I doubt that.
From what I was told, Hayter each time was asked to come for casting and he won wach time. I highly doubt there was any reason besides some beef between Kojima and Hayter. If Hayter was so expensive for Konami, why didn't they replace him in every game before MGS V? He always wanted to replace Hayter and his dreamed actor to take his place was Kurt Russel who each and every time declined the offer. Kojima like every other hack out there is so convinced about his creative superiority to others hat with each game he consolidated power over MGS series to the point when he released boring, blatant MGS V and gamers as stupid as they are sided with this hack blaming Konami for outcome of MGS V despite the fact that another great MGS game with Raiden as main protagonist was smash hit in which Kojima had no involvement at all.
It took them 20 years or so to come to conclusion, they are overpaying him? Personally, I never liked his impersonation of lone-wolf commando. His voiced feels forced and I doubt anyone talks 24/7 with note of doubt.
I am willing to agree with conspiracy theory that the true ghost-writer for the series was Tomokazu Fukushima because since his departure after MGS 4 series become wacky, repetitive and obnoxiously copying elements from pop-culture like a true hack would do before help of ghost-writer (Snatcher, Policenauts etc.). Just look how story is in MGS1 how it is unraveling, how you gain basis of what is really happening to mind numbing Death Stranding in which for 50 hours you don't really know... anything and there are fanatics siding with this badly written game saying this is "art", because Kojima name repeats itself for 30 minutes after game starts. To easily proof that just play MGS Ghost Babel in which Kojima had no involvement at all and it still capturing despite the fact it can be only played on GameBoy.
Kojima was already trying to be replace Hayter since MGS2. His voice is shit, gargling gravel trying to be gruff "acting" since MGS2, his voice "acting" in MGS4 is complete shit. Konami even tried to get the real Plisken, Kurt Russel to voice snake and Kurt Russel declines because video games are beneath him, just like with other actors.
And no one in the union would try to take that part because you would get a visit from the union mafia. That's how Hayter basically secured being the voice of Snake for 20 years
The blessing Kojima got is when video games blew up with COD. with news of billions of dollars COD games makes, actors softened up on idea of voice acting in games as it is more easy money.
That's what happened with Hayter. He pushed his retarded delusion that he owned the Snake character, thinking he was indispensable and will get more money.
I know you got a hate boner for Kojima, but if you study his actions over the years, or let's say put yourself in his shoes, you would do the same thing or even more drastic.
Basically to start with the history let's skip to MGS4... Kojima already see that the spaghetti source code that they are using with MGS games are really showing its age. Its basically jerry rig their aging PS2 game engine (which I think was just modified PS1 source code). And with the Lightning Bolt Action: Metal Gear Rising, the technology of the game engine cannot hold up on what he wants with the game.
Note, Japanese game dev companies are very notorious for basically super penny pinchers, specially with dev tools. in fact RE1 was developed using a mess of a source code from SNES Goof Troop. ( Kojima's situation is different from Resident Evil 5, where Xbox 360 cannot handle the No Mercy level amount of enemies on screen compared to PS3, so they have to dial it back down.)
So, Kojima thinks that the Konami should future-proof their game development tools with a scalable game engine and have an easier dev time and flow. That's how Fox Engine project began. MGR:Lightning Bolt Action was given to Platinum, where they transformed it to Revengeance. Remember, up until even to 2013, Konami was still using PS2 game engine for their games. That's how backward Konami is, or mainly their video games side.
One of the main focus of Fox Engine is the smooth animation/transition, multiple animations. That's why MGSV has one of the smoothest climb animations in a game. Most, if not all games are programmed that the character snap into a place before doing the animation, while snake can climb from different approach vectors.
So, anyway, the reality is, developing a game engine is hard, and takes a long time and EXPENSIVE. The fact they made Fox Engine in 3 years is a very great feat (Note, Unreal Engine 4 started development in 2005 and released in 2012). But at this time Konami started to focus on being an entertainment company (outside of video games) and started making slot machines. I think Konami now holds the market for the gambling slot machines that you see in Vegas. So, when Konami starts making more money on Bemani and Yugioh games than what MGS game can, Konami starts to see MGS as basically underperforming franchise.
So, yeah, Konami started to meddle with MGSV development, insisting it to be crossplatformed, instead of next gen only, which basically cut a lot of things and features, like more populated map, etc, etc, etc.
So, if you think Kojima is being a hack, palling with Hollywood, showing MGSV branded Triumph bikes, expensive sunglasses, most of it to secure funding and showing that the MGS has a huge influence as an IP. That's the only reason why Kojima and his team wasn't fully "Gunpei Yokoi'd", because MGSV is still being made.
So, yeah, I give Kojima an A++ grade, specially for just being a vice president of the company. He's more level-headed than what you think a game director/auteur are. When he saw that MGR is not working, he didn't try to force it, he hired other company to build a game on the foundations Kojima built. he tried to move the company forward to the future. Its just that Konami saw that their future is Bemani arcade games and Las Vegas slot machines.
