Konami enjoys social gaming success, eyes Zynga partnership

Konami's yearly accounts are out, whoopee, and the big success story is games for social networking services (SNS).

These helped Konami's profits nearly double to 23 billion yen (£178.5 million), despite net revenue being roughly the same as last year - 265.8 billion yen (£2.06 billion).

More, more, more, said Konami, even name dropping a possible partnership with Zynga.

"With the spread of smartphones and tablet PCs worldwide and the increased popularity of SNS sites, the available means of providing game software continue to diversify, and opportunities to reach an even greater audience for game software are increasing," the company robot said.

"Against such a backdrop, our belief is that we can increase the number of 'outlets' for the Konami Group's game content by taking advantage of opportunities presented by the emergence of new devices and developing our business around game content. We intend to develop ways of playing games that match the characteristics of each device."

Konami then added: "Looking ahead, we will continue to expand our line-up, utilising previously established production and operational expertise and rich content resources, while continuing to support a wide range of devices and develop towards new overseas platforms, such as the provision of content to Zynga."

"In game software, we will focus efforts on continued global development utilising the production know-how of the Konami Group, while also continuing with production using existing content for AAA titles carefully narrowed down based on selection and focus, and strive towards producing hit titles."

Konami

There are more than 20 million people, and rising, registered to play Konami's social games. The biggest of these are Dragon Collection (on Gree), Sengoku Collection (on Mobage) and Professional Baseball Dream Nine (Gree and Mobage).

For a bit of perspective, Konami's business breaks down (by contribution to net revenue) into Digital Entertainment (53 per cent), Health & Fitness (31 per cent), Gaming & Systems (nine per cent) and Pachinko & Pachinko Slot Machines (seven per cent).

Within Digital Entertainment lies the home video game side of Konami we're familiar with.

Last year, revenue from Consumer Games - as they're known - accounted for around half of Digital Entertainment's output. This year, revenue from Consumer Games accounted for 36 per cent.

Meanwhile, revenue from SNS games rose from 12 per cent last year to 26 per cent this year. The other parts of Digital Entertainment - e-Amusement, Card Games, Other - remained roughly the same.

Konami's worldwide video game sales fell from 21.94 million units last year to 18.30 million units this year.

Sales of football games (PES) dropped from 7.51 million units to 6.43 million. But Metal Gear sales rose from 1.92 million units to 2.12 million. The largest slice of the pie was for Other games, whatever they may be, with 6.51 million sales.

Konami described PES sales as "steady", and also picked out the launches of Metal Gear Sold HD Collection and New Loveplus, "a romance communication game".

"In game software," Konami commented, "we will focus efforts on continued global development utilising the production know-how of the Konami Group, while also continuing with production using existing content for AAA titles carefully narrowed down based on selection and focus, and strive towards producing hit titles."