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NEWS

Kojima Declares New Western Direction

Rob Crossley's picture

By Rob Crossley

January 5, 2009

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“We are currently reviewing everything in order to make Kojima Productions a team that can challenge foreign creators and software houses."

Hideo Kojima has spoken of a thorough “structure, tools and staff” revamp taking place at Kojima Productions in order to realise the developer’s goal of penetrating the Western market.

"We're currently reviewing everything,” he told Famitsu, “in order to make Kojima Productions a team that can challenge foreign creators and software houses. Because of that, 2009 is going to be a very important year for us.”

Kojima also revealed that the success of Western games has been an interest of his in recent times: "I've thought a lot about how Western games have been winning, looking at it from a global perspective, and there are things that I've noticed,” he said.

“I've come to understand that the way we've made games up until now won't translate globally, and I've come to think that I need to make Kojima Productions a team that can compete alongside the rest of the world.”

It’s anyone’s guess how the studio’s new direction will translate via game content, with Kojima’s description of “Western games” being one too broad to speculate on.

Source: Develop.

AndyLC's picture
On January 5th AndyLC said:

eh, if anything, Kojima's games aren't Japanese enough.

In MGO I want to be a cyborg ninja, psychic killer, rocket man with a flame thrower, vampire commando, something wacky, yet all I get to be is Military Guy with Gun. The customization of the gun is nice... but it doesn't have anything distinctly Metal Gear about it.

It seems like they equate 'make it appeal to westerners' with 'let's make it boring'

squazzil4's picture
On January 5th squazzil4 said:

Clearly the first hurdle is to actually release a game on the 360. Hopefully this will not be as hard a decision for Koijima as changing the camera system was in Metal Gear. That came only 5 years too late.

kinnonyee's picture
On January 5th kinnonyee said:

Zone of Enders 3 would be a good way to test those principles.

rahvii's picture
On January 5th rahvii said:

Nope, ZoE grabs to much influence from the Anime/Manga style. Look, i wolud love a new ZoE and i still hope there will be one, but frankly, Kojima would need a new IP for this new direction he comments.

AndyLC's picture
On January 5th AndyLC said:

anime and manga is the most globally successful branch of Japanese entertainment though. The most successful Japanese games in America take after that style. Pokemon's still bigger than Halo by twice as many sales.

rahvii's picture
On January 8th rahvii said:

We all know what Kojima has done in the recent past and he is talking about change, metal gear its even more globally accepted than ZoE, and he is not talking about a new Metal Gear, or to be on the safe side, not Metal gear as we all know it.

GiobbiT's picture
On January 5th GiobbiT said:

Ahia.
Japanese bad when they try to put in consideration western audience mostly, as they do not know/understand them in deep.

Just look at the last remnant.

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About contents if Kojima keeps his usual direction his products are more "movies with some parts played" than videogames.

So Hollywood should fear his work more than the other software houses, his concept is quite old and connected to the "wow cd" era, PS1.
But it could be a challenge for the movie world, going to home theatre to watch action/horror movies playing some parts :)

Today there are less and less "games" released this way, the 360-pc-nintendo crowd expecially is going on a totally different direction.

grognard66's picture
On January 5th grognard66 said:

Releasing games you spend more time playing, rather than watching, would be a good place for Kojima to start.