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 Konami Closes
Australian Office
As part of
their restructuring, Konami has now closed its amusement sales office in
Australia which sees the departure of Graeme Noble.
Whilst their gaming business in Australia is flourishing, Konami found it
difficult to sell their amusement machines in a market that is desperate for
software kits, not full machines. With an australian dollar that buys $0.59usd,
and high freight costs, the chances of selling dedicated machines such as Mocap
Golf, Jurassic Park and Perfect Pool were always going to be slim.
However, the Australian market is starved for fresh products with many
operators waiting for good kits to come onto the market. Everyone has cabinets,
and there were many opportunities for Konami to make strong sales but for
different reasons, kept loosing the chance (for example, many owners still
operating Police Trainer and Lost World Cabinets, could upgrade their cabinets
with Jurassic Park kits).
The Australian market at times is controlled by agents/distributor egos
resulting in bad outcomes for operators. With the arrival of Konami, some of us
believed that they could understand the market and provide products suited to
local operators. Unfortunately with Konami's closure, the chances of operators
seeing well priced and suitable products is low.
News Extracted from
HighwayGames
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