“The Japanese games with which most players are familiar have always been the outliers,” David McCarthy, of the Tokyo-based developer Cybird, told me. “But there has always been a huge iceberg of titles beneath the surface that Western gamers rarely glimpse.… The growing cost of console development, allied to a shrinking domestic market, have made these games increasingly unviable without international success.”
It’s likely that, after Kojima’s non-compete clause expires, in December, he will find a new studio and continue making lavishly produced games. But these future projects will be anomalies in a mobile-dominated Japanese market. Although Western fans may mourn the loss, McCarthy doesn’t share their despondency. “Honestly, I am not so sure that any threat to yet another shouting, shooting game full of American grunts saving democracy from the wiles of dark-skinned terrorists is any great loss to the art,” he said.