I think what you just said Onyxmeth is critical to that little argument. MGS4 has sold a crap load of copies, is still $60, and hasn't seen a Christmas season yet and it is arguably THE game to get this Christmas for the ps3. Get the holiday rush, maybe a price drop in the spring with the smaller cell and then talk about sales of the game and whether the series is declining.

So I suppose the reason MGS1>2>3 in terms of sales was because the PS2 was such a miserable failure, and actually saw negative sales between MGS2 and 3.
But seriously, MGS4 still has a good chance of passing 3, still has the holiday season, and greatest hits release.

And one reason that Japanese development is declining is because in the west it is common practice to have an in house engine or license a third party one. In Japan it used to be common practice to build the game from the ground up every time. Now they realize that you can't do that anymore and are scrambling to catch up to what the west has been doing for years. So while they are working hard on that, they need releases to keep the money flowing in and that is leading to less than creative games.

@soriku

take a hint, dude. Nintendomination is doing NOTHING for the japanese developers, look at third party sales all over the world, is that so hard to see? perhaps you just choose to be so naive.

I called this several time already, since the start of the gen.
I said (and I wasn't alone) the japanese devs would be destroyed with their stupid strategy of trying to directly compete with western devs. Also, their war of attrition on Nintendo is backfiring hard.
The biggest offenders are being hit hard, and I'm sure we haven't seen the worst yet. Some big ones adverted the crisis, but I think it's only temporary, as they seem firmly intent on killing themselves.

Nintendo is the only Ark, but they refuse to take it. Like I said before, I'm still expecting thos that don't take the Ark to drown, and it's happening right before my eyes.
I'm laughing at people that say western devs are better off. They're even blander than japanese devs, with the very same problems. It's less apparent in their case, and will be delayed, as they're mastering the "graphics" tools, but the "graphics" won't have a durable effect on sales. Some western devs are already dieing and are being bought left and right, or disbanded.
So, no, they're not in a better position than japanese devs, it's just that western devs are more arrogant and won't admit it like the japanese are doing.

Every week now, I'm seeing another event illustrating the collapse of the videogame industry. Before that, it was every month, when the gen started. I expect eventually to see a devastating event every day.
Given how stupid the industry is behaving since the start of this gen, I can't say I'm sad, it's entertaining and hilarious to observe.

ookaze: Again, I think Kojima is really talking about worldwide mindshare, not financial troubles.

Uh, okay. Tell you what: let's let Konami/Capcom/Square/Nintendo make the profits, and let's let Electronic Arts/Microsoft/Midway have the "mindshare," and we'll see who wins in the end.

I think Mr. Kojima and I just have different metrics. He's a game designer, I'm a (casual) analyst of the industry from an economic perspective. There is no way one can substantively gauge "mindshare," but I can tell you -- with actual empirical data -- that Japanese developers are making laughing stocks of Western developers from a fiscal perspective. It was last generation when major western publishers like Electronic Arts, Midway and Take 2 were making big money, and they're now all deep in the red (although T2 did have a single very profitable quarter recently, when GTA4 was launched).

drugs are bad dude.

edit@bod

I believe that is called cherry picking, if you want to use financials to say who is doing better, east or west, you need a bigger sampling than that.  btw, dont' expect EA to be in the red for a while unless the subscriber numbers for Warhammer drop off like they did for Conan.

Japanese devs have settled for mediocrity. I haven't heard of many games that were even that good coming from them for a few years now. RPGs went from everyday releases last gen, to once every 5 months in this one. Even worse, these RPGs are being released on the 360, a system barely owned by anyone in Japan. The PS3 has what...2 JRPGs over there? I don't even know.

A whole bunch of devs are ignoring the large elephant in the room we call the Wii. The ones that have released games haven't put enough of an effort forward. You get games like Dragon Quest: Swords, small attempts made towards innovation.

Nintendo is actually sparing them in a way. They have localized (US/EU) fewer games than they have last gen. They had the PS2 to support last gen, so they should start supporting the Wii heavily now.

Maybe Marvelous can capitalise and become a big market player in the midst of all the problems.

Right...but isn't that exactly why it's reasonable to assume he's talking about mindshare, and importance in the industry as a whole? He can't be talking about fiscal problems unless he discounts Nintendo, and even then it's a stretch.

I don't see how my explanation of his angle is unreasonable.