Kojima leaving Konami after MGSV due to internal fallout / Reduction in KojiPro Senior Staff (Rebranding)

[Gabz Girl]

Damn...well I hope Hideo Kojima can start a new team (or join one) and continue making great games while Konami rot in hell. Removing A Hideo Kojima game from everything MGSV related is unforgivable IMO

[Blacklightning]

Other than maybe MGR.

And even that had to be outsourced to Platnium in order to actually finish it. So either way I don't have high hopes either.

[Balding Spider]

Just got back, and heard about this. Guess I better update my list of Dead fun Konami IP's

 

Bomberman- Dead

Mystic Ninja- Dead

Z.O.E- (Fucking) Dead

Silent Hill- (probably) Dead

Castlevania Dead (To me anyway, the new LOS stuff bores me)

Contra- Dead

Gradius- Dead

MG- Near Death

 

Well at least we've got Yugioh.... I'll see myself out.

[Agie]

If I'm not mistaken, he's been wanting to be done with MGS for a while now.

 

I do wonder if the new blood will be able to produce anything good. Still, best regards to Kojima, wherever he goes.

[error1]

Kojima will be missed. Im glad to see that he will finally be able to create other games besides Metal gear.

It's too bad Konami has lost a lot of their talent throughout the years.

[Mauro Fonseca]

Finding the complaints that Kojima'd be ill-suited at Nintendo at a time when Nintendo is expanding their repertoire of game styles a bit silly, tbh, as do the claims he wouldn't fit because Nintendo focuses on gameplay (one of his objectives with MGS V was undo the separation of gameplay/story that he accidentally created in the, as Sami coined it, Playstation game culture) or because he likes to be experimental with hardware (it doesn't mean exclusively experimental with better graphics- he did things like Boktai too, you know? I'd actually be pretty interested in seeing him with the gamepad or the NFC at his disposal). Not to mention the implication that Nintendo'd force him not to be himself, should they hire him.

 

Not that I'd actually want Kojima in Nintendo, mind. I'm hoping for an independent Kojima Pro company.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

And once again, another example of the AAA industry doing stupid shit.

 

Although considering how pigeonholed Kojima was in the Metal Gear franchise, this might actually work in his favor and everyone elses. He'll finally get a chance to create new ideas that he's been held back from doing. It must be frustrating at first, but like a phoenix from the ashes, he can be reborn anew!

 

Also, regarding Kojima going to Nintendo? Now I like Nintendo a lot, but I'm getting really wary of how long this Nintendo-bias has lingered over a lot of things. If he decides to join them, good for him, it's his choice. But Kojima has been recognized more on Playstation, so wouldn't it be more believable that he'd be more aligned with them first?

[Mauro Fonseca]

Sure, though again, I'd rather he go independent. Was just pointing out the idea of a Nintendo-Kojima isn't as absurd as it was being painted.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

I'd say going independent would be more risky were it not Kojima having such a big name in the industry. Granted, it looks more likely than him joining Nintendo, but knowing Kojima you never really know what he has in mind.

[Mauro Fonseca]

>tfw in an upset similar to Atlus he joins SEGA

 

I'd be laughing for weeks

[Solly]

Well, they're looking for someone new to do Metal Gear already.

 

If getting a chance to work on on Metal Gear weren't an amazing opportunity for any game designer, this would almost be a tough sell. Part of the reason Kojima left was over disputes of having his name front and center instead of Konami's, so any potential devs who come in will know that credit for anything they create will go to the company at large over them. They're basically saying that anyone who works on their franchises isn't allowed to be as well known or influential as a designer as Kojima was, because it's a problem for them. 

 

But hey, I'm sure they'll treat the franchise right. Just like they did with Silent Hill. Or Castlevania. Or Hudsonsoft. 

[Dobkeratops]

Konami pretty much lives on Metal Gear so with these mismanagements I fully expect them to go under relatively soon. Maybe now their IPs will go to someone that can use them well (or at all in some cases).

