Konami has been the center of attention lately, but not for anything good. It all started last month, when Konami's most famed game designer, Hideo Kojima, had his name removed for all marketing materials for previous and upcoming games.

This sparked much public speculation as to Kojima's current role with the company. Fans were sent on a bit of a roller coaster ride, as Kojima's name was then returned to the marketing, leaving many confused, and the situation shrouded in mystery.

Eventually, voice actors working on the upcoming Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain, announced that Hideo Kojima was fired from Konami, though that was denied by the company. As further confirmation to this startling development, Kojima was recently absent from the Famitsu Game Awards, despite the fact that his P.T. (short for Playable Teaser) demo won awards during the presentation.

Speaking of P.T., it was recently confirmed by Konami that the P.T. was developed to advertise, Silent Hills, has been cancelled. This came after reports from collaborator Guillermo del Toro and voice actor Norman Reedus seemingly confirmed as much on Twitter. Furthermore, P.T. is set to be removed from the PlayStation Store in just a couple of day's time.

With the supposed departure of its most famous talent and the cancellation of the high profile Silent Hills, Konami certainly seems to be in dire straits. To further nail that point home, Konami has de-listed itself from the New York Stock Exchange - a telling sign of problems if we've ever seen one.

Not so fast. As it turns out, this move was put in motion quite a while ago. Back in November of 2014, Konami announced to its investors that it would be pulling itself off of the NYSE. On April 1st of this month, they filed the necessary paper work to continue the process, and it was made effective a few days ago, on April 24th.

Konami NYSE - Logo

Konami made this decision in order to save money. However, it's not all doom and gloom. According to Konami, 99.71 percent of their stock trading occurs in Japan and London, making their listing on the NYSE somewhat superfluous to begin with. And the timing of the Silent Hill cancellation and this de-listing is likely just a coincidence.

It may sound crazy, but all of this controversy (minus Konami leaving the New York Stock Exchange) could be an elaborate scheme to build hype for the game. Kojima is notorious for trolling his fans and thinking up absurdly complex stunts to shock his audience. There's even currently a theory about head transplants that may or may not be indicative of a big twist on the way coming in Metal Gear Solid 5.

That being said, though the past stunts pulled by Kojima and Konami mean that everyone should be at least a little skeptical, but for all intents and purposes this does feel like the real deal. Even though he's claimed so in the past with previous entries, Kojima confirmed that Metal Gear Solid 5 would be the last game in the series, so perhaps this split with Konami is simply the famed designer trying to move on to other projects.

Konami's next major game, Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain, will release on September 1st for PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One systems. Despite his apparent departure from the company, Hideo Kojima and his team will still finish development for the game.

Source: Konami