The Rise and Fall of Konami
Hi, Everybody! For my next "Rise and Fall" article, here's the story of one of the biggest gaming corporations in the world, KONAMI. Konami was founded on March 21st, 1969 and then incorporated under the name, Konami Industry Co., Ltd 4 years later. The founder, Kagemasa Kozuki, ran a jukebox rental and repair business in Osaka before turning those businesses into a manufacturer for amusement machines, also called arcade games. Their first coin-operated game machines were made in 1978 and exported the products to the United States the following year. It was in 1981 that Konami had achieved success with video games like Scramble, which was led to the sequel, Super Cobra and then, Frogger. Three of those games were licensed to American companies like Stern Electronics and Gremlin Industries. In 1982, Konami of America was established, which was when the corporation began to expand their video game business following a brief stint releasing the games for the Atari 2600. ...