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Koei Tecmo plans to go from 2,500 to 5,000 employees and lean further into AAA games, lowering expectations of mobile market

Mibu no ookami

Demoted Member® Pro™
How cash rich are they? It’s pretty unusual for them to just magic up a plan to increase outgoings by at least 200mil more per year

Japan is in an interesting situation where costs are significantly cheaper there than the West Coast. Proper investments in talent now could result in a Japanese gaming renaissance and I think that's kind of what we've been seeing lately with Monster Hunter, Elden Ring, Persona 5, Like a Dragon e.t.c.

KOEI Tecmo is still on the smaller side of things and don't have much in the way of IP. It's a long road for them, but you want to position yourself to be a major player, you have to invest to make that happen.
 

mdkirby

Gold Member
Japan is in an interesting situation where costs are significantly cheaper there than the West Coast. Proper investments in talent now could result in a Japanese gaming renaissance and I think that's kind of what we've been seeing lately with Monster Hunter, Elden Ring, Persona 5, Like a Dragon e.t.c.

KOEI Tecmo is still on the smaller side of things and don't have much in the way of IP. It's a long road for them, but you want to position yourself to be a major player, you have to invest to make that happen.
Sure wages are lower; but I didn’t exactly put overly inflated wages in. I set it to avg $80k. I can’t see it being any less than 50k/employee (then you have rent and all the other costs for maintaining an employee).

One advantage Japan has is its embracing of generative ai, including legislatively, ie they have codified in law that copyright is void for the purpose of ai training. Japanese games are already seeing a renaissance as a result of the push back to western ideologically driven aaa titles. So I do think you’re right broadly on that. It’ll also apply to cinema, where ai tools will drastically reduce costs vs Hollywood for which powerful unions will hamstring ai adoption, putting them at a competitive disadvantage.
 

Aenima

Member
So we went from "console games are dead" to "mobile games are dead"? Interesting, even if neither of the statements are true. Good to see publishers bringing back they focus to console/PC market again.
 
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nnytk

Member
I can't wait for them to evolve the poor level/environmental design of their games. They're so damn good in terms of gameplay. Hyrule Warriors, Nioh, Warriors Orochi, all of these games go hard as heck. Imagine a AAA Jujutsu Kaisen musou by them. Or a new AAA Berserk game from them. Or Gundam... or Fist of the North Star... or Final Fantasy musou!

Their new Dynasty Warriors game looks awesome too!
 

Arsic

Loves his juicy stink trail scent
Ninja gaiden 1 remake with AAA budget.

Visuals allowing you to see Ryus stiff nips through his shirt.
 

MayauMiao

Member
I wish Koei Tecmo can give us an action-stealth oriented game using the DOA IP.

They already got a hot character design that can rival Eve of Stellar Blade.

BiTGPdl.jpeg
 

WoJ

Member
I have nothing meaningful to add to this thread but thought I'd share I misread the title and thought it said Kemco. I was shocked they had 2500 employees to begin with and couldn't fathom them leaving their mid-tier 16-bit JRPG niche.
 

Mibu no ookami

Demoted Member® Pro™
So we went from "console games are dead" to "mobile games are dead"? Interesting, even if neither of the statements are true. Good to see publishers bringing back they focus to console/PC market again.

Mobile gaming isn't dead. The bubble on it is just bursting and its getting harder to make revenue in the space without much larger endeavors like Monopoly Go. Which is inherently super risky.
 

cireza

Member
I wish Koei Tecmo can give us an action-stealth oriented game using the DOA IP.

They already got a hot character design that can rival Eve of Stellar Blade.

BiTGPdl.jpeg
That's the Western art. Japanese one was better. Would like a Dead or Alive game on a Nintendo console, it has been a long time now.

Hum, it seems I was mistaken. Your art looks more like DoA5.

18j2ag8ij78ywjpg.jpg
 
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ProtoByte

Weeb Underling
Have their PC/Consoles sales number gotten any better recently? Did I miss that fact?

Or is it just wishful thinking from executives because their mobile revenues are down?

Those two are very different things. And will lead to very different outcomes.
Little bit of both, I believe.
Why anybody would be playing anything KT has to offer on mobile, I wouldn't know. They probably see a crunch coming up where they have to choose what to focus on, and the core gaming biz is more reliable.
 
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