Konami Gaming: Riding the Solstice

Konami’s high-performing Solstice cabinets help to fuel rising game performance

Konami Gaming, Inc., the U.S.-based slot supplier and subsidiary of Japan’s Konami Group Corporation, has remained arguably the most stable slot supplier in the industry. In a business where revolving doors abound, Konami Gaming’s top three executives—CEO Steve Sutherland, President and COO Tom Jingoli and Senior VP and Chief Commercial Officer Jay Bertsch—have all been with the company more than 20 years.

Over those decades, Konami has improved and reinvented its slot product, its games reflecting the stability of the executive team, keeping the company in the elite handful of suppliers at the top of the slot market.

At the same time, Konami has remained a dominant player in the system market with its popular SYNKROS casino management system, and lately has branched out into new verticals, notably historical horse racing, VLT and Class II on the land-based side, and through the company’s newest product segment, Konami Online Interactive, which is quickly growing in the online gaming market.

This year’s Global Gaming Expo will highlight advancements in all three areas, but on the land-based slot side, a parade of 50 new game themes will be showcased across five unique cabinets, including Konami’s latest success, the new Solstice range of cabinets.

“On the land-based game side, Konami’s building success with the launch of Solstice, which was voted best new core cabinet by operators out of last year’s G2E,” says Tashina Lazcano, senior director of marketing and communications. “Casino results are Konami’s top priority, as we’ve watched all three debut launch series hit the industry’s top 25 performance charts, helping drive revenue for casino operators.”

Those performance numbers resulted from the debut of the Solstice 49C cabinet, featuring a 49-inch, 4K Ultra HD C curve monitor delivering enhanced graphics across a dynamic color spectrum, an advanced lighting system, and an upgraded core chip set and GPU, fueling four times greater computing power than Konami’s legacy platforms.

“Solstice is on our KXP2 platform, which will support the larger graphic sizes that we definitely need,” says Stephanie Lau, vice president, sales enablement for Konami, “and the power for the sound bar at the top that really helps accentuate our games—because sound is equally as important in the games as the visuals. The power in the CPU really does help us make better games.”

At G2E, Konami will launch two more cabinets in the Solstice range. In the large-format genre is the Solstice SuperNova, standing 11 feet tall with an imposing 75-inch C curve display. There is an optional 43-inch topper display. It is equipped with the programmed acrylic lighting effects and advanced audio package featured in the Solstice 49C. Targeted for Q4 release, it is available for sale or lease. (Solstice 49C is a for-sale cabinet.)

Also featured at G2E and slated for Q4 release is the dual-screen Solstice 27, a freshly engineered cabinet featuring stacked 27-inch displays and the same special components as the other Solstice form factors.

Filling the Forms

The early success of the Solstice 49C was in no small part due to the launch games, Dragon Firecracker, Red Fortune Rail, and the first slot game based on Konami’s Bomberman video game series. At G2E, Konami will have new content for the 49C and for both new cabinets in the series.

On the jumbo Solstice SuperNova is a brand extension of the global hit Dragon’s Law Fortune.

Dragon’s Law Super Fortune Bags and Dragon’s Law Super Fortune Pots both activate three reel arrays with anything more than the minimum 88-credit bet. Any of the reel frames can trigger free games with a combination of extra wilds, bonus/jackpot prizes, and/or even more reel arrays, up to six total.

During the primary game, random wilds drop on the reel set. There are three collection pots above the reels that can trigger the free games with enhancements. “Double Action” drops extra wilds during the free games. “Double Games” adds double reel sets during the free games.

“Jackpot” triggers a game in which wild symbols add letters to spell out one of the game’s four jackpots, including the top Grand.

Features that were not originally triggered can be awarded through the wheel spin feature, along with additional spins and additional wilds.

It’s all supersized on the jumbo format. “Jumbos have been proven performers,” says Lau. “We truly see a huge lift in performance with the jumbo cabinet, and an enhancement to our original Dragon’s Law Fortune. It’s a great series for us, and this adds a triple reel set. There’s a feature happening every 19 spins on average, where the dragon will drop in wild.  Even in the free-spin feature, you have the ability to spin the wheel to really enhance those prizes.”

On the new Solstice 27C is Bull Blitz Rampage. “What better to launch our Solstice 27C cabinet than with a highly successful title from our Australian market?” says Lau.

Known as Bull Rush Stampede in Australia (“It has been a hammer in Australia,” says Lau), Bull Blitz Rampage is a follow-up to Konami’s original Bull Blitz with a rush of new features, including a nested bonus within a hold-and-spin feature, a wheel spin mechanic and new symbol-driven events. The launch titles are Fire Mountain and Minotaur’s Treasure.

