Mate, I work for an IT consultancy who's global headquarters are in Japan. We develop and implement ERP software for clients all over the world. I'm telling you, the infrastructure is there...if they're not able to at least remote desktop into their own servers and develop on them (the infrastructure of which has been available for AT LEAST 10 years) then Konami really are in an absolute mess.
This is spot on. I have a friend who works on Visual FX for TV/film projects, animating bodies and such, sometimes even using Unreal these days (which I find interesting, as a crossover of software). It was only about 2 weeks into lockdown that they had everything sorted for remote working, and his workflows did not change significantly as a result. Just connected to work computers via secure VPN, and his job was practically the same. A lot of companies have also found that workers at home are even more productive, too.
I simply don't buy the argument
either:
1. They got seriously delayed due to Covid
OR
2. They changed radically half-way through
Lots of publishers and other related industries have coped with Covid, and delivered bigger projects to higher quality with less time. Meanwhile, there is nothing to indicate they actually "changed course". When you examine it, the reason people seem to think this is because they presuppose Konami were on a particular and different course to begin with. What is the evidence for this? Actually very little.
It's this: there was a teaser; there was some marketing guff they put out; there is an expectation for yearly full console releases. All that combined is the only evidence we have that Konami were on track for a proper mainline PES sequel.
But examine it for a second: a teaser was rendered in Unreal just for the purpose of advertising the engine switch and generating hype, chiefly in turn because they decided not to develop a new release for the 2021 edition of PES. They had to sell it, and this was a decent way of doing so – they asked consumers for a good faith purchase and promised to reward them down the line. A company as scummy as Konami (and they are among the scummiest in the industry) would easily buy into the idea of this sort of bait-n-switch, and not have any concerns about a year later when they don't deliver, hoping to smooth over any issues with more marketing guff.
Then look at the surrounding context: they had a hugely successful mobile platform; all their social media engagement came from that playerbase; a huge chunk of their revenue came from that playerbase; the gaming environment presented less serious opposition to them. They knew this two, three years ago – they didn't magically realise 6-12 months ago and in a board meeting go "hold the fucking phone a second, check out these numbers, lads!"
More context: they ramped up PES League events ~5 years ago, decided an esports branding and affiliation was key for the series direction. So they opened up two new leagues: eFootball.pro and eFootball.open; they then changed the iconic name of the series to eFootball PES, two years in a row. They then introduced a new in-game currency, eFootball points, which were rewarded across
both mobile and console/PC platforms, tied to a single "Konami account". They organised promotional myClub tie-ins: celebrate X number of mobile app downloads; login to the mobile app to get more rewards, etc.
Yet more context: the industry as a whole has been moving to mobile for some time. Most recently, look at how underwhelming some of the big games shows have been this year, and the predominance of mobile games there. Some years ago, the industry realised that the big revenue generation through MTX/ads is in the mobile space. Japan itself, and several Asian markets, has much more success there than on the 8th gen of consoles. It's also where the dirtiest tricks to compel purchases and influence "whales" were honed and perfected. Konami themselves even announced, some years ago now, that they wanted to move entirely into the mobile space. At the time, it had us PES heads worried, because ours was the only longstanding Konami IP left on console. Everything else had been killed off or turned into P2W fiasco (Metal Gear Survive, anyone?).
In short: the writing was on the wall for a long fucking time. The generational change gave them a chance to sell the shift of focus to mobile F2P gaming as a brand new, freshening up of the series – a modernising. But it was misdirection, and people are credulous enough to still believe that Konami ever cared about having a solid console IP for the 9th gen console cycle. This was a conscious business decision, not some forced compromise due to an underwhelming development cycle or a set of Covid-dashed plans gone awry.