Kojima Expected to Leave Konami After MGS5, Inside Source Confirms

One pertinent question: Who owns the Metal Gear IP? Does the IP belong to Hideo Kojima, Kojima Productions, or Konami?

Probably Konami, unfortunately - given that Kojima Productions was until recently an employee devteam rather than external contractors, all of their work would be Konami's property. It's a shame things are ending this way, though, in fairness, MGS5 is pretty much putting the last nail in the coffin of the MGS saga. From the original MG games and MGS, we've pushed forward enough with MGS2 and 4 that we've not only introduced an ultimate antagonist for the series, but we've also eliminated them. And we killed Big Boss and Liquid again for good measure :p. MGS3 gave us the origins of both said antagonist and told us Big Boss's story, while Peace Walker gave us a bit more. Given where Phantom Pain falls on the timeline, it'd be a massive writing failure for it not to document Big Boss's transition from a fairly decent mercenary (Peacewalker era) to the megalomaniac we saw in the old Metal Gear games. Where do you go next? Either you trump up some insane ninja bs about...oh wait, they did that. Or you start making games about some of the minor missions that...oh wait, they did that too. Several times. Or you can go back to World War 2 and show us Cobra Unit as the good guys, but there's really no reason to go there.

Kojima should join Square Enix after parting with what's their name.

and as i left COD when the real Infinity Ward left (ive hated the series since MW2, I can feel the difference, I dont know about you) , I will most likely leave this when Kojima steps down.

Only for Kojima.

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Oh yay another game publisher, screwing over a game dev, Sounds like Konami needs new management, I wonder what all this is over. I wish we could shift away from publishers.

It's just a dam shame that he is apparently leaving. And if Konami does take Kojima's name off of Metal Gear, I'm sorry but that's just plain bull sh*t. He did the work. He MUST receive credit for it. That's just proper legal procedure in copyright/trademark and crediting the creator. I was looking forward to Metal Gear and Silent Hills. If they truly do remove his name from those two works, I likely won't be purchasing them. Konami doesn't deserve the financial support when they pull that BS.

Of course, I view all of this as if Konami is firing Kojima. If Kojima is just leaving, then fine. But I still think he should be credited for the work he has already completed...

**** you KONAMI, you've ruined the only hope of rescuing Silent Hill

It could have made you hell lot of money from this series, just a reminder.

He was probably sick of making metal gear games and wanted to put his team to work on Snatcher 2 or something.

Pretty much like what Capcom did to Keiji Inafune & Shinji Mikami, I suppose?

So what about Silent Hills?

And Konami continues to swirl the drain. First Castlevania goes down hill, then they hand Silent Hill over to shitty dev teams after 4, and now this... Konami used to be one of my favorite game publishers from the NES-PS2 era... Now they're nothing but a shell of their former company. I was really looking forward to Silent Hills after the PT demo, but now it looks like the game will never see the light of day. Thanks Konami.

RIP Silent Hills . I wish we could spend some more time together

Not looking good for silent hills fans

Konami = retards.

Well I guess Konami doesn't like money then. Kojima Productions should purchase the license and property when Konami goes out of business.

On a side note this sounds like MGS5 is going to have no support after it's release.

The plus side is that we hopefully get to see Kojima's talent elsewhere. By the way, who is doing the Silent Hills after Kojima's staff leaves?

R.I.P Metal Gear Solid.

and another hashtag movement is born.

Well maybe he will join Rockstar now and make that GTA like game he wanted.

Hey gamespot, make a new article, konami is already hiring personnel for the development of a new Metal Gear series: << LINK REMOVED >>

I look forward to future announcements

I remember Kojima once tweeted that the game will include content that may get him removed from the industry. Perhaps Konami is letting him go because they don't want to be smeared by the backlash from critics?

Am i the only one who thinks good riddance ? Metal Gear went downhill after 3 and became too cheesy with lots of sexual references...etc.

Kojima 51.Are you kidding? He looks like 30.

Its an April fools Setup, you guys never learn >_>