Consumers they're going to be no longer serving. So unless your cancelled your health spa day, or your weekly pachinko because to stand with Kojima, the angry consumers (western console game players) aren't really a major concern - as they've shown.
Oh, so the fact that digital entertainment still accounts for basically 50% of their revenue means nothing then? Pachislot still only accounts for a small percentage overall.
Digital entertainment is made up of many different things but is still largely focused on video games of various types including mobile. Consumer games still account for 20% of their revenue under digital entertainment, apparently, which puts it roughly around 20k while Pachinko sits under 15k despite its growth. This is during a period when Konami released very few non-mobile games. So they are still making more money on consumer games than Pachinko even during a famine period for new releases. Am I reading that right?
There's a "global relevance" to pachinko? There's certainly a Japanese relevance.
There are still problems to overcome for the future. Just how relevant will it stay with the younger generation? Will they continue to see the same amount of growth? Where is the ceiling? It remains one of the smallest sources of revenue for them even with growth.
They way they've seemingly gone about business lately seems pretty bad, really. We can't say what kind of impact it will have long term but chasing away all of your talent, apparently mistreating employees, blacklisting press over minor issues, and generally remaining silent sure paint a negative picture.
Contrast that to something like the P&G news of late where brands are being sold off while the company focuses on its core brands. It's been mostly well communicated and handled in a responsible manner that makes sense. They're not just abandoning employees, kicking important management to the curb, and pissing on their consumers left and right. They're finding responsible ways to refocus their business. It's not always going to work out for everyone but it's a far cry from the approach Konami seems to be taking.
Of course, P&G doesn't make entertainment products and won't have fans in the same way. Imagine Marvel kicking Stan Lee to the curb decades ago and giving up most of their franchises to focus on creating a competitive financial journal or making electric wheelchairs or something. You can bet your ass fans would be upset and it's no mystery why. The attitude of "why are you guys mad? They're just a business making money!!!11" is ignoring a lot of things. They could gracefully exit video games without treating previous customers so poorly - but based on their financials it doesn't really seem like exiting games makes THAT much sense, really.
