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By now, the video gaming community is all but painfully aware of the sudden divorce between game director Hideo Kojima and game developer Konami. Solid Snake himself has even tweeted the fact that studio Kojima Productions has been disbanded, the studio logo having been removed from advertisement posters for the upcoming title, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.

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To address Kojima’s startling separation from Konami, former series music composter Rika Muranaka recently appeared on The Codec Podcast in Japan for an interview about the whole debacle, offering her own thoughts on why Kojima left.

According to the podcast, Muranaka stated that “He got his regular salary, but he wouldn’t receive any share of the profits from the game’s release.”

She continued to explain the internal conflict between director and developer throughout the game’s development. “Kojima was delaying the project and spending a lot of the budget to make the game as big as he wanted it to be. Konami wasn’t happy with this because he was delaying the game at his leisure and Konami‘s expense.”

The podcast goes on to explain the relationship between Muranaka and Kojima, saying that she thought him to be a “great artist in her eyes, but that he lacked the business sense that Konami expects of him.”

Muranaka and Kojima worked closely with each other on the first three Metal Gear Solid games, pumping out several pieces and then “coming up with one at the last minute” in order to impress their fans.

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain will be released for PlayStation 3 and 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One on September 1. A Windows version will drop on September 15.

[Via Hachima Kikō]

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