Konami is known for producing some of the greatest video gaming titles in history. The Pro Evolution Soccer, Castlevania, Silent Hill, Rocket Knight Adventures, Dance Dance Revolution, and Metal Gear series are some of the most popular video games ever released, with the likes of Silent Hill even being adapted into a film franchise. However, over the past decade, Konami has moved away from developing new video games and has chosen to focus on the pachinko market.
For those who do not know, a traditional pachinko game in Japan is a machine into which a player feeds several metal balls. The metal balls must be purchased and once inside the machine, they fall down a series of pegs until they reach the bottom. The final location of the ball determines the prize of the player, and the reward is more metal balls. The balls can be exchanged for prizes and money.
The reason pachinko machines are popular in Japan is because the law prohibits open gambling in the country. By using the machines with metal balls, companies in Japan have found a way around the gambling laws to offer gambling games to people. This is like sweepstake casinos in the United States. If you look at the sweepscash casinos on the mobileUS casino site you will see there are plenty from which to choose and they allow social gambling in restricted regions without breaking the law. As such, you can see how sweepstake casinos are operating in the same way as the pachinko machines of Japan.
You may be wondering how a game featuring metal balls can be recreated using a video game and it is an interesting concept. The video game-based pachinko games have become known as pachislot machines. These differ to traditional pachinko games because they are based more on slot machines, as you would expect to find in a Las Vegas casino for example. Pachislot machines use animations and video gameplay to bring the machine to life on the screen. The animations you see when playing the machine tend to follow the storyline of the video game on which they are based.
Metal Gear Solid has long been one of the leading Konami video game series. It has a huge following around the world and has been developed into a pachinko game. Known as the Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater pachislot, the game was released in 2016 and marked a big movement for Konami away from creating new video games. The pachinko version of the game sees many animations and scenes from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, rated by many a lot of gamers as the best title in the Metal Gear series. The footage from the game has been reproduced in high definition and is a great to see when playing the pachinko machine.
However, when considering if other online gaming brands will follow suit and create slot games from their top titles, we must assess the fans’ reaction to Konami. Their decision to move away from creating new video game titles in favour of pachinko machines has not gone down well with fans. Metal Gear fans in particular were especially disappointed to see scenes from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater used in the Metal Gear pachinko game. In addition, there are rumours the pachinko games have not been an enormous success, and this may lead Konami to revert to making genuine video games.
So, if there are any other video game developers looking on and considering making pachinko games, they may want to think again. If the decline in numbers of people playing the pachinko titles continues, other gaming brands are likely to stay away and continue producing traditional video game titles.