Update #2: Playstation has released a video introducing Kojima and his new, independent, studio. It’s a short video and announces pretty much what we already learned earlier. Kojima is starting his own studio and their first game will be coming to the Playstation. The video says Kojima is collaborating with Playstation and shortly after this video went up Geoff Keighley confirmed the new game’s exclusivity. Just glad to see ‘Big corn’ himself ready to pop off.
Watch the announcement here:
Update: The original Nikkei article has been more accurately translated and gives us a clearer picture of Kojima’s plans. According to the article Kojima and Sony are merely in “final negotiations with SCE…for this new game to debut on PlayStation”.
This sounds more like a publishing deal and not the formation of a Sony studio. Seems like Kojima will become independent. And no mention of exclusivity for the Playstation either. It would be advantageous for Kojima to publish any game he makes wherever he can.
Original Story: The Nikkei published an article announcing that today, December 15th, was Hideo Kojima’s final day of work with Konami. And that Kojima would be forming his own studio. This new studio would be built around the castaways from Konami including the higher tier of developers and producers laid off from Kojima’s team as MGSV went to market. The report also mentions that Sony is in talks with the new studio. No word on what that could mean. Kojima and Metal Gear had a long history as a Sony exclusive game until modern consoles came about, maybe Kojima wants to continue that relationship. And having a Kojima led studio as a Playstation first-party would be a pretty big boom to their lackluster first-party production at the moment.
No official word has come out yet and I’m sure Kojima has to be careful, still, about how he speaks about Konami and his future. A non-compete clause isn’t something to mess around with. A single whiff that Kojima was in talks before today and he could have some legal trouble at hand.
Glad to see this could all be a happy ending for Kojima. And putting him in a Metal Gear free environment has me much more interested in what he could produce. I’ll continue to update this story if/when we get any more information.
