Konami Heads West

With the video game industry booming and US development becoming as lucrative as Japanese development (especially when it comes time to port games to the PC), many companies that once had a Japanese-only presence are expanding their base of operations to include an American development studio. Squaresoft is one such company, as it recently entered the US side of development with Square USA - based in Hawaii - to develop games for both the US and Japanese market.

Now comes Konami, known as a mainly Japanese developer with plenty of signature series under its belt, including the Contra, Castlevania, Metal Gear, and Gradius games. Now the company is expanding its expertise into the land of US game development with a new consumer development studio in San Jose, California.

The company has transferred its few existing consumer development teams to the West Coast, and plans on ending up with as many as ten (!) teams all working on consumer products for home systems such as the Nintendo 64 and PlayStation. The new KCEA studio, to be based in Redwood City, Calif., will then split from the company's coin-op development teams, which will remain in Buffalo Grove, Ill., with Konami's North American operations base.

Coin-op development in the US is also being expanded from the current two to three teams to probably about ten. This will not only give Konami a huge North American base of development, but also the opportunity to make new franchise titles to add to its existing lineup.

Gamers probably won't see games come out of the new American development teams until late 1998 or early 1999.