Konami is now making pre-built gaming PCs

Konami, ever the curious company, is joining the likes of Alienware, MSI, and Corsair with custom pre-built gaming PCs.

On the heels of making the Turbo Grafx 16 Mini, Konami has wider hardware ambitions. This time it's making gaming PCs for Japanese consumers. The new Arespear gaming desktops are made for esports and were originally announced in February 2020.

The three-SKU line features somewhat beefy specs and LED lighting, but are dramatically overpriced for the hardware. Konami has just now opened pre-orders for the PCs, which are scheduled to start shipping in September.

The gaming PCs come in three expensive flavors:

Arespear C300 (184,800 yen, $1,750 USD)

• Product Link
• Intel Core i5-9400F
• 8GB DDR4-2666 RAM
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650
• 512GB M.2 NVMe SSD
• Windows 10 Home

Arespear C700 (316,800 yen, $3,000 USD)

• Product Link
• Intel Core i7-9700
• 16GB DDR4-2666 memory
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER
• 512GB M.2 NVMe SSD+1TB HDD
• Windows 10 Home

Arespear C700+ (338,800 yen, $3,200 USD)

• Product Link
• Intel Core i7-9700
• 16GB DDR4-2666
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER
• 512GB PCIe NVMe/M.2 SSD + 1TB HDD
• Windows 10 Home

Konami's trying to increase earnings in its amusement division by selling gaming PCs to Japanese consumers. PC gaming isn't too big in Japan outside of free-to-play browser games, but Konami wants to tap into the enthusiast desktop market with its fleet of PCs.

Konami's recent total-year profits took a 41% nosedive in FY2019 thanks to COVID-19 disruption and weaker yen exchanges. Amusement division earnings were also down as COVID-19 forced closure of pachinko gaming cafes. The company is still doing well, though, and managed to rake in $182 million in profits on $1.4 billion in net revenues.

8