I don't really agree. It's true that Kojima is a monster when it comes to raping the horsepower of hardware but I think that is something to be expected given the nature of his cinematic games. That said, given the bounderies of the systems he has worked on he has innovated quite a lot. I won't even mention MGS1 because that game I think we can all agree was ground breaking.

MGS2 however innovated in that it provided the first truly "hollywood" console experience. Hollywood composer, Hollywood quality directing and graphical power. The A.I was also among the most intelligent on the market at the time. It was one of the first, if not the first console game to use motion capture (which is now standard today). Hiding guards in locks and FPS mode were both new additions to the stealth genre. The post modern pranks and crazy codec calls may not be innovative per se, but were new to this medium. The incredible attention to detail, from easter eggs to anamolies like shooting seagulls and having Rose bitch at you were also unseen in most games.

MGS3, sure, it wasn't much of a leap but neither was Mario Sunshine or Zelda TP or Halo 2.

As far as MGS4, product integration was done in an entertaining way for the first time and while not a gameplay aspect per se, it is still an important evolution in what will be an industry standard in a few years. The Octacamo was only possible on next gen consoles. The acting through facial expressions while still very limited is still a cornerstone for cinematic gaming today.  The very idea of "stealth on the battlefield" is paradoxal yet Kojima pulled it off providing a unique gameplay hybrid of FPS, action and stealth gameplay.

Just because there's no waggling involved doesn't mean there isn't innovation.

Holy shit, man, I just saw that tree grow! I'm totally immersed!

Eh, I guess it would be a cool addition, but I think there are better uses for the technology than dynamic backgrounds.

Everything you're listing are either small gameplay tweaks, graphical improvements, or irrelevant. Octocamo could have been done last generation and even the generation previous to that in all likelihood (Halo's invisibility, anyone?). Product placement is an idea, nothing more. It could have been done at any time (though Kojima did a brilliant job of it IMO). Directing and cinematic scores were available during the PSOne era. The AI has improved but Kojima's AI is lagging behind several other developers at this point. The AI in MGS4 was cork-on-the-fork stupid.

Really, the MGS series hasn't used any of the additional horsepower of consoles for anything other than visual and audial improvements. Most of the other bits added to the games were due to increased budgets, the popularity of the series, and Kojima's ideas, not because they were impossible to do in the fifth generation.

I agree, those games were not much of a leap.  But the developers of those games have never complained that they need more power to do the things that they really want to do.  I'm not sure when Kojima first started making games, but he's at least had since the days of the PS1 to innovate using all the newfound power of the PS2, and then PS3.

He's made these statments before, and I'm sure he will make them again in the future.  We'll see if his games actually change.

EDIT:  Actually, Sunshine was pretty innovative for a Mario platformer.

Fundamentally, the MGS series has not changed since MGS1, but to say that MGS1 is the same game as MGS4 minus hardware based improvements is very subjective.

It requires boiling everything away but the basic premise and mechanics of the game, which actually haven't changed from the original Metal Gear on the MSX.

I've made the observation myself that there are more similarities between games in the series than there are differences, particularly after playing through MGS again after finishing MGS4, but to say that MGS4 is the same game as MGS on better hardware is to me, a load of hot air.

The same can be said of just about every franchise that maintained its original format.

The biggest leap almost every longstanding game franchise made (spanning at least 4 generations of consoles) was the transition from 2D to 3D. And that provided a change in mechanics primarily because of the third axis movement that 3D environments provide.

Mario 64: fundamentally the same game as Mario Galaxy. Lots of improvements and innovative additions to the formula, but fundamentally the same game. Change the formula too much and the very things that made a game popular to begin with may be lost.

Most Japanese developers, as a group, have fallen behind the curve in the innovation department, largely because of their dependence upon the same successful formula that really hasn't changed much, if at all from the original concept.

Many Japanese developers have actually admitted this. If I'm not mistaken, Kojima was one of them.

This is partly because the Japanese gaming audience has been more or less content to play the same franchises every time a new platform is introduced. It's not often that a new franchise is both truly groundbreaking with commercial success to match.

Final Fantasy: After 13 chapters, fundamentally, the only things that have changed are the characters, environments, enemies, and plots. Everything else has been consistent tweaks in the combat systems and graphical improvements, the largest leap being to FFVII, due almost entirely to the 3D environment the game existed in.

JRPGs as a genre at a fundamental level, haven't changed. But it's the formula that keeps players interested in the genre.

FPS games: Is Wolfenstein 3D really that different in the basic concept and play mechanics from virtually every 3D FPS to follow? It was primitive and clunky by today's standards, but it did establish the basic play mechanics that would be consistently added to and improved upon as the genre matured and advances in technology and programming technique allowed such evolution to occur.

In all seriousness, the the biggest leap that could have been made would be to take a game strongly represented in one genre and turn it into another.

Warcraft - World of Warcraft

FPS Halo - RTS Halo Wars (we'll see how successful this turns out to be)

Nintendo could use his creative imput effectively matching narrative with gameplay innovation very well. Damn it tho, leaves growing on plants, i just don't think thats the next level

Red:

It is essentially the same game with a different control system. Almost everything Kojima has done with MGS4 could have been done on MGS1 with blockier graphics and less sound fidelity. Kojima introduced the signature points of the series in MGS1: cinematic presentations, voice acting throughout the game, 3D stealth environments, massive boss battles, lengthy cutscenes, etc. etc.

Green:

3D, as you stated, was one of the largest transitions in gaming ever. It alone changed how games are viewed and how they are played. Even then, using the Mario franchise is a terrible way to back up your point. Play M64 then Sunshine then Galaxy. Yes, they're all platformers. Yes, they all involve Mario. The enemies are pretty much the same throughout. That's where the similarities end. The actual game portion of all three are drastically different from one another. Mario's always been about controls and Myamoto changes up those with every iteration of the series. When controls are the fundamental core of your game, changing them completely alters the face of the series.

Orange:

This is an interesting phenomenon in Japanese development of games and it's interesting to see how companies like Capcom are trying to break out of that mold. Capcom did a good job of reinvigorating the RE series with RE4 but still, it's pretty much the same game (though without complete shit controls). I'm excited to see what they have in store for RE5, Capcom being one of the most progressive Japanese developers out there.

Blue:

FPS games have moved so far past the early iD games that they're almost unrecognizable when compared to their predecessors. RPG elements, vehicular combat, open-ended choices, sandbox-style gameplay... There's not a lot there to compare past "see bad guy, shoot bad guy". Again, a pretty weak argument to stand on. And that's not even bringing in games like Battlefield or Counter-Strike that completely changed how we play FPS games and how many people we play them with.

Graphics and what he is talking about aren't exactly the same thing. Will it take stunning graphics for a plant to grow? No, but more memory, processing power, time, etc. will, but if a system is able to do that then it will have the power to do good graphics too I suppose.

But being able to make a "real world" and not just a pre-programmed world will take lots of space and maybe the graphics will suffer.

 Oh do tell me how these producers/directors of videogames are two of the most influential thinkers of the past 50 years?

Personally I think they influenced Jack and Shit and I think Jack just left the room.

 Lack of graphics never bothered narative driven games like you know TEXT ADVENTURES.