I disagree. Though platformers haven't had a Mario 64-style shift in ideas and quality recently, they are making far bigger changes than FPS games, with Super Mario Galaxy, LocoRoco, Megaman 9 and LittlebigPlanet changing opinions on what ideas can work within the genre. Exreme Sports games have been given the biggest breath of fresh air since Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, due to the ideas put forward in Skate, and the Wii Balance Board support in Shaun White Snowboarding and Skate It. 2D games have made a huge comeback due to the success of the DS and download services on each major consoles, and people are proving that there's still a lot of potential in there.Dick Motorman wrote:The same can be said for pretty much all styles of games, there hasn't been much innovation (thats not to say there hasn't been any, however) at all in the past 2-3 years regardless of genre, it's basically been the same shit with prettier graphics (for the most part).
I could list more examples, but I think I've made enough of an argument. The ideas behind FPS games haven't really changed as much as they have in other genres. Even in games like Bioshock, where the setting, plot and art styles set it far apart from other FPS games, the basic underlying gameplay doesn't. The only FPS game (if you can call it that) I've played in the last few years that encouraged me to think differently about how I was playing the game was Portal, and that was essentially just Half-Life 2 with a fantastic new gun in it.
Anyway, let's ignore this discussion for a second. Kojima's just said he's making a game he wants to aim towards the western market:
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=31720541UP wrote:In a candid Famitsu interview this week, Hideo Kojima divulges the fact that he is directing not just one, but two games concurrently. The title that will be announced first is being made in a style similar to the way his team has worked in the past, while the second will be produced by a restructured Kojima Productions with the overseas market firmly in mind. Kojima likens Western game development to Hollywood, with its products being made for the entire world, and reveals that his team is currently receiving "a makeover from the ground up." His goal for Kojima Productions: A software house that can compete with the best of the best from America and Europe.
What could Kojima's two new titles be? We have no idea, but recent reports suggest Kojima has been visiting various Western FPS developers with several of his key staff. He may simply be doing so to gain insight on how Western developers structure and manage their teams, but an FPS made with the West in mind might not seem so surprising coming from the worldly Kojima.
I this has pretty much confirmed my suspicions that he's doing an FPS. I hope he's got ideas that justify him starting a project like this, and it's not just a personal experiment to see if he can do one.