Kojima left Konami (?)

KAI · Post by **KAI** » Thu Mar 19, 2015 6:34 pm

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread. ... 50&page=18

Kojima will no longer be a Konami executive from April 1st

April Fools day is coming sooner this year.

drauch · Post by **drauch** » Thu Mar 19, 2015 6:38 pm

Or Christmas.

iconoclast · Post by **iconoclast** » Thu Mar 19, 2015 6:46 pm

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/kojima ... 0-6426024/

Seems like a dumb move on Konami's part. Isn't Kojima Productions the only competent development team they have left?

Formless God · Post by **Formless God** » Thu Mar 19, 2015 6:50 pm

You misspelled Bemani.

Pretas · Post by **Pretas** » Thu Mar 19, 2015 7:53 pm

Konami already drove out IGA after forcing him to work on mobile shovelware, it was only a matter of time before Hideo followed.

Looks like it's a given that KojiPro is going to go independent after Phantom Pain wraps up, and they're only sticking around for the moment to avoid disappointing the fans. We'll probably see some "spiritual successor" to Metal Gear, headed by Kojima, appear on Kickstarter within the next few years. I am okay with this development - MGSV is meant to bring an end to the series' current canon, anyway, and Kojima has already forced himself to remain the figurehead of the franchise for far too long.

Wonder how this will impact Rising 2. Platinum isn't KojiPro, but they still received a lot of support from them for MGR1.

Cata · Post by **Cata** » Fri Mar 20, 2015 4:04 am

There is literally nothing left for Konami (USA) anymore

Pretas · Post by **Pretas** » Fri Mar 20, 2015 2:50 pm

Cata wrote:There is literally nothing left for Konami (USA) anymore

Slot machines. They own a huge warehouse near McCarran Airport in Las Vegas.

Much like SNK Playmore, Konami would probably have already gone belly up by now if not for their presence in the gambling (I refuse to call it "gaming") industry. Yugioh has also helped them stay afloat.

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Fri Mar 20, 2015 3:22 pm

I'm surprised I get any feels at all over this "news" that we've all been expecting for the last half decade at least (it's been almost that long since Peace Walker dropped). It would be really nice to let Kojima be a creative person once again, of course.

Pretas · Post by **Pretas** » Fri Mar 20, 2015 5:40 pm

I bet Silent Hills gets canceled now. Already happened to InSane, Del Toro's previous video game project - which Konami may or may not have been attempting to rework into a SH title.

It seemed probable that it was going to end up an episodic interactive movie jumpscare simulator for the PewDiePie generation, so I doubt anything of value will be lost.

xxx1993 · Post by **xxx1993** » Fri Mar 20, 2015 6:34 pm

I was hoping that once Kojima's out of the picture, we can finally have other games like Contra and Gradius back...

Jonathan Ingram · Post by **Jonathan Ingram** » Fri Mar 20, 2015 7:35 pm

xxx1993 wrote:I was hoping that once Kojima's out of the picture, we can finally have other games like Contra and Gradius back...

Because clearly he was the only thing keeping Konami higher-ups from committing to these lucrative ventures with high ROI.

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Fri Mar 20, 2015 7:43 pm

There's some common threads in how IPs have been milked by Konami, but beyond that, the franchises are clearly separate - if anything they were complementary, and the loss of Metal Gear's core will just weaken Konami further, unless they finally take the steps they need to in order to move the state of the art forward. They can't just say "continue making this game, forever" and expect that to work. Even in the case of Metal Gear, Kojima can't expected to be a reliable sequels machine.

Sir Ilpalazzo · Post by **Sir Ilpalazzo** » Fri Mar 20, 2015 11:40 pm

xxx1993 wrote:I was hoping that once Kojima's out of the picture, we can finally have other games like Contra and Gradius back...

On the contrary, I think Kojima leaving is a sign that Konami is in the process of getting out of the console game market.

Jonathan Ingram · Post by **Jonathan Ingram** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 1:33 am

Sir Ilpalazzo wrote:On the contrary, I think Kojima leaving is a sign that Konami is in the process of getting out of the console game market.

Long-term or even mid-term, definitely. Every Japanese company should want to get out of the dedicated videogame device market. But for the immediate future, I'd imagine that Konami would stick to milking their established IPs, whatever is left to be milked anyway. Their Winning Eleven and Jikkyo Powerful Pro Yakyu series are done for as far as their selling power is concerned and Metal Gear will more than likely follow suit after they have their go at it.

soprano1 · Post by **soprano1** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 9:29 am

Will he finally make another adventure game like Snatcher and Policenauts?

