Konami and Bandai Namco Rely On Classic Franchises With Big Success – TouchArcade

If there’s one sample that was clear at this yr’s Tokyo Sport Present, it’s that the key Japanese recreation publishers have swung again round to console gaming in a really massive manner. Whereas we’re nonetheless seeing loads of help for present free-to-play cellular video games and some new ones, corporations are investing most of their assets into console gaming as soon as once more. Every firm’s method to that concept is slightly completely different, and we will see that clearly by evaluating Konami and Bandai Namco’s Tokyo Sport Present 2023 line-ups.

Bandai Namco had a really giant and spectacular sales space, with Tekken 8 serving on the most important centerpiece. And hey, why not? It’s not yearly {that a} new mainline entry in that sequence drops. The final time was Tekken 7, again in 2015. This recreation clearly isn’t coming to cellular or certainly something lower than high of the road consoles and computer systems. Past that, the corporate has a slate of recent entries in established franchises like Tales of and My Hero Academia plus some fully new issues like Sand Land and Synduality Echo of Ada. For cellular, the corporate was solely displaying present video games like SD Gundam G Era Everlasting and The Idolmaster Shiny Colours: Music for Prism.

Konami’s sales space was much less clearly fancy than typical, however that didn’t imply it got here with empty pockets. By leaps and bounds the most important supply of consideration was its upcoming launch Metallic Gear Stable: Grasp Assortment Vol. 1, which brings the primary three Metallic Gear Stable video games to fashionable consoles together with a couple of different odds and ends. The ready time to play these video games had been generally as much as three hours! I suppose the outdated franchise nonetheless has some life in it but if individuals are prepared to attend that lengthy to play some remasters of remasters.

The opposite massive title Konami was displaying was the newest entry in its well-liked Japan-only Momotaro Dentetsu sequence. It’s coming to the Nintendo Swap, the place the earlier entry proved to be one in all Konami’s largest console hits in years. It’s a multiplayer-focused board game-style affair, like a extra concerned and fewer torturous model of Monopoly. Bomberman and PowerPro Baseball had been there as nicely, and the latter was one in all two cellular video games Konami featured on the present. The opposite? Yu-Gi-Oh, after all. Duel Hyperlinks, to be particular, which simply obtained a serious replace. Nothing to run up and down the road shouting about, in different phrases.

Whereas I’ve little doubt that each Konami and Bandai Namco can have extra cellular video games sooner or later, it serves as an excellent barometer for the Japanese recreation business that they each selected to make their main console model revivals the celebrities of their respective cubicles. In some methods, it makes a number of sense. Are cellular players actually watching the Tokyo Sport Present? I hope they’re, or else nobody is studying these articles. However console players are undoubtedly keeping track of the present, which implies for those who’re going to splash out some cash to advertise issues it would as nicely lean that manner. No less than we’ll at all times have Yu-Gi-Oh.