It's Official, Hideo Kojima Has Parted Ways With Konami

huh

i finished mgs 5 yesterday. they really deleted a very important mission because apparently konami didnt want to give the developers more time to finish it. game is still mindblowing and i love it.

thanks for the awesome games, kojima. wondering what you will do now without konami and metal gear...

I thought he left a long time ago...

Wouldn't it be great if Nintendo snapped up all these developers and gave them free reign to make new IPs or revitalize some dormant ones (F-Zero).

Meanwhile at Konami

Actually, Metal Gear Solid on Playstation 1 was the game who made millions of people fall in love with MG series and brought it to the cult status it has nowadays. Nothing compares to what MGS on PS1 did to the franchise.

Metal Gear Mario coming 2017

@mariovslink62 lol. That was hilarious.

Y'know what? I'm glad for him. Konami just doesn't deserve him.

@Aromaiden It's the truth. I hope Konami becomes the new Sega. They've been jerks to everyone at their office.

A Hideo Kojima Game: Metroid

Here's to you, Hideo Kojima.
Rest forever here in our hearts.
Your last and final moment is yours.
That agony is your triumph...

@thejfh1999 It's going into the Pachinko halls, like the other Konami IPs.

Known news mad official. WOuld be nice to see Nintendo hire him, but I'm sure Sony will offer him a bigger contract, or he'll go Indy.

7 let's hope he makes more games. I hope konami doesn't make a dime off of any of their crappy pachinko or mobile games.

@gsills222

Hell yeah. I'd buy three

Konami really is a disaster these days... Remeber when they made games and not crappy Pachinko machines?

Funny thing is that Konami didn't remove Kojima's name from MGS5 and the website because he announced his departure to them, but because Konami didn't like how his games were "Kojima titles" instead of "Konami titles". They wanted to hoard all that fame for themselves and control Kojima more strictly as a marketing tool.
Oh well, I guess he's gonna kick back for a bit now, and then he'll either join a different company (Capcom or NamcoBandai would probably fit his ambitions the best), or go the "fundraising with my name of fame" route and do his own thing later down the line.

@Luna_110 Well, to Konami's defense, they always were in the pachinko business, it's just that their decision to make a Castlevania pachislot (with lots of tits!) bloated the whole deal a tad out of proportion, though it doesn't make it better for Castlevania...

@Damien You forgot to add Metal Gear: Ghost Babel. A game that still to date isn't on VC yet!!!!!!!

But didn't the article state that he has two months left before he can work on another game company/ retire?

@mariovslink62 That was certainly NSFW, but I can't stop laughing at that gif... if I wasn't in the library I would burst out laughing. Especially at the very last part. XD

"GameCube exclusive Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes took the 1998 PlayStation classic and made it even better."

i highly doubt that. while the visuals are better of course, they changed some cutscenes and i really dont like that with remakes

@thejfh1999 Kojima actually wanted MGS4 to be the last one ever.

I wish him well and have a great deal of respect for him even though I admit I could never really get into any of the games he made. Tried MGS1 and 2 but couldn't finish either,

And I too wish the glory days of Konami were still upon us. This past weekend I was replaying Symphony of the Night on my PSP. What a great time that was.

Oh no! Does this mean he won't make games for Nintendo anymore?! This is news for the PlayStation website.

Konami: A Pachinko company.

@mariovslink62 - You win the internet for today, friend.

Meh, some other company will offer him a billion and a spiritual successor to all his games will happen.

Please be Nintendo......

Was obvious for a couple months now but yeah. Konami, you are a disaster and I won't buy from you again.

@readyletsgo
Kojima is a very expensive developer, which is partly to blame for him being given the boot at Konami.

MGSV is said to cost ~$100M in just development budget alone. Even more if you add the marketing and distribution costs in too.

Kojima is said to be very talented but ver demanding developer to work with.

Expect... Steel Cog Hard on Kickstarter on a few months, from Kojima's new company "Kojami", with a logo stylized like Konami's own except with a fennec fox on top of it.

Nintendo needs to approach him with an offer as soon as possible.

I will forever curse Konami's name for cancelling Silent Hills. shakes fist at the sky

@Bryon15
He wouldn't want to work for Nintendo, because Nintendo would force him to stay on schedule and wouldn't give him the massive budgets he's used to working with.

Dang, that Konami/pachinko joke has been beaten to death. :finnadie:

Good luck to him for whatever is next for him.

@Xenocity
It was $80mil. according to reports, that's the last and only solid (no pun intended) number and definitely not massive budget for a AAA game. Marketing is usually included in the development costs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_video_games_to_develop

It more likely has to do with Konami's focus on mobile games. $80mil. isn't expensive for a AAA game, but it is if you compare it to the budget and potential profit for other models. $80mil. could make a lot of mobile games or panchiko machines.

Finally. Good for him.

@Zombie_Barioth
$80M is a lot for most developers not named EA, Ubisoft and Activision.
But to be fair most 3rd parties are quite inefficient when developing games.