Satan · Post by **Satan** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 10:57 am

I do love the Metal Gear games and I did love all my Komani MSX carts (I understand Kojima had a hand in some of them), but ZOE and ZOE 2 were total shit so I don't hold much faith in Kojima's talents. It would be very interesting if Konami contracted the likes of Tango, Treasure and Platinum to continue MGS and their old franchises.

Jonathan Ingram · Post by **Jonathan Ingram** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 11:21 am

Satan wrote:ZOE 2 total shit

Oh, please.

xxx1993 · Post by **xxx1993** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 12:49 pm

I always hated Metal Gear. And Zone of the Enders is not shit, I enjoyed playing The 2nd Runner even though I only played it once!

Satan · Post by **Satan** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 12:53 pm

I bought the HD edition to see what the fuss was about and hated The Second Runner, so I Googled its Edge review and found they were in agreement. The first was repetitive and brief. I imported the US version for its superior boxart, if anyone wants it cheap PM me.

neorichieb1971 · Post by **neorichieb1971** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 2:46 pm

Well this isn't long after Dave Cox left Konami either.

Dave's statement read that he was looking for another challenge, but I doubt thats true. You don't leave somewhere with nowhere to go.

Pretas · Post by **Pretas** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 2:58 pm

Satan wrote:I bought the HD edition to see what the fuss was about and hated The Second Runner, so I Googled its Edge review and found they were in agreement. The first was repetitive and brief. I imported the US version for its superior boxart, if anyone wants it cheap PM me.

The HD edition was ported by High Voltage Software, the same Midwestern rednecks who made Lego Racers and Dora the Explorer games. It's been well documented that it was an unbelievably shitty hack job, until HexaDrive finally swooped in to patch it up months later in time for the Japanese reprint (PS3 version only). Were you playing with the patch?

Satan · Post by **Satan** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 6:06 pm

Yeah, I only got around to playing it after Xmas and I definitely recall a patch.

Pretas · Post by **Pretas** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 6:25 pm

Satan wrote:Yeah, I only got around to playing it after Xmas and I definitely recall a patch.

There was another patch predating it that fixed essentially nothing. Was the HexaDrive logo added to the startup sequence?

Satan · Post by **Satan** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 6:44 pm

I honestly can't remember, I do remember being pissed there was a fairly large update and that's it.
It's just my opinion, I'm just some cunt off the intertubes. After years of reading about ZOE and a generally positive experience with the MGS series; I was very disappointed with both games. At one stage I actually owned both games individually for PS2, but the backwards compatible PS3 I had died before I got a chance to play either and luckily I managed to sell ZOE2 at a fairly inflated price about 2 weeks before the HD version's release announcement.

BIL · Post by **BIL** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 6:57 pm

Pretas wrote:It's been well documented that it was an unbelievably shitty hack job, until HexaDrive finally swooped in to patch it up months later in time for the Japanese reprint (PS3 version only).

zomg, was the Japanese ZOEHD reprint hard-patched? edit: I guess so I might pick that up. Passed on the collection initially after the Silent Hill HDC fiasco.

Outsourcing your PS2 favourites to Random Fuck Faces - that is KONAMI™ quality.

Blinge · Post by **Blinge** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 8:15 pm

They learnt their lesson finally for Metal Gear though and had Bluepoint do the HD collection. Very good version.
Bluepoint also did the Team Ico collection.

I wonder what'll happen to Castlevania now also.

BIL · Post by **BIL** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 8:19 pm

The MGS HDC predated both Silent Hill and ZOE's. :[ I assume its being left in competent hands had more to do with Kojima than the shitbirds at Konami*. Same for ZOEHD's patching, come to think of it.

*not that the Silent Hill HDC's outsourcing to Screensavers R Us of Darkest Fuckfaceville was at all inconsistent with Konami's handling of the series since 2006 or so.

KAI · Post by **KAI** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 10:58 pm

New Metal Gear "announced"

Jonathan Ingram · Post by **Jonathan Ingram** » Sun Mar 22, 2015 12:16 am

Pretas wrote:It's been well documented that it was an unbelievably shitty hack job, until HexaDrive finally swooped in to patch it up months later in time for the Japanese reprint (PS3 version only).

The HexaDrive guys and gals are freaking wizards. They got the PS3 to render Okami at 4K then downsample to 1080p. The PS3 version of EX Troopers also looks very sharp, thanks to them.

Pretas · Post by **Pretas** » Sun Mar 22, 2015 1:29 am

HexaDrive is to modern 3D games what M2 is to classic 2D games. It's a shame they aren't given more work.

Pipeworks didn't do a half bad job with the Devil May Cry HD ports, though. They had enough attention to detail to restore the more natural Japanese control layout to DMC1. The only real flaw was that the menus weren't touched up at all and were stuck in 4:3.

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