Hideo Kojima: gamers are happy with what they have

Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima has expressed his concern at the current state of the global games industry - and Japan's place within it.

The legendary Japanese developer believes only a handful of games are big enough to sell big numbers, and the plethora of sequels and spate of first-person shooters are the result of consumer demand.

"It's much more competitive now: if you look at triple-A titles on a worldwide scale there's maybe only ten really big games that can get gamers' attention, and I'm not sure how Japan can compete on that level," he told Official PlayStation Magazine.

"I think it's more consumer demand - right now, consumers are happy with what they have. First-person shooters sell like crazy, so there's not really a strong demand for anything else, and that's why [original ideas] stop being made.

"People are satisfied with making minor upgrades and tweaking things here and there - as long as that's the landscape, it will keep on happening. I don't see a problem necessarily, but at the same time it is nice to see new things come."

Kojima, who is producing the Platinum-developed Meta Gear Rising: Revengeance, and working on his new game, codenamed Project Ogre, believes creators can try new things, but it is harder to do so now than ever.

"Maybe for new ideas, the way to do it is [by] releasing things via online services first and then seeing how people react to that," he suggested.

"Or even if you're making something from a game-design perspective that's completely different, you could tie it to an existing franchise - like even if it had the Metal Gear Solid title, it could be completely different.

"Maybe you can make a Batman game that has the Batman title, but you can still be free with what you make the game into. Making something that's completely new - where the gameplay, the characters, the world, everything is completely from scratch - that's very hard to realise in this day and age."