Konami CEO Hideki Hayakawa: 'Mobile games are our main platform now'

Konami's new CEO Hideki Hayakawa has revealed that the video game publisher's main platform will be mobile, and it will build on the "pay-as-you-play" models already being implemented with a focus on selling features rather than items.

In a story over at Jin115.com (translated by NeoGAF user HGH) Hayakawa says: "We will pursue mobile games aggressively. Our main platform will be mobiles. Following the pay-as-you-play model of games like Power pro and Winning Eleven with additional content, our games must move from selling things like 'items' to selling things like 'features'.

"We saw with these games that even people who buy physical games are motivated to buy extra content. The success of Power pro especially has motivated us to actively push more of our popular series onto mobile than ever before."

Konami's biggest game of the year is Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain, which has been mired in controversy recently after revelations that series creator Hideo Kojima's relationship with the company had turned sour and that he would no longer be working with it after the release of MGS 5 in September.

Kojima had previously revealed that The Phantom Pain would be his last game in the series (as he always tends to) but him leaving seemed to be more amicable at the time. Metal Gear will continue without him, with Konami seeking new developers to help take the franchise forward.

Could the franchise be moving toward mobile?

"Gaming has spread to a number of platforms, but at the end of the day, the platform that is always closest to us, is mobile. Mobile is where the future of gaming lies," said Hayakawa. "We hope that our overseas games such as MGSV and Winning Eleven [Pro Evolution Soccer in the West] continue to do well, but we are always thinking about how to push our franchises onto mobile there too."

That would seem like a yes.

"With multiplatform games, there's really no point in dividing the market into categories anymore. Mobiles will take on the new role of linking the general public to the gaming world," he also said, hinting that the company will continue to work within the console space.

Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain will be released on 1 September.