Konami’s Shingo Mukaitoge on Japan’s love for franchise games, next Wii title

Shingo Mukaitoge, producer of Konami Digital’s Elebits and Dewy’s Adventure for the Nintendo Wii, had a chat to talk about developing games for the white hot console and why his titles that are out in the market didn’t sell too well in Japan. Check out the full article if you want to know what went down.

Behind a couple of Konami Digital games for the Nintendo Wii, like Elebits and Dewy’s Adventure, is Shingo Mukaitoge who led development. From what we can gather in his latest interview, gamers in the west can expect more to play on the Wii.

The former architecture student who somehow got into game development because of his interest in games, made apparent when he said he even grabs every new release on the Virtual Console, did admit his Wii titles weren’t as successful in Japan as they were in the U.S. According to Konami’s Wii front man, it’s because Japan doesn’t like new IPs very much.

“The Japanese market tends to purchase games that already have previous versions, like franchise games, instead of original ones. Maybe that is one of the reasons. It’s not a good thing though,” Mukaitoge told Gamasutra. As result, Elebits and Dewy’s Adventure garnered more interest outside the land of the rising sun.

However, we can still count on the Japanese developer making new games for the Wii. Mukaitoge confirmed that he’s working on a new title, and it’s going to be developed by the same team behind his earlier Wii games under Konami’s banner. We won’t be hearing about it until spring, and it could be what Mukaitoge mentioned back in October which is rumored to be Elebits 2.