 

But hey, I'm sure they'll treat the franchise right. Just like they did with Silent Hill. Or Castlevania. Or Hudsonsoft. 

 

tbh the first Lords of Shadow was a pretty good game and it existed on a separate canon so it doesn't really fuck up the Iga timelines.

 

 

[Patticus]

The man has wanted to stop doing MGS since before 4, not wanting to be a one trick pony the rest of his life, mostly remembered only for one thing. I remember back when he mentioned MGS4 being the final MGS, he got so many death threats he decided to stay in the game for a while.

I really hope that Silent Hills can be salvaged and made great, though. Surely he could be brought back in as an outside consultant?

[Gabz Girl]

Oh great, so they're thinking of continuing MGS games without Kojima then? Unless they find someone as competent (yea right) there's no way in hell they will succeed without him at the helm. It will go down the same path as Bomberman, Castlevania, Contra and more. .-.

[Polkadi~☆]

Sigh...

*saves up to pre-order MGSV*

Here's to you Kojima. You live on, not as the guy who made Metal Gear games, but as a man who introduced cinematic experiences into gaming.

[Sami]

Finding the complaints that Kojima'd be ill-suited at Nintendo at a time when Nintendo is expanding their repertoire of game styles a bit silly, tbh, as do the claims he wouldn't fit because Nintendo focuses on gameplay (one of his objectives with MGS V was undo the separation of gameplay/story that he accidentally created in the, as Sami coined it, Playstation game culture) or because he likes to be experimental with hardware (it doesn't mean exclusively experimental with better graphics- he did things like Boktai too, you know? I'd actually be pretty interested in seeing him with the gamepad or the NFC at his disposal). Not to mention the implication that Nintendo'd force him not to be himself, should they hire him.

Not that I'd actually want Kojima in Nintendo, mind. I'm hoping for an independent Kojima Pro company.

I haven't seen very much evidence of Nintendo letting their teams do whatever they want whenever they want in the same way Sony does with stuff like Puppeteer, Tokyo Jungle, The Last of Us, and Insomniac doubling their output with both R&C and a brand new IP they wanted to make with Resistance. They were heavily involved in Metroid Prime and Xenoblade's development, both by studios they acquired. I'd be happy to be proven wrong but Nintendo has, to my knowledge, never been a hands off company when it comes to acquisitions.

Kojima's best games are all seen as PlayStation classics and the biggest MGS collection was exclusive to PS3. Hell, even last year's P.T. was a PS4 exclusive.

I'm not saying he couldn't do it - anyone would be smart to try to hire one of the most iconic visionaries in the history of the industry, including Nintendo, but the immediate response of "get on it Nintendo" just strikes me as hilarious when Nintendo's corporate culture is the antithesis to everything Kojima has ever made as a creator. Not to mention the fact that the Wii U/Nintendo audience is the least likely to give a shit about the label "A HIDEO KOJIMA GAME" seeing as how the only real association he's had with the company in the past was a spin-off he didn't touch on the Game Boy and a shitty remake he didn't touch on the GameCube.

Best case scenario is that he has the resources to make the huge, revolutionary games he's been known to make for over a decade now both in terms of money and technology. His games sell and review phenomenally so any Japanese company interested in the AAA pie would be fucking moronic not to try and hire him.

Oh great, so they're thinking of continuing MGS games without Kojima then? Unless they find someone as competent (yea right) there's no way in hell they will succeed without him at the helm. It will go down the same path as Bomberman, Castlevania, Contra and more. .-.

This was obvious from the beginning. I'm honestly surprised people didn't fully expect this. They've been trying (and failing) to pass the torch for years now.

[Wraith]

I'm surprised they're trying to put together MGS team so early though. It feels like they're doing it out of spite and not because they have any real plan for the series. Typical of Konami

[Sami]

I'm surprised they're trying to put together MGS team so early though. It feels like they're doing it out of spite and not because they have any real plan for the series. Typical of Konami

Not really. It's their biggest franchise, they'd be kind of dumb not to.

