KOJIMA LEAVES KONAMI, PLANS ON FORMING NEW STUDIO

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http://www.kojimaproductions.jp/

Kojima is exclusive to Playstation now sadly, ah well, better than Konami, though I could be wrong and it's just his new game that will be because Kojima being independent would be awesome, basically a 2nd Platinum Games.

At first I thought his new studio logo was an X Ray of Raiden from MGR, but it's clearly something else, maybe a hint at what his new game is?
ndhdrh_by_wesker500-d9kavjx.png
 
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xMobilemux said:


Kojima is exclusive to Playstation now sadly, ah well, better than Konami, though I could be wrong and it's just his new game that will be because Kojima being independent would be awesome, basically a 2nd Platinum Games.
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They said "console exclusive" possible hinting that it may appear on PC. Maybe its just wrong translation though.
 
http://www.usgamer.net/articles/kojima-japanese-games-a-hard-sell-due-to-cultural-sensibilities


Kojima: Japanese Games a "Hard Sell" Due to Cultural Sensibilities

The newly independent Hideo Kojima talks about thinking global and going big.


In his first interview since departing Konami, designer and director Hideo Kojima has outlined his future plans to the New Yorker. That future seems to break down to three things: Think globally, think big, and get away from corporate minutiae. Kojima explained that Japanese designers have struggled as graphical power has allowed games to become more realistic.



Damn, it'll be a few years before we see his next game.

"Games matured beyond simple interactive toys and into a rich medium that could deliver drama and other deeper elements," he said. "At that point, Japanese games became a hard sell: their sensibilities and cultural identity were distinct and unrelatable. The only way to create high-end games is to target the global market." 2


This comes only a few days after Monolith Soft founder Tatsuya Takahashi said something similar to Time. It seems Japanese creators are going through some sort of shift; there are those who are willing to target smaller Japanese audiences directly or those who want to create games that work in Japan and larger markets at the same time. Trying to aim West only, as many Japanese developers did for a while, doesn't work either because you lose what's unique about your culture and vision.


Kojima credited his early exposure and long love of Western entertainment as the reason he's avoided the problem. He also admitted that his relishes the thought of being independent, as he believes corporate management holds back Japanese games.


"In order to target the global market, the management behind the project needs to have a keen sense for what will work, and be willing to take risks," he explained. "If you're only focussed on the profits immediately in front of you, the times will leave you behind. It becomes impossible to catch up again."


"When working in big companies, especially Japanese companies, every little thing has to be approved beforehand, and you need paperwork to do anything," he said. "Now that I'm independent, I can do what I want with much more speed. I don't need to invest time in unnecessary presentations. I shoulder the risk."


And if you thought an independent Kojima meant a Kojima that was thinking small, don't worry. The original Big Boss is still taking no prisoners.


"My role in this world is to keep on making big games for as long as I can," said Kojima. "That is the mission I've been given in life."


this is interesting, im looking forward for the game he's workiong on with sony, i'm hoping he could make something that appeals to both audience and actually making financial success like some stupid western titles --i'm sorry, some western titles are making big succes and i don't even know the appeal for those are..
 
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Those concept art are very cool.

I wonder if the robotic one is meant to be a Power Suit or mini mech? I hope it is something actually in the game, like the FOX emblem was for the old KojiPro.
 
absolitude said:
http://www.usgamer.net/articles/kojima-japanese-games-a-hard-sell-due-to-cultural-sensibilities


Kojima: Japanese Games a "Hard Sell" Due to Cultural Sensibilities

The newly independent Hideo Kojima talks about thinking global and going big.


In his first interview since departing Konami, designer and director Hideo Kojima has outlined his future plans to the New Yorker. That future seems to break down to three things: Think globally, think big, and get away from corporate minutiae. Kojima explained that Japanese designers have struggled as graphical power has allowed games to become more realistic.



Damn, it'll be a few years before we see his next game.

