Voices in the Static #28 – Silent Hills is Officially Cancelled

Posted By: Whitney   May 6th, 2015 | 8:38 pm

voicesinthestatic_28

In this twenty-eighth episode I will be discussing last week’s heartbreaking news that Silent Hills is cancelled with fellow Silent Hill fans.

(more…)



It’s official Silent Hills isn’t happening

Posted By: Whitney   April 27th, 2015 | 10:09 am

CDjFRBaVAAA4rCR

Early this morning Konami gave an official statement to Kotaku regarding Silent Hills fate:

Konami is committed to new Silent Hill titles, however the embryonic ‘Silent Hills’ project developed with Guillermo del Toro and featuring the likeness of Norman Reedus will not be continued.

In terms of Kojima and Del Toro being involved, discussions on future Silent Hill projects are currently underway, and please stay tuned for further announcements.

Sad news to be sure, but hey at least now it’s officially canned.

Now we know…

Such a shame, the P.T. demo stirred up excitement from fans and the general public alike and showed a promising new direction for the series. I guess at this point all we can do now is wait and see what Konami has in store though, if I’m honest, despite Konami’s assurances, the fate of the series continuing seems rather grim to me.

Oh well. The hype was nice while it lasted eh?

If you haven’t already be sure to download the P.T. demo off PSN before it’s taken down April 29,2015, it is well worth the playthrough and imagine what could have been…

Source (Kotaku)



Konami Please… [Updated]

Posted By: Whitney   April 26th, 2015 | 10:35 am

sad-pug

Don’t drag this out any longer.

The signs are all there: Kojima is leaving, P.T. is being pulled from PSN, and now this sad quote regarding Silent Hills from Guillermo del Toro during the San Francisco International Film Festival last night:

“It’s not gonna happen and that breaks my greasy heart.”

Will you just confirm that Silent Hills is cancelled already? 🙁

[Update]

Apparently the Guillermo quote that was passed around today was taken a bit out of context. The “it’s not going to happen” was in regards to collaborating with Kojima, not whether or not the game has been cancelled. As of right now Silent Hills’ status remains up in the air. This is the time to say something one way or another Konami. 🙁



P.T. Demo will only be available for download until April 29, 2015!

Posted By: Whitney   April 25th, 2015 | 7:03 pm

pt

Well this really, really, sucks.

News broke this afternoon on various FB fan pages that the P.T. Demo will be taken off the PSN marketplace April 29, 2015.

Alchemilla Hospital reports that this sort of removal is pretty common since Sony charges the companies a fee for the downloads so demos have limited distribution periods and are routinely removed from PSN.

Now if you are like me without access to a a PS4 there may still be a chance to download the demo even after the distribution period expires. When Alchemilla Hospital broke the news on their FB page Christopher John Karl Green left this comment:

Make a PSN account. Sign in at https://store.playstation.com/#!/en-ca/home/main search for PT, and add it to your download list for when you eventually get one.

It may be a long shot but if you have no way of obtaining a PS4 before the 29th it’s worth a try. It looks like I will have to bite the bullet and buy a PS4 now rather than later. 🙁



Donna Burke: Kojima was fired by Konami [UPDATE – Not really]

Posted By: Whitney   April 9th, 2015 | 9:40 am

UPDATE – April 11, 2015

Donna Burke has revised her original statement on her Facebook last night:

fb_statement

I’m glad to hear that Kojima wasn’t fired but I’m still confused over Ms. Burke’s word choice. Though from a friend and co-worker perspective it may just seem like Kojima’s demoted role within the company is on par with being fired even if he is technically still working with the company at the present time.

Just goes to show it is important to be careful how you describe a situation, especially when there’s a lot of uncertainty and a passionate fan base.

Source (Donna Burke FB)


Original Post April 9, 2015

Well the whole Hideo Kojima/Konami fiasco just continues to get more depressing with each day.

Donna Burke voice actress for both the Silent Hill (Angela (SH2), Claudia (SH3)) and Metal Gear Solid Ground Zeroes revealed on her twitter that Hideo Kojima was indeed fired by Konami upper management.

donna

Ouch.

Videogamer.com reached out to Konami for comment and they simply said that Burke’s comments are “categorically incorrect.”

Source (Videogamer.com )



Voices in the Static #27 – Hideo Kojima is leaving Konami?!

Posted By: Whitney   March 22nd, 2015 | 9:01 pm

voicesinthestatic_27

In this twenty-seventh episode I will be discussing this week’s shocking announcement that video game designer and former Vice President of Konami Digital Entertainment, Hideo Kojima is leaving the publisher and what this might mean for Silent Hills future.

(more…)



UPDATED – Gamespot: Kojima Expected to Leave Konami After MGS5, Inside Source Confirms

Posted By: Whitney   March 19th, 2015 | 11:26 am

twcwusn2l1yoce5ovx96

Well shit. News broke today that Kojima may be leaving Konami.

