Konami

• 1. Introduction

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  Konami began life on the 21st of March 1969 as a jukebox rental and repair shop in Toyonaka, Osaka. Three men started it together, two of whom had met while working at Nippon Columbia's Osaka branch, and a third who was an acquaintance from the music industry. Their names gave the company its name: Konami is a portmanteau drawn from the founders' family names. Nobody at that Toyonaka counter in 1969 was thinking about stealth-action games, survival horror, or trading cards. Yet by 1991 the company's earnings had climbed from $10 million just four years earlier to $300 million. How did a jukebox shop become the nineteenth-largest game company in the world by revenue? And what happens to a company when success breeds control, and control breeds controversy? Those are the questions worth sitting with.

• 2. From Jukeboxes to Arcades

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  By 1973 the Japanese jukebox industry was in decline, and the three founders had to make a choice. They pivoted toward electro-mechanical arcade games, and on the 19th of March 1973 the company was formally incorporated. A few years later, Konami took on work as a contractor for an early video game publisher, producing its first video game, Block Yard, a coin-operated clone of Breakout, released in August 1977. In January 1979, it began shipping products to the United States.

  The early 1980s were where Konami first found a real audience. Scramble arrived in 1981, followed quickly by Frogger, Super Cobra, Time Pilot in 1982, Roc'n Rope and Track and Field in 1983, and Yie Ar Kung-Fu in 1985. Many of those early arcade titles were licensed to American companies including Centuri, Stern Electronics, Sega, and Gremlin Industries for their US release. Konami established its American subsidiary in November 1982, initially operating out of Torrance, California, before relocating to Buffalo Grove, Illinois in 1984 after acquiring arcade distributor Interlogic, Inc. Interlogic's founder and president Ben Harel became president of Konami Inc. under that arrangement.

• 3. Building the Franchise Empire

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  A brief run of Atari 2600 titles in 1982 marked Konami's first step into home gaming. Then came the MSX home computer standard in 1983 and the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985. Those two platforms became the foundation for franchises that would define the company for decades: Gradius, Castlevania, TwinBee, Ganbare Goemon, Contra, and Metal Gear all took shape on the MSX and NES. Licensed games proved equally potent, with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles among the biggest hits.

  The earnings chart from this period is stark. The company's revenue stood at $10 million in 1987. By 1991 it had reached $300 million. That four-year run of growth came directly from the arcade and NES business. Konami moved into 16-bit consoles during this same period, supporting the Super NES starting in 1990, followed by the PC Engine in 1991 and the Sega Genesis in 1992.

  Anti-piracy engineering also became part of the story in 1991. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project contained a measure that detected unauthorized copies and quietly made the game unwinnable. The player's attack power dropped, enemy attacks grew stronger, and the final boss Shredder became invincible. No announcement, no error message. Just a game that refused to be beaten.

• 4. Rhythm, Cards, and Pachinko

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  Nineteen ninety-seven was the year Konami expanded in two directions at once. It launched its Bemani brand of arcade rhythm games, a line that would grow to include Dance Dance Revolution, Beatmania IIDX, GuitarFreaks, DrumMania, and Pop'n Music. In the same year it entered the collectible card game business with the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game, which would become one of the best-selling trading card games in history.

  Pachinko entered the picture around the same time and grew into a significant revenue stream. The company also moved into health and fitness during the sixth-generation console era, acquiring People Co., Ltd and Daiei Olympic Sports Club, Inc. In August 2001 it invested in Hudson Soft, a developer known for Bomberman, Adventure Island, Bonk, Bloody Roar, and Star Soldier. Hudson became a consolidated subsidiary and was eventually fully absorbed in 2012. Konami today operates health and fitness clubs across Japan and runs casinos around the world, a spread that reflects just how far the company moved from its origins as a jukebox repair shop.

• 5. The Kojima Split

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  On the 3rd of March 2015, Konami announced it was restructuring away from individual studios, with Kojima Productions named explicitly in the shift. Internal sources described the move as the result of a clash between creator Hideo Kojima and company leadership. References to Kojima were stripped from marketing materials, and his title as executive vice president of Konami Digital Entertainment disappeared from the company's official executive listing.

  Later that year, Konami's legal team blocked Kojima from accepting the award for Best Action-Adventure at The Game Awards 2015, given for his work on Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. When the award was announced, the audience booed. Host Geoff Keighley stated his disappointment publicly. Actor Kiefer Sutherland accepted in Kojima's place, and a choir performed "Quiet's Theme" from the game as a tribute. Kojima left the company shortly afterward and reopened Kojima Productions as an independent studio.

  That same month, Silent Hills was cancelled without explanation. The game had been the ninth planned installment in the Silent Hill series. Its playable teaser, P.T., had received widespread critical acclaim and generated genuine excitement. Co-director and writer Guillermo del Toro publicly called the cancellation senseless and criticized what he described as a "scorched earth" approach to erasing the project's marketing material. Del Toro stated afterward that he would not work on another video game.

• 6. Treatment of Employees

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  In August 2015, The Nikkei reported on what it described as Konami's unethical treatment of employees. A follow-up report in June 2017 went further, detailing how Konami obstructed Kojima Productions' application for health insurance and made it difficult for former employees to find work elsewhere. Former staff were reportedly forbidden from listing their work at Konami on their resumes.

  The company began filing complaints against game companies that hired ex-Konami employees. One major game company, unnamed in reports, warned its own staff not to hire from Konami's former workforce. A former employee described the dynamic directly: if an ex-Konami employee spoke to the media, the company would send a letter through legal representatives indicating willingness to take that person to court. Konami also pressured at least one former employee into closing a new business they had started.

• 7. Mobile Pivot and Reversal

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  In April 2015, the newly appointed president of Konami Digital Entertainment, Hideki Hayakawa, announced in a translated interview with Nikkei Trendy Net that mobile gaming was where the future of gaming lay, and that Konami would shift its focus there. The response from the gaming community was sharply negative. Konami UK community manager Graham Day soon pushed back, suggesting that what was reported may have been a mistranslation or misinterpretation of Hayakawa's remarks.

  Also in April 2015, Konami delisted itself from the New York Stock Exchange and changed its trade name from Konami Corporation to Konami Holdings Corporation. In 2017, after the Nintendo Switch launch title Super Bomberman R performed well, Konami announced it would revive other established video game franchises. In 2020, the company moved its headquarters to the Ginza district of Tokyo, opening a facility designed to host esports events and a school for esports players. In 2024, FIFA named Konami its official esports partner, allowing FIFA to run the FIFAe World Cup using Konami's eFootball rather than a competing title.

• 8. What Comes Next

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  In February 2024, Konami Digital Entertainment announced it was establishing its own anime studio called Konami Animation. The studio's first work was a promotional video for the Yu-Gi-Oh! 25th anniversary. Its mandate includes working not only on Konami's own properties but also on outside intellectual properties.

  In May 2025, Konami split its arcade game business into a new subsidiary called Konami Arcade Games, led by Bemani musician Yoshitaka Nishimura, leaving the existing Konami Amusement division to focus on pachinko and pachislot machines. A new research and development base called Konami Creative Front Tokyo Bay opened in Ariake, Koto, Tokyo in October 2025. The company has announced plans to establish its corporate headquarters in Yaesu, Chuo, Tokyo by 2029, near Tokyo Station. Meanwhile, the Metal Gear Solid film adaptation has moved forward at Sony Pictures, with Oscar Isaac attached to star as Solid Snake; in April 2026, directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein were hired on the project.