"Games matured beyond simple interactive toys and into a rich medium that could deliver drama and other deeper elements," he said. "At that point, Japanese games became a hard sell: their sensibilities and cultural identity were distinct and unrelatable. The only way to create high-end games is to target the global market." 2


This comes only a few days after Monolith Soft founder Tatsuya Takahashi said something similar to Time. It seems Japanese creators are going through some sort of shift; there are those who are willing to target smaller Japanese audiences directly or those who want to create games that work in Japan and larger markets at the same time. Trying to aim West only, as many Japanese developers did for a while, doesn't work either because you lose what's unique about your culture and vision.


Kojima credited his early exposure and long love of Western entertainment as the reason he's avoided the problem. He also admitted that his relishes the thought of being independent, as he believes corporate management holds back Japanese games.


"In order to target the global market, the management behind the project needs to have a keen sense for what will work, and be willing to take risks," he explained. "If you're only focussed on the profits immediately in front of you, the times will leave you behind. It becomes impossible to catch up again."


"When working in big companies, especially Japanese companies, every little thing has to be approved beforehand, and you need paperwork to do anything," he said. "Now that I'm independent, I can do what I want with much more speed. I don't need to invest time in unnecessary presentations. I shoulder the risk."


And if you thought an independent Kojima meant a Kojima that was thinking small, don't worry. The original Big Boss is still taking no prisoners.


"My role in this world is to keep on making big games for as long as I can," said Kojima. "That is the mission I've been given in life."


this is interesting, im looking forward for the game he's workiong on with sony, i'm hoping he could make something that appeals to both audience and actually making financial success like some stupid western titles --i'm sorry, some western titles are making big succes and i don't even know the appeal for those are..
Click to expand...
Not gonna lie, this is very true. A Japanese game is basically acquired taste, not everyone likes the Japanese archetypes and out of the ones that don't like 'em too few of them even tolerate them. Japanese games are fun but the stories and characters just don't appeal to to your general gringo. Most of the American nerds that live in the US, according to my black and white American nerd friends, don't want any of that, they want the comic book style stuff and anime/manga/Japanese style is just plain weird and alien and downright nonsensical.

In Mexico Japanese media has been around since before I was born and it was popular then, too. There has been an audience there for a long time but I find it that we are catered to, in video games, so little that most of us have to learn English if we want to enjoy video games (which in principle isn't so bad but imagine what would happen to the gaming market if you told American kids, teenagers and adults that if they wanted to play games they'd have to learn another language, but yeah, you can say that to the rest of us, right?). Two of the most popular Japanese imports in Mexico, Dragon Ball and Saint Seiya, both have a whole bunch of video games but out of all of them there are maybe two of each, at the most, that have actually been dubbed to Latin Spanish. We had to go on a crusade to get Xenoverse a Mexican dubbing and we didn't even get it, all we got was a promise that the next video game would ... I don't really believe that either, anyway, by the way...

My point is that not all of the west is resistant to Japanese sensibilities; a lot of countries in Europe and Latin America have a lot of love for them, but sometimes it feels like Japan only cares about the US when they talk about 'the west' and it certainly leaves some of us feeling a bit unloved. I know it's a big world and you can't dub/appeal/market to absolutely everyone but France and the US are not the only people that like Japanese media either (The reason is because most of my Japanese games have French and English on the back of the box, on the manuals, and for language support).
 
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berto said:
Not gonna lie, this is very true. A Japanese game is basically acquired taste, not everyone likes the Japanese archetypes and out of the ones that don't like 'em too few of them even tolerate them. Japanese games are fun but the stories and characters just don't appeal to to your general gringo. Most of the American nerds that live in the US, according to my black and white American nerd friends, don't want any of that, they want the comic book style stuff and anime/manga/Japanese style is just plain weird and alien and downright nonsensical.

In Mexico Japanese media has been around since before I was born and it was popular then, too. There has been an audience there for a long time but I find it that we are catered to, in video games, so little that most of us have to learn English if we want to enjoy video games (which in principle isn't so bad but imagine what would happen to the gaming market if you told American kids, teenagers and adults that if they wanted to play games they'd have to learn another language, but yeah, you can say that to the rest of us, right?). Two of the most popular Japanese imports in Mexico, Dragon Ball and Saint Seiya, both have a whole bunch of video games but out of all of them there are maybe two of each, at the most, that have actually been dubbed to Latin Spanish. We had to go on a crusade to get Xenoverse a Mexican dubbing and we didn't even get it, all we got was a promise that the next video game would ... I don't really believe that either, anyway, by the way...

