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GameSpot: Kojima to leave Konami after MGSV, power struggle, communications embargo

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Zee-Row

Banned
Kojima's name didn't seem to help Boktai much.

Kojima being so tied to MGS really hurts him actually.
I never bought Boktai because there was just too much stuff releasing at the time that I never got around to buying it. PS2 was on fire around that time.
 

Sesha

Member
RIP Silent Hills, Revengeance 2 and hope for ZoE3. Especially Silent Hills. A new big budget horror title produced by Kojima and Del Toro was too good to be true, especially going by Del Toro's luck with a lot of projects he's involved with.
 
A theory I have is that maybe Kojima will turn Kojima Productions into an independent studio and then just rebrand Silent Hills into a new IP [He could call it "Scary Town" for all I care]. Then, he would have a brand new horror franchise to foster.

278118624_ae74aa8cd6.jpg



Surely they're gonna finish Silent Hills though? It must be a fair way into development.
 

Zophar

Member
Kojima can only benefit from leaving Konami. He's been tied to a floundering whale for a decade, at least.

If Konami has any sense left they'll take this as a soul-searching moment, and turn the MGS money hog into an opportunity to reinvigorate their legacy IPs. There's no reason why we can't have Gradius, Contra, or countless other arcade franchises come back into the limelight when indies are thriving on digital distribution and handhelds/mobile are as strong as they are.
 
Nothing I can say that hasn't been said before but...

1. I'm glad he is now free from Konami, even though this probably hurts greatly for Kojima, there is no way he won't be able to make new games if he wants to.

2. I am sad to see all the work Kojima Productions has put into the FOX engine likely go to waste after MGSV, and this move by Konami will likely equate to a liqidation of most staff, leaving only a skeleton behind. This is the worst thing about all of this, that the majority of the staff are likely to be left out in the cold after this. They are letting the lifeblood of the studio get drained from KojiPro's corpse, hopefully most of the staff who will be dropped will be picked up by Kojima in his possible future endeavor's.

3. Silent Hills is dead I guess. That really sucks, was looking forward to it since it was finally a new project besides Metal Gear for Kojima. Konami will probably try to salvage development, but the damage is done, it will never live up to its original promise.

4. Finally, I just have to wonder... What the hell could have caused such a massive breakdown of relations? Was Konami betting literally everything on making MGS games indefinitely, and were pissed when Kojima outright refused to agree to making any more after V? Why censor his name and influence from MGSV now? Why cut all ties? Surely they could have handled this better, there must have been some way they could have agreed to take the reins on KojiPro without such a massive liquidation. I just wonder what made them decide that burning all of their bridges with Kojima was the best course of action when they could have still left him work on Silent Hills.

5. Konami is dead. It's funny, now that Square-Enix looks more self-aware of their issues than ever, and seemingly are working hard to attempt to right them, Konami is cannibalizing itself. Other companies like Namco, Falcom, and Atlus/SEGA, seem to be keeping their cool, but Konami looks about ready to drop, hard. Even Capcom seems to be making changes, with the success of Resident Evil HD and Revelations 2, I'd say Capcom is turning their brand around from the brink, and RE7 may actually be an excellent new entry in the series without them having to break the bank to make it. That brings me to my last thought on this whole situation.

6. This really is about Kojima spending too much money making MGSV, isn't it? He's just about had complete creative freedom on this game, even saying that in order to reach the game's true vision, he had to drastically expand KojiPro and create a "western style" graphics engine (FOX) and work environment. Konami probably wanted this game out last year, and Kojima had to appease the shareholders with a stop gap Metal Gear (Ground Zeroes) in order to earn some of this game's budget back. Kojima is almost certainly uncaring about profits with this last game and just wants to make it the best and last Metal Gear ever made, but Konami has probably calculated that any more expansive feature additions in the last 4-5 months of development before the crunch to making the game "gold" would cause the actual profit they pull in for this game to not be worth the time and money it has cost them so far. Therefore, Konami has seemingly made the decision to isolate Kojima and force him to finish the game quickly in order to start collecting revenue to pay for this game's development cost. I'm not saying that the game won't be profitable, I'm saying that Konami is worried it won't be profitable enough, and are thus making a terribly rash decision in order to get this game done cheaply.

I think Miyamoto said it best with:
“I have explained—in regard to entertainment in general—that if development of products that thrive on creative uniqueness is dictated by those who prioritize sales and profits, the possibilities for the future of entertainment will be limited,”

Konami, in an attempt to stave off literal bankruptcy, has now cut off their last creative asset, and are creatively bankrupt after MGSV. Whether they last only a few more years before literal bankruptcy or several, they are on a road that leads only to destruction. I only hope that when they do die, they sell off their IPs like THQ did, and Silent Hill, Castlevania and Metal Gear can all find proper homes somewhere else.
 

