Konami has officially ceased development on a Sports Game known as Hyper Sports R. The game did not have an official release date, however, it was going to be a Switch exclusive game. Unfortunately, there is no information regarding why Konami suddenly decided to stop development on the game, the Hyper Sports R official website only states that “The team had been continually working on the game since its initial reveal in June 2018. However, after much consideration, we have decided to cancel its development due to various circumstances.”
The game was initially announced back at E3 2018 and was slated to be the newest entry in the Hyper Sports series. The game had a number of different events that players would have eventually been able to experience including 100-meter dash, volleyball on the beach, and much more. Unfortunately, now that the development of the game has ceased, fans of the series might not ever be able to experience these events. Konami has not yet made a public statement regarding the cancellation, however, on the Hyper Sports R official website, the company has stated that “We deeply apologize to all our valued customers who have been patiently anticipating the release of this game for this significant inconvenience.”
Konami has not yet specified what these “various circumstances” are, nor has it credited the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic to the cessation of development. In a similar case of events, Konami initially pushed back the release date of the TurboGrafx-16 Mini indefinitely due to the pandemic’s effect on the shipping and manufacturing. While the console was only initially available in Japan, the console was able to be released through Amazon throughout the United States on May 22nd. The console is still unobtainable in Europe at the moment, and according to The Verge, the release date for Europe has yet to be determined.