My point is that not all of the west is resistant to Japanese sensibilities; a lot of countries in Europe and Latin America have a lot of love for them, but sometimes it feels like Japan only cares about the US when they talk about 'the west' and it certainly leaves some of us feeling a bit unloved. I know it's a big world and you can't dub/appeal/market to absolutely everyone but France and the US are not the only people that like Japanese media either (The reason is because most of my Japanese games have French and English on the back of the box, on the manuals, and for language support).
Click to expand...

now that you've mentioned it, yeah, i noticed that part on japanese sees "western" as US while the truth is even europeans don't have the same taste as US..

and from what i've seen, more of the japanese nerds seem to come from the spanish/portuguese speaking countries, i get this impression when searching for japanese media stuffs and often i stumbled upon the spanish/portuguese subtitled or captioned ones.. safe to say if the japanese aims western they should actually aim for those region..

but for the english language part used in some japanese medias, i think it's acceptable since it is an international language.. i wished more people in my country speaks english more so they can see the world more even if it's the internet or movies.. it broadens the horizon instead of acting like a condom in a shell --i'm sorry, it's frustating seeing how my people act
 
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Well, I put a tad more thought in to it after I posted and I thought about all the games I owned when I was a kid, only one, Mario/Duck Hunt.

In Mexico ownership wasn't the big thing, we are a rental culture, we rent and we only buy the ones we really want because a game in Mexico still costs $60, which is nearly 1,ooo pesos and that is a a lot more money in Mexico than it is in the US (60 pesos is the cost of one night at a hotel in my home town or enough food for a week and we earn accordingly). I don't know if it's a similar case in other parts of the world but Mexico, while we are no strangers to buying video games, does things a bit differently. For example, in my home town, which I shouldn't assume is representative of the rest of the nation but, anyway, if you don't own a council you can go to a video/video game store/internet cafe (the only one in town that's all 3) and rent a seat, bring in your data, and play any game in the store on their PS3s/360s/PCs.

This is provably a tricky place to profit from. While this is something that we made to work around the cost of such an expensive hobby and that alone shows our passion for it I can't imagine that a rental culture is easy to sell to. If a gamestop type store existed where you could constantly profit from your games a rental system is just not that stable, too many variables, one being if you could get companies like EA or other AAAs to agree to it, how do you guarantee the disc is going to comeback and even if it did how will you keep it from getting f***ed up with it exchanging so many hands.

You provably can't drop the price in areas like Latin America because it would then open up for an ability to simply import cheaper games to the US, which would hurt sellers in the States. In Japan a game costs about $90 but the reason they don't just import is because shipping costs pretty much evens out the cost.

These are provably the thoughts that are why the Japanese developers and publishers who consider publishing in the west. It's provably not a simple matter and it's one of those things that are been considered but every time they do it's just a big headache. I can only assume that the US is the most established market to Japan where there is a process and relationships where they can follow a set of steps and release their product. Anime, manga, television and film (even music) are established markets in Mexico but video games are a different animal and establishing a market is provably more complicated than a simple contract with a dubbing firm. With film and anime you just give them a script and the footage with the separate tracks of dialogue, OST, and SFX, leave them to translate and let them at it. Manga is even easier. Video games require the audio to be incorporated in to the game before publishing which means they have to go back to the developer after translation, that just compounds to the work load.

I'm going off on a tangent again, I'll just leave it here as is.
 
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berto said:
If a gamestop type store existed where you could constantly profit from your games a rental system is just not that stable, too many variables, one being if you could get companies like EA or other AAAs to agree to it, how do you guarantee the disc is going to comeback and even if it did how will you keep it from getting f***ed up with it exchanging so many hands.
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Could have a lovefilm type system where you pay a monthly fee and you can't rent any other titles until you return the last one you rented. I have Amazon Video, Netflix & currently have discs sent too (even if it's seen as a pretty old fashioned system & being discontinued soon). If a disc is faulty you report it to them and return it and they remove it from circulation and replace it.
 
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