Has Konami redeemed themselves?

[Darwinianevolution]

The thing with Konami is that, in regards of their business logic at the time, they did have a point. Sort of. At the time, mobile gaming was on the rise, and small, cheap and fast to produce was the big thing, and big AAA games were more and more a risk (and looking into the current landscape of the industry, with more and more AAA projects failing and dragging their studios with them, they were correct). And Kojima's games had been growing in scope for years, longer and more expensive to produce. Sure, they had always made a profit, but that is no guarantee for the future, and if a game the size of MGSV had underperformed, it would have left Konami a hole too big to justify. So if the Konami board and Kojima couldn't find common ground, the split was understandable.

What was not understandable in any way were the forms. A messy divorce would be a fit comparison, Konami threw all the shit they could find at Kojima as fast as they could. It is still the fastest PR bridge-burning I've seen in gaming. Even if they have decided that big games are actually necessary again, if whatever egoes responsible for that debacle are still on the board, then the issue still stands.

I don't think it's comparable with the messes of, say, Capcom during the PS360 era. In that case, it was a mix between mediocre titles and a lot of anti-consumer practices that gained them the ire of the public. They began reverting many of these, and making good games, so people eventually went back to them. They had an issue, they fixed it somewhat, thus regained some of the public's trust. Konami's big issue was still that massive breakup with Kojima, and not making big games was a secondary thing for many people.