The $80M figure was just development costs not marketing costs.
It was said Kojima asked for more money and time to finish MGSV and Konami's management had enough of it.

Anyway this constant rising of development costs is hurting the industry as a whole. This "arms" race lead to the bankruptcy of many studios last gen.

Zelda U is set be Nintendo's most expensive game on record and that might end up hitting the $5M mark.

Though to be fair Nintendo doesn't make AAA games.

After that fanfic-tier ending, I'm glad he was fired. While that was the most egregious problem with MGSV, some other lousy aspects of it prove Kojima truly is the George Lucas of gaming: he doesn't understand what made Metal Gear good.

I couldn't care less what his next move is. In fact, I'd welcome Konami giving a new director a shot to remake the original Metal Gear, with a young Solid Snake kicking ass vs. some, y'know, actual bosses with personality.

I just hope that signals the end of Metal Gear Solid.

@Xenocity I dunno where you pulled that number from, but I can guarantee you that Zelda Wii U will cost Nintendo a wee bit more than $5 million. More like $50 million, at least. You do realise there isn't a set definition of what constitutes a 'AAA' game, do you?

@Xenocity Nintendo does make AAA games. Even if they don't have a massive budget, they take years to make with some of the industry's best game designers.

Speaking of that, isn't Kojima best friends with Sakurai? He might want to work at Nintendo so he could be with his pal.

FINALLY! Kojima vowed he would ditch these suckers over 10 years ago, and he finally got around to doing it. The time was right. Konami is not what they used to be, they're no longer tolerable to work for. Hopefully, everyone else will follow suit, so Konami can be forced to sell off their IP's to people who will actually do something with them!

Also... No. Just, no. Almost no one cared about the original Metal Gear titles. Metal Gear Solid is where almost everyone got their starting point and lasting impressions of Snake and crew.

Nintendo should secure Kojima with an exclusive game development deal!
That would be a great way to get the ball rolling on the NX!

@amiiboacid
AAA designation is based on budget, development staff, marketing budget, and resources put into the game.

No Nintendo games fits the AAA designation these days.
Most Nintendo games struggle to hit AA status.

Well, i wish him the best of luck. This guy needs a business partner with lots of cash and who is willing to give him his needed freedom and he can start to create wonders again

Still, MGS V remains my biggest disappointment of the year and ranks rather high on the list of my least liked games in recent years, ill miss the series non the less, even though it endet on a sour note for me.

And Konami probably still thinks they can continue it without Kojima
These fools.

Well, my best wishes Mr. Kojima. And to the folks back at Konami: Get out of there as long as you can, that boats gonna sink like a lead weight.

@Technosphile The game is unfinished actually. There's supposed to be essentially a chapter 3 that was never released or finished because Konami wouldn't give Kojima enough time to finish the game. It needed to be delayed until the end of the year, if not early next year. That's why the story had a bad ending.

That's why Phantom Pain has those problems. Konami, not Kojima.

i wish him the best...Metal Gear Solid was the reason i got a playstation...Metal Gear is one of my favorite video game franchises of all time plus im one of the few that loved the original Zone of Enders and no i didnt just buy it for the MGS2 demo! LOL!

@WaveGhoul OMG that is an arcade CLASSIC!!!

I hope kojima works with Nintendo on a new IP or one of Nintendo's existing IP's.

@Xenocity AAA games were originally just used to classify games based on their reviews and sales. A good classification of this is selling over a million sales and getting at least an 80/100. Most Nintendo games in recent years fulfil both those categories, the only one I can think of that isn't is Mario Party 10. Saying no Nintendo games go into that category, and struggle to achieve the category before it is inaccurate.

@IceClimbers Konami forced him to write the worst ending in video game history? Yeah, okay bro. What I'm talking about has nothing to do with Eli or the unfinished chapter. Konami brass probably saw what his method was going to be of retconning the equally stupid ending to MGS4, and just how it was that Big Boss never had a mechanical hand before, and that was the last straw.

I guarantee I know more about Metal Gear than you.

Nintendo...time to open those checkbooks and reel him in. Imagine if they gave him full creative freedom and a large budget to revive a dormant franchise?

I can dream...right?

I wish you the bueno fortuna on your next game, ay, ragazzo.

@amiiboacid
Times changed and so did the definitions.
Right now no Nintendo game meets the current definition of AAA.
It meets the definition of the other AAA definition, but gamers care more about the former than the latter.

@Xenocity So gamers only care about the games cost than the care to make?

I read an article on it and it said an example of AAA+ games were mario and zelda

@amiiboacid
Games that cost less to make are viewed as "cheap" in the eyes of "hardcore" gamers.
It shows the developer didn't care enough to go all out for them.
This is why a lot of developers are in an "arms" race to win sales.

@Xenocity Nintendo is still an extremely efficient company. In budget and data space

I'm hoping Nintendo snatches him up and has him work on Metroid games. Perhaps with a PT feel?

This is a good move for him, and I'm proud of him for finally getting around to it.

Funny everyone keeps saying he should join Nintendo. That might actually be a good idea, since he already has close connections to them, being close pals with Sakurai and all.

