Japanese financial publication Nikkei have posted reports suggesting that today, December 15, marks the official date Hideo Kojima left his tenure at Konami – and is now set to open a new studio “with the intent of creating games for platforms like Sony’s PlayStation”
The relationship between Kojima and Konami has been subject to scrutiny for the better part of 2015, and began when it was announced that horror title P.T. – Kojima & Guillermo del Toro’s teaser for the in development Silent Hills was pulled from PSN, and development on that game was inexplicably canned.
Further questions were raised when Konami then began removing Kojima’s name from marketing material for Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain, and then there was that resignation and leaving party for a man that Konami say wasn’t leaving.
Most recently, Geoff Keighley publicly stated that lawyers acting on Konami’s behalf had barred Kojima from attending the Game Awards in LA due to his “employment contract” with the studio.
Kojima’s not known for being one to rush his projects, so whatever’s in the pipeline may take a while to come to fruition, but I’m sure we’ll hear word on how his “vacation” has been soon enough, if he is indeed now free of his contractual obligations at Konami.
File this one under “even more rumours and speculation” until we hear more.
Source: Nikkei
gazzagb
I don’t have much interest in Kojima, but I’m wondering if this would be a good move for Sony. Last I heard, MGS Phantom Pain struggled to break even for Konami due to the high development costs. Obviously, Sony /could/ afford to bankroll Kojima, but would it be a good investment? And would their investors see it that way?
Adam Guest
There’s been a lot of speculation as to perhaps that is why Kojima and Konami fell out; He’s a man that quite clearly likes to do things on the grandest scale, and as you say, the investment, both from a financial and time point of view may not always seem worth it to a studio. It’ll certainly be interesting to see how this one pans out.
colmshan1990
To be fair, Sony don’t actually need to make profits from individual games.
An exclusive game from Hideo Kojima can be a loss leader to get people into their gaming systems rather than Microsoft or Nintendo.
cam_manutd
@gazza it broke even within a week. It’s first week sales were more than $100m and the game cost a lot less to make.
The issue I think was a power struggle. Kojima probably thought himself as big boss of Konami but the guys at Konami probably didn’t agree.
a inferior race
I see ea or Activision signing him and/or his studio.