When Konami Gaming entered the U.S. market in 2000, it was housed in a small building on Industrial Road in Las Vegas. Five years later it moved to an expansive facility on Sunset, across from McCarron International Airport. Just last week, Konami debuted an expansion that more than doubled the space of the building and elevated it to LEED status.
Steve Sutherland, Konami senior vice president and COO, said the company’s sustained growth over the past 10 years demanded the expansion.
“One of the reasons for Konami’s success over the years has been our persistent focus on R&D-driven innovation and quality,” he says. Konami needed more space to accommodate that Las Vegas-based R&D team to handle the increasing demand for more products and a wider range of product categories, he added.
According to Konami Gaming CEO Sutoshi Sakamoto, “The new headquarters will not only allow us to increase the volume of production, but gives us the diversity to explore next-generation products.”
Tom Jingoli, the company’s senior vice president and chief compliance officer, and Ryoichi Kimura, Konami’s senior VP and chief administrative officer, led the expansion effort.
“This expanded capacity will allow us to meet current demand as well as future growth,” says Jingoli. “It also gives us increased flexibility to manufacture larger, multi-station games which require significant space for storage, assembly and testing.” Jingoli points out that 150,000 square feet of the new facility will be manufacturing.
Konami executives were joined by the founder and chairman of the overall Konami Corporation Kagemasa Kozuki.
