Kojima: Episodic games could solve budget issues

Episodic games could help prevent studios from taking catastrophic losses on next-gen titles, suggests Hideo Kojima.

There is a great deal of concern and debate over the possibility that next generation consoles will mean a massive rise in the cost of making games, but Kojima believes developers should consider a new approach to tackling the problem.

"I think there’s a different way of tackling this problem: something similar to a TV series, where you can use pilot episodes to test the waters before you jump completely into the project," Kojima told Edge.

"It can be distributed via download channels, so the player can try it out before production continues. Something like that wouldn’t take that long to create, maybe a year, and if it’s successful, you can continue.”

Even so, the creator of Metal Gear Solid thinks it’s important for developers to be careful about spending too much.

“It’s possible to make many things more realistic, but that doesn’t mean you should," explained Kojima.

"You have to prioritise, and that is what’s going to separate the teams that succeed from the teams that don’t. A very deep, 20-30 hour game might need a bigger team and take three or four years.”