Kojima: Japan western talent to hire

Hideo Kojima, the man behind the Metal Gear series, says that Japanese publishers are obsessed with success in the West, but not the necessary steps to make that happen. The hiring of western talent should offer a solution.

If the Japanese games industry, also outside of the home success want to achieve, they need western talent hiring, puts Kojima in an interview with magazine Famitsu. “Everyone is talking about abroad, but no one considers what is required to succeed. We are obsessed with worldwide success, because we in the past have had, but that success has now not any more”, says the man behind the Metal Gear series.

The solution is, according to Kojima to make games aimed at a western market, make it by western developers. “If you’re overseas trying to make, then I think you can only achieve this by the development teams to distribute among the Japanese and the western market. Something like that is impossible to achieve with a single team. Everything should be separate, from the office to the betaalstructuur.” Kojima, however, thinks that Japanese publishers are not willing to take the appropriate steps to convert. “There is a lot of talent abroad, but that gives you really not inside if you’re not willing to pay the price.”

Also developers let down, according to Kojima. Studios just do not want to understand what the taste of western gamers. “Americans like to shoot at aliens and if you don’t understand why that’s fun, you have no games for that market. No one is forcing you eventually. Americans understand not why we create games about boys who like girls to look and with huge swords waving.”

Kojima thinks the hole may be sealed with the new Fox Engine that he used. That should be it for the team from Kojima Productions that much easier to make games for different platforms and different besturingswijzen. So is it with the Fox Engine easy for both the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 to develop, and with input from both controller and mouse and keyboard.