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INTEREST: Metal Gear Solid Composer Talks Konami Fall Out

While I still think that what Konami has been doing is petty, and just wrong, I do agree that Kojima shouldn't have been so lax about spending or delays. I know he wants to be a great game, and that's fine, however there needs to be some restraint so I understand where Konami is coming from.

Sony has allowed Team Ico to develop 'The Last Guardian' for over 10 years so i suspect there is some of the 'respectful' Japanese business culture going on here.

Kojima seems like an artist first and a businessperson last. Konami likely had other aspirations for their business that didn't match with Kojima and it caused internal strife.

I love what Kojima has done in the past, but his projects did seem to get increasingly out of hand. The latest Metal Gear solid games have not interested me at all because they seem so crazy uninteresting compared to the previous games that were crazy intriguing.

and Konami's expense.

Well the lesson here is that sometimes it's better not to pull an opinion out of your arse just for the sake of having an answer to a question you know nothing about.

Except that Kojima wanted to quit after the last few games, but Konami basically kept forcing him to come back.

Lemonchest wrote:

Well the lesson here is that sometimes it's better not to pull an opinion out of your arse just for the sake of having an answer to a question you know nothing about.

Irony strikes when you least expect it.

CrownKlown wrote:

Except that Kojima wanted to quit after the last few games, but Konami basically kept forcing him to come back.

That's the story we keep hearing, but people don't always tell the truth or the full story. If Kojima wanted to stop making Metal Gear games he could have long since retired or left for another company if Konami refused to allow him to work on different franchises. Before this situation became public, Kojima was working ona Silent Hill game, so we do not know what the deal was between Konami and Kojima when it came to creative freedom.

Before rumors get out of hand. There is absolutely no evidence that Kojima was wastefully spending things or badly managing MGSV's development.

That MGSV would be a more expensive endeavour is due to FOX Engine Development which is something Konami greenlit long ago with the intention of developing FOX up front and getting it right before using it on every project going forward, before Konami 180'ed and now seems to be focusing more on mobile, which FOX was also developed to support.

Even Muranaka has come out to clarify what she meant in the interview which was just speculation on her part and her experiences working with Kojima on MGS1-3. She had no further involvement with Konami past MGS3.



That said, the first initial failure of metal Gear RISING that was by Shigenobu Matsuyama while Kojima was working on Peace Walker, which then had to be given to Platinum Games as well as MGSV's and subsequently FOX Engine's long dev time could've played a part given the necessity of Ground Zero's release as a very short demo for which Kojima mentioned its sales would be used to measure how much longer MGSVTPP would spend in development.

If anything getting FOX Engine right would've been a necessity for Kojima, and unlike typical Japanese habits of creating new engines from scratch or having multiple engines amongst multiple teams, Kojima was trying to reduce this wasteful time and expense by having one solidified in-house engine like Western developers do, something even Square Enix and Capcom have attempted with Crystal Tools/Luminous and Phanta Rei. But given the problems Square Enix went through with Crystal Tools, Kojima undoubtedly wanted to avoid those pitfalls with FOX, which might've necessitated more time and effort which is something the suits at Konami might've come to blows with.

But if anything given that Kojima is heavily into also merchandising MGS, and re-releases of the MGS and ZOE HD collections etc. there has always been a source of money coming in that made MGS profitable. So it's doubtful that concerns about profit were the only thing that occurred between the Konami/Kojima fallout that all looks to have taken place very recently and abruptly. Considering MGS is Konami's one and only big tentpole that gets its own financial section all to itself in fiscal reports, worries about expenses don't add up. Though no doubt some suits are arguing that the money is better spent on more mobile investment for higher returns at cheaper sums.