Konami Merges Japanese Studios

Officials from Konami have announced that, as of April 1st, 2005, its three subsidiary development studios and Konami Online will be merged back in to the main company. The three studios are Konami Computer Entertainment Studio (KCES), responsible for the likes of BeatMania and Pop n' Music; Konami Computer Entertainment Japan (KCEJ), led by Hideo Kojima and responsible for the Metal Gear Solid series and Zone of the Enders; and Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo (KCET), the largest of the three studios, and developers of the likes of Suikoden, Dance Dance Revolution, Castlevania and World Soccer Winning Eleven. Konami has stated that the merger of all its disparate operations will make the company more efficient, and speed up the decision-making processes. "After collating our developers and knowledge base that were decentralized into three subsidiaries, we will shift our business concentration towards the online market, which has a large growth potential”, stated the company’s press release. Konami is Japan’s largest third party developer (not counting the recently formed Sega Sammy Holdings), also owning large shares in other game development related companies such as Takara, Hudson and Atlus, and the merger is estimated to be worth around $250 million. As such, one share in KCES will be swapped for 0.42 shares of Konami, while one share in KCEJ will be swapped for 0.81 share of Konami and one share of KCET swapped one-for-one with the parent company. Konami Online, meanwhile, is a wholly owned subsidiary and so no share swapping is necessary.