Big Kojima announcement coming May 18 - Report

Hot on the heels of rumors of a new Konami Xbox 360 exclusive and a Metal Gear Solid 4 port comes apparent proof that a major Kojima Productions announcement is imminent. Multiple online sources have posted scans of a two-page advertisement attributed to this week's issue of Famitsu magazine, Japan's top gaming publication.

Someone's gonna have a case of the Mondays.
The scan (pictured) shows a bleak landscape of dead grass and leafless shrubs under a bleak gray sky. On the horizon, a pair of figures can be made out, along with a low-lying building and a road. Besides the Konami and Kojima Productions logos, the ad has only two pieces of text: the date "2009.5.18"--next Monday--and the URL www.konami.jp/kojima_pro/next. As of press time, the URL only brought up a "not found" error page from the official Japanese Konami Web site.
Unfortunately, that's all the information available about the upcoming Konami project. However, if it is one of the two rumored 360 projects, Microsoft will have some wind in its sails coming into its June 1 press conference at the 2009 Electronic Entertainment Expo. Then again, the last time an Xbox 360 version of MGS4 was rumored, it ended up being Metal Gear Solid Touch for the iPhone Read more

Keiji Inafune and Suda 51 to speak at Nordic Game Conference

Noted Japanese developers/international gaming superstars Keiji Inafune (Capcom) and Suda 51 (Grasshopper) will be taking the approximately 15-hour journey from Japan to Sweden to speak at this year's Nordic Game Conference (being held on May 19 and 20 in Malmö, Sweden). Inafune will discuss Capcom's experiences with Western developers and how they have managed to create games with universal appeal, while other Japanese developers have struggled to make globally successful games. Inafune's presentation is timely, as he's currently wrapping up work on the re-imagining of Bionic Commando, which is being developed by Swedish studio GRIN.

"Having Keiji Inafune and Goichi Suda join Nordic Games this year highlights the strong and growing relationship between the Japanese and Nordic games communities and will offer attendees a unique opportunity to meet two of the most exciting game creators today," said Nordic Game program director Tom Felices. Their presence continues NGC's trend of bringing in major Japanese developers as speakers; past speakers include Fumito Ueda (Team ICO), Tetsuya Mizuguchi (Q Entertainment), and Masaya Matsuura (Parappa The Rapper creator).
At this point, you might be wondering why there is a Nordic Games Conference (in fact, this is the sixth one) in general. Well, remember that franchises such as Battlefield, Hitman, Max Payne, and Chronicles of Riddick, in addition to individual titles such as Just Cause and Super Stardust HD, all came from Nordic development studios. If the Research Triangle area in North Carolina can have a Games Conference, then so can the Nordic development community.

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