KONAMI TO FOCUS ON PS2
March 14, 2001

In an interview with Reuters, Konami's Kazumi Kitaue said the company plans to spend "about 70 percent of our development resources" on Sony's systems next year, making the PS2 its top priority. More than 2/3 of its 100 games will be released for the PSX and PS2.

However, the company will develop for all the new systems, including GBA, Gamecube, and Xbox. GBA will receive strong Konami support, and the company is enthusiastic about the upcoming launch.

Xbox may be a bit of a question mark at this time. Kitaue expects Microsoft to have strong sales in the US (no mention of European/Japanese markets was made, indicating uncertainty about those markets) but did not know how MS would generate profits from it. Most likely, this is due to a recent report indicating Microsoft would lose $2 billion on the system between now and 2005, after which time it would then be responsible for 20% of Microsoft's total profits. He did say he expects PS2 and Xbox to go head-to-head but that PS2 would ultimately have a better chance of winning because of its head start.

No mention was made of Gamecube in the report, other than that Konami will be supporting it.