I'm honestly completely unironically fucking disgusted by the removal of "A HIDEO KOJIMA GAME" from MGSV promotional materials and the power struggle that spurred this whole thing. Those are the real crimes. Working fast to get a new team on the series is just business.

[Solly]

tbh the first Lords of Shadow was a pretty good game and it existed on a separate canon so it doesn't really fuck up the Iga timelines.

The issue isn't so much the canon as it is the way the 'Lords' franchise became the only Castlevania they wanted to make. I agree that the first game wasn't as bad as people say, but it was still the death of Castlevania as we know it, and I genuinely don't think we'll be seeing much more from the franchise in the near future. 

 

I'm surprised they're trying to put together MGS team so early though. It feels like they're doing it out of spite and not because they have any real plan for the series. Typical of Konami

It's not so much spite, as it is they're desperate to prove that, yes, they do plan on continuing the franchise without Kojima. 

 

It still feels wrong, though. The series is practically his child, and they lost amazing talent by trying to remove his name from it.

[Sami]

I'd be surprised to see Konami try to stay relevant in the gaming space at all after the next Metal Gear falls flat on its face tbh. Which it will.

[Gabz Girl]

The issue isn't so much the canon as it is the way the 'Lords' franchise became the only Castlevania they wanted to make. I agree that the first game wasn't as bad as people say, but it was still the death of Castlevania as we know it, and I genuinely don't think we'll be seeing much more from the franchise in the near future. 

 

It's only because of LoS2 that we won't see any more Castlevania games in the foreseeable future. Compared to the first LoS it was a bomb both critically and financially, but no wonder! Konami didn't market the game at all. So stupid.

 

I'm honestly completely unironically fucking disgusted by the removal of "A HIDEO KOJIMA GAME" from MGSV promotional materials and the power struggle that spurred this whole thing. Those are the real crimes. Working fast to get a new team on the series is just business.

 

Yup. What frustrates me more than Kojima leaving Konami after MGSV, is them removing any traces of A HIDEO KOJIMA GAME from the game and promotional stuff. I find it rude and disrespectful, especially since Kojima must have worked really hard on it.

[Candescence]

I haven't seen very much evidence of Nintendo letting their teams do whatever they want whenever they want in the same way Sony does with stuff like Puppeteer, Tokyo Jungle, The Last of Us, and Insomniac doubling their output with both R&C and a brand new IP they wanted to make with Resistance. They were heavily involved in Metroid Prime and Xenoblade's development, both by studios they acquired. I'd be happy to be proven wrong but Nintendo has, to my knowledge, never been a hands off company when it comes to acquisitions.

 

From what I can tell, for the most part, the 'hands-on approach' tends to vary in amount depending on the project - the first Prime was under Miyamoto's supervision since Retro was, at the time, a collection of unproven talent, and even he provided suggestions for features that basically made the game a lot better. Nintendo is hardly unaccommodating of story-heavy games, as the existence of Fire Emblem and Xenoblade will attest, and would probably accommodate Kojima for whatever project he wanted to make, though they'd probably ask him to cut down on the cutscenes just a little. Granted, I swear Kojima also said at one point after MGS4's release that games should focus more on presenting story via gameplay, which is incredibly weird considering his output even today.

 

Nintendo does seem to be slowly diversifying from its usual thing, and it seems to be making more new IPs these days, what with the likes of Splatoon, Wonderful 101 and Project STEAM.

 

 

 

The issue isn't so much the canon as it is the way the 'Lords' franchise became the only Castlevania they wanted to make. I agree that the first game wasn't as bad as people say, but it was still the death of Castlevania as we know it, and I genuinely don't think we'll be seeing much more from the franchise in the near future. 