Assault

Member
What's happened has happened, what I don't understand is them taking off Kojima's (and his studio's) name off the fucking promo material. That's some sick shit right there/
 

UrbanRats

Member
A theory I have is that maybe Kojima will turn Kojima Productions into an independent studio and then just rebrand Silent Hills into a new IP [He could call it "Scary Town" for all I care]. Then, he would have a brand new horror franchise to foster.

You seem to think Kojima gets to take Fox Engine with him?
 
I'm very ambivalent about TPP right now.
It's the game I'm the most looking forward to this year (a year full of games I've been waiting for), it's a Kojima game but at the same time, it will feel weird to reward Konami.
 
Nintendo's other hallmark is extremely well designed and polished core gameplay systems with an extremely high level of ingenuity and creativity...which is also a pretty good description of Metal Gear.

Kojima doesn't really need anyone to guide him in that regard, and it's probably exactly what he wants the least at this point. All he needs in a publisher is someone who will open up their wallet and use their distribution. Plenty of pubs can do that as well as Nintendo and also have the added benefit of being multiplatform and not locking his games to platforms that may sell badly or not have the userbase to support his games.
 

N30RYU

Member
"You are nobody's tool now... No one's toy
It's time for you to see the outside world with your own eyes

This is good... Isn't it?".
 

entremet

Member
Kojima has done fantastic things with low-budget and non-AAA genres. Metal Gear is far from his only trick.

I was talking to the poster who was expecting more big budget projects. I honestly think he's tired of them just by gauging his desires in interviews.

I would like to see some smaller games from him as he transitions.
 

Alienous

Member
So they probably tried to downsize his team and Kojima was like "fuck this", right?

That's making the most sense to me. "The content for your game is already done, let's do some lay-offs", "Fuck that".
 

nib95

Banned
Whilst it's depressing knowing MGSV might be the last game in the franchise, at the same time I'd love to see what new things he can come up with, in what should inevitably be a new development studio, presumably his own.
 

op_ivy

Fallen Xbot (cannot continue gaining levels in this class)
holy molly. i'm sure kojima, and other talent will land on their feet, but what on earth is konami thinking with this battle that they are set to lose out on?

crazy story.
 
Would be crazy if Sony didn't scoop him up.

Do you think that Sony would give him the creative freedom he desires and needs?

I wouldn't be surprised if they did try. But honestly big budget games are huge gambles and MGS franchise was one thing but starting from scratch with an unknown IP is a really huge bet.
 

Jarmel

Banned
Would be crazy if Sony didn't scoop him up.
I imagine Microsoft is probably going make the hardest push. They would get Japanese credibility (not that it matters much) and a developer who not only sells shitloads of games but can also help develop their own internal engines.
 

Yoshi

Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt
Let me repost what i just said in the community thread.


It's not about that, the thing that gets me worked up is that MGSV is not a Kojima Productions game anymore, it's a Konami game.

All their hard work over 5 years, creating a brand new engine and then they don't even get mentioned. So fucking disrespectful.

Erasing Kojima's name of all past games and press releases and marketing stuff is a really aggressive move to get rid of someone who created this legendary series and basically feed their mouths.

Kojima and his Metal Gear series is what made Konami relevant in this industry, without KojiPro they would be NOTHING. And this is how they thank him for that? unfuckingbelievable.
While I agree this move seems super-shady, Konami was big before MGS, the ISS series for instance was quite huge...
 

Haunted

Member
I actually can't believe it.

They pulled a Capcom. Ueda 2.0.

So many high profile Japanese developers who left their companies during the last couple years. Unbelievable.



youdonefuckedup.gif
 
What a needless, sad and pathetic way to end the person's job who basically made you what you are.

It's not especially Kojima but no one, whether games industry or elsewhere deserves to be "wiped out" retroactively like this.

Such a shame. I am sure Kojima will land on his feet but probably not everyone who will go will.

And no matter what Konami does, Metal Gear Solid will never be the same without Kojima.

What a shame. A shame that Konami does this.
 
I imagine Microsoft is probably going make the hardest push. They would get Japanese credibility (not that it matters much) and a developer who not only sells shitloads of games but can also help develop their own internal engines.

MS are quite happy using UE4 I would expect given that they are heavily relying on it for both internal and partner studios development. I can't see him ever rocking up as MS though, he will either start a new studio and get a publisher or go to Sony imo, I'm sure they would move heaven and earth to have him.
 
Kojima's probably worked himself to exhaustion, so snatching him up now when he'd have to start fresh with a new IP isn't exactly a sure-fire win for a publisher. I wouldn't be surprised if he just did some smaller narrative driven games for a while before trying to tackle this stuff again.
 

Sorcerer

Member
I wonder if Kojima possibly finished up work on Phantom and was told by Konami that his next game would be another Metal Gear?

Possibly pulling him off Silent Hills?

I hope Kojima will be okay of course, but I am glad he is free of Konami.
 

Smellycat

Member
Kojima probably wanted to break free from MGS, Konami wouldn't have any of it. So, Kojima left.

This is crazy though, end of an era. Konami now has nothing left. They killed all of their franchises, and now the guy behind their cash cow is leaving.
 
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