By boosting their bet to a higher denom, players can reduce the minimum number of symbols required to guarantee the hold-and-spin feature. New symbols like the Red Bull guarantee a bonus prize. The white bull symbol triggers a feature within the feature, called the Rampage Feature. A grid of individual reels appears, up to nine reels. A hold-and-spin feature progresses on the giant grid. Lower-level jackpots are included in the feature.

There also is a free-spin bonus, five free games with increased bull symbols or a wheel-spin chance into the hold-and-spin, depending on the base game.

Featured on 49

Konami is using G2E to launch several new games on the Solstice 49C. One of the highlights is Sparkle Combo. “This takes the sparkle feature Konami started with the Triple Sparkle Series and carries it forward,” says Andrew Culverson, Konami’s director of product management. “We’ve added metamorphic pots and a wheel, so now you can get that sparkle feature and trigger additional wheel spins.”

The base games in Sparkle Combo are Majestic Moon and Solstice Celebration. Animated moon and sun characters sit at the center of each screen. (The moon character, with a smiling face, recalls the personified moon in the 1902 film Trip to the Moon, only without the rocket crashing into its face.)

The moon and sun characters double as one of three collection pots, marked “Extra Wilds.” The other pots are “Extra Frames” and “Spin Boost” or “Multiplier,” depending on the base game. The series’ new triple bonus feature is triggered through perceived persistence in growing piles of gems, which can overflow into free games with nudging wilds, extra wilds, a bonus reel frame, and/or random multipliers. The series’ transformation feature can transport players to a wheel spin bonus, for the chance at big credit prizes, bonus awards, or one of the four jackpots, including the top Grand.

Also on the Solstice 49C is Fortune Hearts, another reprise of a game that has achieved great success in Australia. With base titles GoGo! Gorilla and Lunar Dynasty, the game features a unique hold-and-spin feature. The first reel is a “Prize Reel,” occupied exclusively by jackpots and multiplier symbols.

Any Fortune Hearts symbol can trigger the hold-and-spin feature. The prize reel can upgrade displayed credit prizes in the same row with random multipliers and bonus awards. Any upgrades collected on the prize reel are held for the duration of the feature. The upgraded prizes move to a second three-by-five grid above the normal reels.

In all, Konami will bring nearly 100 individual machines to G2E, but the emphasis will definitely be on the new Solstice cabinet range. “With the Solstice platform, we’ve moved to the Unity operating system,” notes Bertsch. “It will allow us to bring some of the brick-and-mortar games online. That power is required for cross development among the different platforms. Solstice is much more on trend with the rest of the market than previous platforms.”

Lau says Konami’s G2E exhibit will highlight games that will available soon after the show. “Last year, we got a lot of feedback from our customers who said, ‘Well, if I’m not going to be able to buy it within the next six months, why show it?’”

“Since we launched Solstice last year, all four of the first themes have resonated,” adds Bertsch. “We haven’t had to dump a lot of themes into the market to improve performance. Those first games have been really stable performers. We’re seeing the growth and the additional placements now, and we’re able to be much more strategic with how we’re launching themes. It’s a great position to be in—where we’re seeing performance, we can be much more thoughtful, and make any needed adjustments in the market.”

Different Verticals

Konami’s G2E booth will feature special areas addressing the newer verticals into which Konami has placed its footprint. Konami Online Interactive, launched at G2E last year, is moving fast in spreading Konami content to the iGaming world. “What really sets it apart are the globally recognized brands and characters that are unique to what Konami can offer,” Lazcano says.

“We’ve been focusing on getting game titles into the U.S. iGaming market faster,” adds Jingoli. “We’ve done a really good job in the past six to eight months of porting games from that market and bringing them live faster, which I think is going to be a huge driver for us.”

Special attention also will be given to Class II and historical horse racing content, and certainly to the SYNKROS system, which recently passed the landmark of reaching more than 150,000 gaming devices worldwide.

“Our SYNKROS casino management system has been a huge driver of our company the past four years,” says Jingoli. “It just keeps going. We had 100,000 connections seven years ago, and we just celebrated a party here for over 150,000 connections. It’s been an unbelievable growth story.”

But the bottom line for G2E is the arrival of more high-performing games in all verticals, says Jingoli. “Our games have been solid,” he says. “That growth story is on an upward tick. And clearly, since G2E last year when we launched Solstice, our games have been on a very steady incline. A lot of that has to do with hardware, but as you well know, the biggest thing is content.

“Our content has been fantastic.”