After nine months of speculation and obfuscation, Hideo Kojima, one of the video game industry’s most respected developers, is finally, officially divorced from Konami. And Sony wasted no time in scooping him up.
The company has announced an agreement that will see Kojima’s newly formed Kojima Productions develop its first title exclusively for the PlayStation 4.
“He is one of the most creative talents in the history of games,” said Andrew House, president and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment (SNE) in a video announcing the partnership. “Kojima-san, on behalf of PlayStation and together with the fans, we’d like to offer our full support on your new journey.”
Kojima’ is the creator of both the Metal Gear Solid and Silent Hill franchises—two of the biggest games in Konami’s catalog. The MGS franchise has sold more than 46 million copies, with this year’s Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain selling 5 million copies as of September.
His departure from Konami (KNM) is a momentous shift in the industry. Imagine, for example, if Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto and Nintendo went their separate ways. It was long telegraphed, though—and shrouded in mysterious moves, vague statements, and apparent internal chaos.
The question of his fate arose in March, when Kojima’s name was removed from the Konami website. In July, it was taken off of the box art for Metal Gear Solid 5. His studio, Kojima Productions, was shut down as well. But as enthusiastic press and fans asked what it all meant, the company deflected questions—issuing just a terse statement reading “Konami Digital Entertainment, including Mr. Kojima, will continue to develop and support Metal Gear products. Please look forward to future announcements.”
Last month, tensions hit a peak when Konami attorneys blocked him from picking up an award for MGS 5. Yesterday, Kojima confirmed, via Twitter, that his 30 year relationship with the company was officially over.
— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) December 16, 2015
The arrangement between Sony and Kojima is, at present, for just one game. And in a Q&A on Medium, a representative said Sony is not investing in the studio. (The title will be console exclusive to the PS4, but will launch on PC at a later date.) Since Konami owns the rights to both Metal Gear Solid and Silent Hill, Kojima’s next game will be a new franchise.
“I’m thrilled to embark on creating a new franchise with PlayStation that will give you all a new and innovative gaming experience, so please stay tuned,” said Kojima.
While speculation has been that Kojima would likely land in some sort of relationship with Sony when he was finally free of Konami, analysts say the announcement is still a big feather in the company’s cap.
“It’s an incremental positive,” says Mike Hickey of The Benchmark Co. “Exclusive games can still be a differentiator for the console side. He is amazingly talented and you can expect his next game to most likely be great. It’s a talent driven business. We get excited about hardware, but we spend seven or eight years playing games—and he’s one of the best game makers out there.”
The relationship is yet another coup for Sony, which has signed several notable Japanese developers to make exclusive games on the PS4, including Yu Suzuki’s Shenmue 3 and Fumito Ueda’s The Last Guardian.
Life to date, the PS4 has sold more than 30.2 million units, making it the fastest selling system in the history of the PlayStation brand—even eclipsing the storied PS2. And the pace of consumer adoption is only increasing. Since the beginning of the year, Sony has sold more than 12 million PS4s. That’s more than double the estimated number of Xbox One consoles that have been sold.
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