14 DAY TRIAL // Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima has recently shared his thoughts regarding the projected impact of his latest projects and the way he thinks the Japanese game scene has evolved.
Kojima is an industry veteran, having written and directed his first game, Metal Gear, in 1987, and then proceeding to make a decade-spanning series out of it, constantly evolving and being credited with the invention of the stealth gaming genre.
But lately, it seems the legendary designer harbors seemingly bad news for the high-end gaming scene, motivating his decision to split Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes and Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain as a move resulting from necessity rather than sales strategy, as the latter title requires too much work to be ready in the near-launch period of next-gen consoles.
"We've seen a phenomenon around the world. Young people are losing interest in high-end games and focusing on mobile and social titles, especially in Japan. I wanted to show people that Japanese high-end games are still worth playing and that big Japanese games still have a future," Kojima said in a recent interview with Gamestm.
Additionally, Konami, the publisher that has been pouring generous amounts of money into the creation of the Metal Gear Solid series, has announced a price cut for the upcoming Ground Zeroes, which will be available for $30 / €22 instead of the initially announced $40 / €29.
The price cut illustrates Kojima's notion of a waning interest in high-end productions as well as his hope that it will open up the game to a wider audience, paving the way for the upcoming MGSV: The Phantom Pain by piquing the public's interest.
The upcoming Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes certainly suits the mobile generation, as the main story can be completed in less than two hours, according to its creator. The Phantom Pain, on the other hand, will offer a much more engaging experience and will be "roughly 200 times bigger than Ground Zeroes."
His concerns are not solitary, as his view of recent trends growing more toward social titles and smartphone games in the younger demographic are also shared by Drakengard producer Takamasa Shiba, who recently revealed that console games cannot hope to reach the same wide audience they did ten years ago, and that console games need to narrow their focus and cater to a more mature and game-literate audience.
Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes will launch for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One platforms on March 18 in North America and March 20 in Europe and Japan.