@Xenocity I think there's only 3 company does who could actually afford to let him make a game Nintendo, Microsoft and maybe Activision (not adding Sony to that list as they can't really afford it at the moment)

@BaffleBlend
I joked about a spiritual successor to MGS in my other comment, but holy smokes, yes. Just imagine MGS's storytelling combined with the amount of stuff Sakurai crams in the games he develops. A dream team indeed!

Maybe now Kojima could get back to work on that game that's not called "Silent Hills" but is 100% like it and will sell for squillions

Ummmm, Konami are saying he's on vacation. I know we know this is probably a load of rubbish but still, headline is not accurate as it's being refuted.

This guy and Eiji Aonuma are the same age. Yet Aonuma's hair has turned completely grey from Miyamoto upending his tea tables so many times.

I think what would be best for Kojima is for him to become and independent freelance developer. It would give him some freedom with what he wanted to do but still work with big-name companies like Nintendo or Capcom. Masahiro Sakurai took the same route when he left HAL, and that has worked well for him. I certainly hope Kojima goes on to develope more games, especially if it's a new concept. To be honest I think there is too many of those Kickstarter "spiritual successor" games like Uka-Laylee and Mighty No. 9. I think it'd be underwhelming to see someone as talented as Kojima go on to just make a successor to Metal Gear Solid.

There's no way Kojima would go to work for Nintendo - at his career stage, he doesn't need to. He'll start his own studio and sell his work to the highest bidder -which will be Sony or Microsoft - and receive silly funding offers for exclusivity.

As mentioned by some, Nintendo do not have the development budgets to entice him.

Nor (currently) the user base required to profit from production of a $50m+ cinematic opus - (They would end up with their very own Shenmue scenario).

Nor (currently) the tech necessary to host a product of Kojima's ambition.

It would take a king's ransom and the pitch of NX's life to even turn Kojima's head - but then...

His work would be locked into Nintendo exclusivity with no guarantees yet that NX will turn around the company's fortunes and become a dominant market player like Wii. Halfway through the NX's lifecycle, rival consoles will release with improved, market leading specs forcing him to work with inferior tech. His games would never reach the hundreds of millions who don't buy into Nintendo but revere his work. All this for a guaranteed paycheque he doesn't need?

Meanwhile at Kotaku:

"Currently, Kojima is listed as a company employee [at Konami].”
“Currently, Kojima and the development team are finished developing Metal Gear Solid V and are taking a long time off from work.”

http://kotaku.com/konami-denies-hideo-kojima-has-left-says-hes-on-vacat-1737501388

Although, the wording would be technically true even if Kojima was leaving. He has to "take a vacation" until his contract ends in December and he's no longer "listed as a company employee".

Hire him Nintendo!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wish him luck on his future endevors. It'll be interesting to see where he goes now that he's no longer tied to Metal Gear

@Zombie_Barioth

"It was $80mil. according to reports, that's the last and only solid (no pun intended) number and definitely not massive budget for a AAA game. Marketing is usually included in the development costs."

Not to mention a lot of that budget probably went to the Fox Engine too

@JacketsNest101 Nintendo couldn't afford his development costs. x)

Doesn't phase me in the slightest.

Good for Kojima. He needs to take a nice long break.

It will be interesting to see what his next move is.

As for Konami (presumably now run by Yakuza), we eagerly await Metal Gear Pachinko!

@FJOJR

Thats a good decision for kojima and also wish him the best of luck. I hope one day Konami just burns to a crisp and when that happens that so-called ceo at konami will be crying for money that the company will just sell there IPs to company's will make proper usage of ALL there IPs .

Good God Nintendo, what are you waiting for??? Hire the man!!!

The only reason I played MGS was because of the 3D Remaster, and I'm so happy I stuck with it. I can't wait to see what this dude does on his own time.

Does anyone here seriously think that a company as corrupt and combative as Konami didn't foist a NCC on Kojima the last time that he re-upped his contract? Depending on how stringent it is, it could be several years before he'd even be able to do anything, to say nothing of producing a 'spiritual successor' to MGS; I can't begin to imagine the legal hoops to be negotiated on that account.

"In the video game industry, AAA (pronounced "triple A") is a classification term used for games with the highest development budgets and levels of promotion or the highest ratings by a consensus of professional reviewers. A title considered to be AAA is therefore expected to be a high quality game or to be among the year's bestsellers. For a title to remain AAA post-launch, it must be either commercially or critically successful."

According to this, there's alot of Nintendo AAA games.

lol when bloodstained comes out its going to wipe the floor with konamis logo

Frankly, that would be a relief, especially the ways in which others have perverted his series and desires.

@Xenocity
Where are getting that from, the only figures released was the $80mil. These reports always lump actual development and marketing costs together, the latter usually making up around half.

I agree about the arms race though, this ridiculous Hollywood poor more in get more out mentality is getting out of hand.

@FJOJR Not really. Kojima takes too long.

Here's a totally stab in the dark: He goes to kickstarter with a "spiritual succesor" called Metal gear liquid!