launch, maybe.

Most Japanese companies couldn't adapt and innovate last gen and they're paying the price pretty heavily this gen. Simply put, Japan is not the pinnacle of gaming it once was and the changes needed to get them back to a fraction of that is going to be extremely costly. Not just $$$ but also possibly culturally.

Sega

Capcom, SEGA, Square, and the list goes on. Konami hasn't hit rock bottom yet.

Call of Duty? Wii? Final Fantasy? FIFA? Assassin's Creed?

Pokemon, Need For Speed, Sonic, Madden, Minecraft, Resident Evil, Battlefield, WWE, Just Dance, Donkey Kong, Crash, Bejeweled, Tomb Raider, Tekken, Mortal Kombat, Guitar Hero.... A lot more.

Metal Gear series is sitting at 39.7 million.

Uhhhh... pretty much every major Japanese developer crashed and burned last gen in much the same way. Sega and Capcom probably in the most spectacular fashion with their bizarro world decisions. Square is just as bad too.

Konami is merely the latest to take the fall - but with 2 of their 3 franchises taking a hit (if not all 3) - they might be worst of all now. But it's a tight race.

It's not like Konami was notable for anything recent outside Metal Gear. They ruined Castlevania and Silent Hill. Kojima and Kojima Productions were their saving grace, but they're gone now.

Capcom at least has some good franchises left; Square fixed FFXIV. After MGS5 Konami has nothing.

Pokemon isn't a console franchise, but yeah, the others all count.

Obviously if we include every game from those franchises. But as solo performances on top of critical acclaim? No. Metal Gear Solid 4 sold far far more than FF 13 on the PS3.

I dunno, seems like Squenix is still holding on. IMHO, Sega is right behind Konami.

Sure, but every single FF game has outsold every single MGS game, sans FF9 and the MMOs.

The point is, there is no metric, outside of raw critical acclaim, where MGS would qualify for top ten franchises in the industry. Now, if raw critical acclaim is your metric, then definitely, it qualifies! In that case, however, Gran Turismo and Halo don't qualify, so it'd be best to knock em off as well.

I'm having trouble believing even a single person would revere konami.

Yes it is, MGS is a big fish in every since of the word. Its sales are not GTA or COD lvl but they still sell well and are highly acclaimed.

Wow, by your own logic it's not even in the top 5, you listed 6 franchises that are bigger,lol

Sorry mate, Believe it or Not MGS has never really been classed as a top tier franchise, Granted i loved the game, played it on PC, PS1 and Gamecube (twin snakes) but it's never really been considered that big in the gaming world.

Nah mate, outside of the Playstation it isn't considered anything at all, it's only ever sold well on Playstation consoles and only ever been well received by Playstation gamers.

Like i said, i love the first MGS but it's not really a big franchise at all, Especially when you consider theres not that many games in the franchise compared to other franchises that where around at the time.

You are just being a Fanboy and not being Objective about it at all which is weird because Metal gear has never been a playstation exclusive Franchise, MGS released on the PC at the same time as the PS1.

The only game that stayed Exclusive is MGS4.

What? Konami were gods among men from the NES days all the way until the PS2 era. If anything they are underrated and don't get as much praise as Capcom and Square-Enix despite being relevant for a longer period of time with a much more diverse portfolio of titles.

How can Konami crash when they could kill everything gaming and actually still make more money?

Konami won't be in the gaming industry for much longer outside of mobile gaming. After they run Metal Gear into the ground I'm sure it'll be over.

Capcom fell pretty far last gen, they were gods the gen before that releasing games like RE4, DMC3, God Hand, Viewtiful Joe, Okami, Onimusha.

Word Square was overrated as ****.

To be fair konami were never anything outside of Kojima and the gang anyway.

Capcom, Tecmo, Sega, and maybe Square (Although they did acquirer Eidos).

No MGS would still not be in the top 10 for critical acclaim either.

Fing Crash Bandicoot hasn't made a game in 4 and 1/2 years and it's still almost double MGS.

But did it blow up as much as FF, GT, Crash,, Spyro, Tony Hawk, Twisted Metal, Tekken?

Hey, slow your roll homie.

Sega. The Saturn was such an abysmal failure that not even the Dreamcast could save them.

Capcom's fall from grace has been far more impressive.

At least Square Enix is cleaning up their act.

@Shewgenja said:

This is the only correct answer.

Atari? Sega? Crapcom? EA? Microprose? Psygnosis? Bullfrog?

Not that I can think of. It's amazing how fast they went from being one of my favorite developers/ publishers (for Castlevania alone- seriously, the GBA and DS games are all top notch) to being a company I could not give any less of a shit about. And the fact that they've canceled Silent Hill just shows they're done with the games industry. Canceling that was the worst possible move they could have made, and now that they're losing Kojima, who I have mixed feelings about, they will not be relevant to gaming anymore. The fact that the Silent Hill series is more or less dead at this point (unless they hand it off to a competent developer/ publisher) is the final nail in the coffin. SH2, 3 and shattered Memories are all great and the other games I've played are solid horror titles in an industry where jump scares are the norm. Bye, Konami.

The last 3 didn't crash.

They've been bought out and killed in their sleep by their owners.

Very true, but if I remember correctly the last 3 companies I mentioned went into a lull of mediocre/crap games before being bought out.

Dont know but i dont think it is good for a company if it all depends on one person (kojima)