Konami is celebrating its 50th anniversary with three classic collections

When people talk about some of the greats in gaming history, Konami is one of the ones that get brought up by a lot of people (Silent Hill stuff aside anyway) and it's hard to believe that the company behind the Konami Laser Scope for the NES is turning 50 this year. I don't know what's more amazing: that Konami is turning fifty, or if anyone will know what the Konami Laser Scope is.

Anyway, Konami is celebrating by releasing three Anniversary Collections over the next several months for the PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and Steam. The first will be Arcade Classics and will include eight of their...well, arcade classics (Haunted Castle, Typhoon, Nemesis, Vulvan Venture, Life Force, Thunder Cross, Scramble, and TwinBee). Next will be a Castlevania Collection in early Summer that includes eight games featuring the famous Belmont vampire hunter family. So far only four of these games have been announced, those being the original Castlevania and Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse from the NES, Super Castlevania IV from the Super NES, and a surprise entry (for me at least) of Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge from the Game Boy.

Finally, what kind of Konami anniversary would it be without Contra in there somewhere? The Contra Collection coming early Summer will also have eight games and also only has four announced so far: the arcade versions of Contra and Super Contra, Super C for the NES, and Contra 3: The Alien Wars for the Super NES. I'm not going to lie, I'd love to see Contra Force for the NES thrown in, only because it's a hard game to come by these days.

More information can be found over on Konami's website.