Video Games
Konami has created and produced some of the biggest and most memorable video games over the past 25 years.
Genre-defining titles attributed to Konami include the vampire-hunting side scroller Castlevania series, the survival horror Silent Hill series, the action/shooter Contra series, the platform/adventure Ganbare Goemon series, the espionage action Metal Gear series, the console role-playing Suikoden series, the music-oriented Bemani series (which includes Dance Dance Revolution, Beatmania, GuitarFreaks, DrumMania, and Pop'n Music, among others) and the dating simulation Tokimeki Memorial series.
Konami is particularly notable for its arcade shoot 'em up games such as Gradius, Life Force, Time Pilot, Gyruss, Parodius, Axelay, and TwinBee. Konami's games based on cartoon licenses, especially the Batman: The Animated Series, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Tiny Toon Adventures series, but other American productions like The Simpsons, Bucky O'Hare, G.I. Joe and The Goonies and French production (Asterix) all have seen release at some point in the past by Konami either on arcades and/or video game consoles.
Recent cinematically styled franchises from Konami are the continuing Silent Hill survival horror franchise, and the Metal Gear series, which underwent a public renaissance with Metal Gear Solid. Another successful franchise is Winning Eleven, the spiritual sequel to International Superstar Soccer, which is extremely popular in Asia, Latin America, Middle East and Europe, where it is sold by the name Pro Evolution Soccer. And in Japan, it is known for the extremely popular Jikkyō Powerful Pro Yakyū series baseball series and the Zone of the Enders games. The company has also recently picked up Saw from Brash Entertainment when the game's production had been suspended due to financial issues.
Konami is also known for its password, the Konami Code, which traditionally gives many power-ups in its games. Although variants also exist, as in the Parodius series, and button naming can differ depending on the controller used, the classic Famicom or NES combination is: Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A. Although use of this code in more recent Konami productions has been sparse.
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Famous quotes related to video games:
“I recently learned something quite interesting about video games. Many young people have developed incredible hand, eye, and brain coordination in playing these games. The air force believes these kids will be our outstanding pilots should they fly our jets.”
—Ronald Reagan (b. 1911)
“It is among the ranks of school-age children, those six- to twelve-year-olds who once avidly filled their free moments with childhood play, that the greatest change is evident. In the place of traditional, sometimes ancient childhood games that were still popular a generation ago, in the place of fantasy and make- believe play . . . today’s children have substituted television viewing and, most recently, video games.”
—Marie Winn (20th century)