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Akari Uchida and Mino Taro (LovePlus) depart from Konami

ULTROS!

ULTROS!

People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks.
http://gematsu.com/2015/03/akari-uchida-and-mino-taro-depart-from-konami

Tokimeki Memorial and Love Plus producer Akari Uchida and Love Plus character designer Mino Taro have announced on their respective Twitter accounts that they’ve quit Konami.

The pair, who were close collaborators on the Love Plus series, left a handful of messages describing their motivations and what their future plans are in broad terms.
Click to expand...

Check the link for their Twitter messages.
 
S

Santiako

Member
Soon Konami will consist in Kojima chained in a basement and a group of proevo coders locked in a dungeon so they don't leave.
 
OrochiJR

OrochiJR

Member
Akari Uchida should join Team Ninja, where he can finally go on and produce the long awaited Rumble Roses XXX! Do it Uchida!!!
 
N

Negator

Member
People mention Square-Enix and Capcom often, but is there any Japanese company bleeding talent harder than Konami?
 
C

chiimisu

Member
Man, that's sad :( I loved TokiMemo, TokiMemo GS and Love Plus games. And the only new things (except for LP 3DS) Konami had put out recently were some TMGS mobile spinoff and crappy mobile moe moe uguu datesim (?). I hope that things will work out for them guys eventually.
 
P

Pennywise83

Banned
It's sad how Konami has run Love Plus into the ground.

The first one was really a sleeper-hit, opening at 47k units and then crawling to 244k units, well above the latest Tokimeki Memorial entries. The expansion did well too, with 200k units in the pocket.

Then Konami rushed the release of Love Plus on 3DS, and the game got a bad word-of-mouth and basically no legs, also because the company was obliged to buy out all copies left in the market. The expansion came out too late, also.

Love Plus might have been a constant 200k seller, but Konami mismanaged the franchise so much that now it's dead.
 
S

Some Nobody

Junior Member
Negator said:
People mention Square-Enix and Capcom often, but is there any Japanese company bleeding talent harder than Konami?
Click to expand...

Capcom already bled out most of its talent. But Konami and CC are far worse off than S-E, which is actually quite large and could hire new talent and go in a better direction whenever they wanted.
 
E

Eusis

Member
Sage Shinigami said:
Capcom already bled out most of its talent. But Konami and CC are far worse off than S-E, which is actually quite large and could hire new talent and go in a better direction whenever they wanted.
Click to expand...
Going by SE's output and some of the comments in the past, I actually can believe that they're far healthier in addressing their traditional core base or those with similar taste who can be pulled in to rejuvenate it. It really does help that a lot of their bigger mobile input not only looks/sounds like something I'd want to play and may attempt if I can get access to them, but they're actively being ported off to other platforms, albeit mainly Vita so far. Nothing Capcom or Konami's done on mobile seems to have that same appeal, it just seems to be trash most of the time.

All of them have bled terrifying amounts of talent over the years, though it does seem like Konami's the lowest there while Capcom's somewhere in between.
 
J

Josephl64

Member
I was hoping for Love Plus to improve vastly in a coming sequel...hopefully Konami pulls a miracle and actually pushes out a new good version.
 
P

Pikma

Banned
I really wonder what will happen to this company once Kojima inevitably retires.
ShogunDarius said:
Suikoden, Azure Dreams, Vandal Hearts, MGS, ZOE, Silent Hill, sooo many good titles back then
Click to expand...
And I think it's not unfair to mention Hudson Soft's IPs too while we're at it, since they're sitting on those as well.
 
Q

qualitydisc

Member
Pikma said:
I really wonder what will happen to this company once Kojima inevitably retires.
Click to expand...

Seems scary to me. They're really putting all their weight on his shoulders. (Then again I thought the same thing when Tetsuya Nomura was directing both FFXV and Kingdom Hearts III... and we all know how that ended up.) What if Kojima just up and quit one day?
 