 

Not to mention LoS2 was hot garbage, really, and basically ruined the whole Lords of Shadow thing in any case, though Mercurysteam has said they wanted to get off the Castlevania train and work on something else, so CV is dead anyway.

 

Just watch Mercurysteam turn Contra into a third person cover shooter. Ugh.

[Salamander]

The issue isn't so much the canon as it is the way the 'Lords' franchise became the only Castlevania they wanted to make. I agree that the first game wasn't as bad as people say, but it was still the death of Castlevania as we know it, and I genuinely don't think we'll be seeing much more from the franchise in the near future.

 

Pretty much; LoS wasn't intended as a parallel series, it was intended as a replacement, and now that it's flopped there's nowhere left to go.  It was fairly obvious that Konami had been cutting the Castlevania budget for years, eating into development and distribution, so that they could use poor sales to justify (speculation) taking IGA off the series and sticking him at a desk to make mobile shovelware (fact).  The next thing they did with the series was, what a surprise, a gritty AAA reboot outsourced to an obscure western developer, which almost immediately tied itself up so it couldn't be continued and crashed while it was at it.  The reboot games' Konami producer, Dave Cox, also recently left the company.  Dead end.

[Solly]

It's only because of LoS2 that we won't see any more Castlevania games in the foreseeable future. Compared to the first LoS it was a bomb both critically and financially, but no wonder! Konami didn't market the game at all. So stupid.

I completely agree that LoS2 was the final nail in the coffin, but when I say that LoS1 was the death of the series as we know it, I mean that their apparent need to transform the franchise into a AAA God of War killer was what put them on this path. 

 

Not every franchise needs to dream that big. Lords of Shadows 2 was a complete dud, but I think, by that point, Konami had already decided that appealing to their smaller, core audience with less expensive titles was no longer a worthy pursuit.  

Not to mention LoS2 was hot garbage, really, and basically ruined the whole Lords of Shadow thing even if Mercurysteam has said they wanted to get off the Castlevania train and work on something else, so CV is dead in any case.

 

Just watch Mercurysteam Contra into a third person cover shooter. Ugh.

I knew they wanted off, but I had no idea they had their sights set on Contra. wow. 

[Sami]

From what I can tell, for the most part, the 'hands-on approach' tends to vary in amount depending on the project - the first Prime was under Miyamoto's supervision since Retro was, at the time, a collection of unproven talent, and even he provided suggestions for features that basically made the game a lot better. Nintendo is hardly unaccommodating of story-heavy games, as the existence of Fire Emblem and Xenoblade will attest, and would probably accommodate Kojima for whatever project he wanted to make, though they'd probably ask him to cut down on the cutscenes just a little. Granted, I swear Kojima also said at one point after MGS4's release that games should focus more on presenting story via gameplay, which is incredibly weird considering his output even today.

 

Nintendo does seem to be slowly diversifying from its usual thing, and it seems to be making more new IPs these days, what with the likes of Splatoon, Wonderful 101 and Project STEAM.

 

That's true. 

 

To be clear, I'm not saying Nintendo is going to crush his spirit and clamp down on his style or whatever. They'll surely accommodate him like you say, I don't doubt that. It's just that if it's going to be any of the Big 3, Nintendo makes far less sense than Sony when you factor in everything else. Kojima has a better working relationship with Sony (as in a very good one rather than one that at best has barely existed for years now), there's tons of overlap between his own fanbase and the PlayStation audience, and his signature style fits Sony's own to a tee - very much because he was a major factor in the creation of that style to begin with. Not to mention Sony has a lot more to offer in the way of money and technology, both of which he's known to take heavily advantage of with his biggest games.

 

The more people that get to play his games the better, but really if it comes down to any of the Big 3 Sony's just the most obvious choice. He's got way more history with them and they're very much known to let their developers do whatever the fuck they want so long it makes a decent amount of money in the end. They're also in desperate need of competent Japanese AAA developers right now and Hideo would be a MASSIVE asset to Sony Japan Studios.