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Metal Gear Solid creator addicted to Left 4 Dead

So what does Hideo Kojima, the creative mastermind behind the Metal Gear Solid series play for fun nowadays? LEFT 4 DEAD!

Kojima is one of the worlds’ most renowned video game designers and has had tremendous success with the series that he originally started on the Nintendo Entertainment System. However in recent years the Japanese gaming industry has lost a lot of it’s luster as it’s struggled to keep up with advances in gaming from the American and European markets.

Kojima recently had a discussion on that very topic in an interview with Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu.

To quote 1-Up:
“The US and European marketplace are far better balanced. There are games everyone can play — maybe calling ‘kids’ games’ would be inappropriate — but there’s also a deep base of core titles made with movie-industry people that explore the depths of hi-def. I’m addicted to Left 4 Dead right now, but people say to me that that game would never work in Japan.”

Kojima’s a little pessimistic about the Japanese video games market, laughing as he says;

“Maybe I should quit being Japanese. And speaking of which, there were hardly any Japanese games nominated in Spike TV’s Video Game Awards this year. It’s sad to see that Japan’s games failed to even register in America last year.”

When asked why Japanese developers struggle to keep up with the overseas competition, Kojima is just as damning;

“Because they’re Japanese. Japan makes all their own books and movies and music. You can’t export entertainment made by Japanese people in the Japanese language, so it’s all made with the sort of budgets that guarantee profit within the Japanese marketplace only.

“Meanwhile, the English-speaking world is a global one. The scariest scenario I see is people overseas taking the ideas from Japanese games, running the Hollywood business merchandising machine on them, and taking all the revenue. If that happens, then there won’t be any new Japanese creators.”