T

thekiddfran

Member
qualitydisc said:
Seems scary to me. They're really putting all their weight on his shoulders. (Then again I thought the same thing when Tetsuya Nomura was directing both FFXV and Kingdom Hearts III... and we all know how that ended up.) What if Kojima just up and quit one day?
Click to expand...

Sony should buy the metal gear and pro evo franchise if that was to happen
 
V

Veal

Member
Can someone just buy Konami's IP from them please? While disheartening, it's obvious that Konami can't manage itself and it would be a shame for gaming at large if we just lost all of their great franchises.
 
H

Hayama Akito

Member
As someone who only "just enjoy" MGS i guess the only IP who is currently interesting in Konami catalog for me is the Bemani series. Silent Hills is coming, sure, but i just can't imagine what will happen if Kojima left the company.

By the way, i finished Xexex some weeks ago and see this in 2015 is pretty sad :(

xexex.jpg
 
T

TunaLover

Member
According to one of those guys it's really hard to work for the company if you are in the creative side, no wonder, Konami don't bring anything new in long time. Man Konami used to be my fav company during NES/SNES days, know they are just a shadow from that.
 
K

KojiKnight

Member
Death of the B-tier has meant the death of many Japanese developers... So many great IPs with so much potential... gone in a single gen.
 
J

jzbluz

Member
So apparently Mino Taro isn't the character designer for TMGS. There's still hope yet for TMGS4!
Please let me dream.
 
R

Relaxed Muscle

Member
Man they really did screwed Love Plus, you might think bad of the series, but definetly it had potential.

With the increase of popularity of VN on Steam, they should do a KS.
 
C

CrovaxPSO

Member
Bummer, but I can't say I'm surprised. Had a feeling Love Plus might have been done for after New Love Plus + sold poorly and they shut down the phone collection game. And the official site never got updated except once when there was a huge sale on the download version of the game. I think they still have been updating the in-game Towano Watcher though. I really like Love Plus, so I hope the series isn't completely done for good. I'm eager to see what these two work on next.
 
I

Iva Demilcol

Member
Konami was the EA of the SNES era: making a lot of games based on stablished IPs and sports games... The big difference was that Konami made good games.

It's so frustrating that they don't take advantage of all their own IPs nowadays.
 
R

Rymuth

Member
Welp, Konami saw fit to update people on the status of Tokimeki and Love Plus

http://gematsu.com/2015/03/konami-production-of-love-plus-and-tokimeki-memorial-will-continue
Thank you for your continued interest in our product line.

Given the resignations of Akari Uchida and Mino Taro as staff members who were formerly in charge of production on the Love Plus and Tokimeki Memorial franchises, we are aware of everyone’s concerns about the future of both franchises.

Love Plus and Tokimeki Memorial are both series of games that are deeply important to us and have earned your love and adoration for many years and as such, production of them will continue unabated and it is our sincere hope that you will likewise maintain your enduring support moving forward.

If there are still any remaining points that you wish to see clarified, you may reach us at our customer service line.
Click to expand...
 
I

Iva Demilcol

Member
Recent events made me rethink of what was happening at Konami. It seems Kojima is just the biggest name, other people on charge of other projects will leave as well...
 
G

GamerJM

Banned
As long as Bemani stays safe ;_;

Josephl64 said:
I was hoping for Love Plus to improve vastly in a coming sequel...hopefully Konami pulls a miracle and actually pushes out a new good version.
Click to expand...

Where's a good place to start with getting into the series? (I have Japanese 3DS)
 
C

CrovaxPSO

Member
GamerJM said:
As long as Bemani stays safe ;_;



Where's a good place to start with getting into the series? (I have Japanese 3DS)
Click to expand...

The newest release, New Love Plus + is, in my opinion, the best overall. There are some changes from the previous entries that aren't as good, but overall I think it's the best one. If you want a really cheap option though, you can't go wrong with Love Plus + on the DS.
 
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