Power struggles between Kojima Productions and Konami have led the publisher to make drastic changes, including the employee status of its Metal Gear team. Some senior staff at the studio, including Kojima, now essentially work as contractors, not permanent employees.

Gamespot’s inside source reports:

“After we finish MGSV, Mr. Kojima and upper management will leave Konami. They said their contract ends in December.”

Konami has already begun to remove Kojima Products from all official MGSV sites, social media and even promotional artworks.

It really seems there some sort of bad blood between the publisher and the developer but a Konami representative told IGN that they are just restructuring production:

“As we have already announced, we are shifting our production structure to a headquarters-controlled system, in order to establish a steadfast operating base capable of responding to the rapid market changes that surround our digital entertainment business. Konami Digital Entertainment (including Mr. Kojima), will continue to develop and support Metal Gear products. Please look forward to future announcements.”

So what does this all mean for Silent Hills? I have no friggen clue, hopefully we will get some sort of announcement about it’s fate sometime soon. I really hope the game will still happen. 🙁

UPDATE

Peter Brown, editor at Gamespot, said on twitter:

In regards to the Kojima Productions news and Silent Hills: that game is part of a deal between Del Toro and Konami, not Kojima.

I hope this is a good sign the game will still happen!

Sources (IGN, Gamespot, Kotaku)



Silent Hills – Won’t be out until 2016 and could have First Person PoV

Posted By: Whitney   August 16th, 2014 | 11:06 am

Ooo so What if Gaming got a few tidbits about the new Silent Hill game from Kojima during a conversation at Gamescom 2014:

    – Looks like we won’t see the new Silent Hill until 2016 which seems so far, FAR away but hey it will give me time to save up for a next gen console


    – Kojima is deciding whether to make the game entirely first or keep it fixed third person with select areas in FPV. I really hope it’s the later given that playing in FPV makes me ill

    Well… if they do decide to go in FPV the entire game I’ll have to use these next two years figure out a way to get more comfortable playing FPV. There’s no way I would let a little thing like simulation sickness get in the way of experiencing a new Silent Hill game!

    Reading comprehension I haz it…

    “Hideo Kojima: Not sure yet. Development is cycling between either allowing players to choose to play the whole game in first person or third person, or keeping it fixed third person and having some areas be first person only. Either way we want to do something with first person. The game will not be out more than likely until 2016, lots of time left.”

    Whelp that’s a relief we will have a choice or limited FPV. Thanks Ethan! I’m a dork.

    – The new game is most likely open world given that that’s what the Fox Engine is meant for. Kojima couldn’t go into more details as this time.

So what do you guys think? Are you more excited to play an entirely FPV Silent Hill or would you prefer a fixed third person view for the majority of the game like the previous titles?



KOJIMA interview with Geoff Keighley at GamesCom 2014 Re-Cap

Posted By: Whitney   August 13th, 2014 | 12:36 pm

t_cenference

Watched the press conference! Kojima couldn’t actually say much about Silent Hill unfortunately but highlights regarding Silent Hill include… (starts at 1:19:20)

– Instead of making us pee our pants Kojima wants to make us shit our pants with Silent Hill haha

– P.T. = Playable Teaser

-Kojima wanted to make PT so that people across the world would cooperate and solve it together.

– Had to look like an indie game so they dropped the quality a bit, it was the hardest thing Kojima had to do!

– The name of the studio for P.T. was a clue for Silent Hill. 7780s Studios: In Japan SH sounds like Shizuoka (or written similar I will have to re-watch) so its become a slang term to refer to the game there. 7780 = the Sq Meters of the prefecture and the “s”= Silent Hill

[update] I found this so the Shizuoka = Silent Hill makes a bit more sense

What happens when you take a prefecture’s name written in kanji and change it into English based on the literal meaning of the Chinese characters? Sounds like you’d get a pretty cool name, right? Well, you may be disappointed to find out that Tokyo (東京), the capital of the nation of Japan, in fact simply means “Eastern Capital,” and Kyoto (京都), the former capital, doesn’t fare much better, coming out as, um, “Capital Capital.”

Using a list of Japan’s 47 prefecture names in English, Japanese Twitter user FSseisyun compiled a ranking of the top five names. Let’s take a quick look and see how good the choices were, presented from left to right with their Romanized name, kanji characters and literal translation.

5th place: Aichi (愛知) – Love Knowledge
4th place: Chiba (千葉) – Thousand Leaves
3rd place: Aomori (青森) Blue Forest
2nd place: Shizuoka (静岡) Silent Hill
1st place: Niigata (新潟) Eternal Force Blizzard

– oh and he thought it would take people a week to finish PT he was impressed we did it so fast 🙂

– Silent Hills (joking) = Plural scariness