Creativity Vs. Commerce

Are corporations killing creativity in the games industry? It's an age old question and definitely a tough balance for publishers. In the last few days both Hideo Kojima and Tomonobu Itagaki have expressed the wish to leave behind their most popular franchises in favor of something “new”. Kojima has been very public about wanting to leave Metal Gear for years. At the release of every new game he says that “this will be the last one” but eventually Konami convinces him to do another. (presumably with a dump truck full of money)
Kojima is one of the most talented directors in gaming and it's a shame that he's strapped to one idea, no matter how great. Snatcher, Boktai and ZOE show that he has so much more to offer if given the chance.
With Metal Gear basically at it's 9th Kojima directed iteration and Ninja Gaiden at it's 4th or so iteration under Itagaki, isn't it time to let these guys do something else?
Seems to me that whatever they came up with would probably be just as good or better than another iteration of those games. But maybe that's just me...