Kojima - prefers the Western industry

15:07 Without question one of the most influential figures in the world of interactive entertainment, Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima is nevertheless a remarkably down to earth, humble man, who seem almost embarrassed by praise levelled at his wildly successful titles.
That these games are among the most important and influential of all time is now broadly accepted, something which compelled respected US publication NewsWeek to vote Koijima-san among the ten people most likely to influence American culture, on the back of the release of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty for PlayStation 2.

With Metal Gear Solid 3, Kojima-san is again attempting to raise the bar and push the boundaries of the gaming experience, the focus of Snake Eater being on man versus the environment, with players required to survive the jungle or perish.

Sat in a mercifully quiet meeting room above Konami\'s stand at E3 last week, CVG was able to spend half an hour in the company of Hideo Kojima, covering a range of topics from his thoughts on PSP and DS, to the portrayal of global conflict in the MGS series and his great desire to eat reptiles. Without further ado, here\'s the full transcript.

E3 has now become synonymous with a big Metal Gear presentation and each time, ever since Metal Gear Solid 2, you\'ve had to raise the bar and every new trailer it raises the bar and it\'s more amazing. Is that something you relish, the opportunity to really raise expectations before the game is out?

Kojima: If that\'s how you perceive it\'s great, it\'s an honour. I try to create, put together, something that the fans will enjoy. That\'s really my intention.

Have you been able to gauge the reaction of people to Metal Gear 3 during the show so far?

Kojima: Yeah, I get to see their reactions, but with the crotch-grabbing [from the trailer] I thought people would be laughing more, but I haven\'t seen much of that! I failed in that aspect [laughs].

Do you think people haven\'t understood what you were trying to do there?

Kojima-san: You remember is MGS 2 when the President actually grabs the crotch of Raiden when Raiden comes in to rescue the President? He does that because he looks like a girl in a way I guess - he does it just to see that he\'s a guy. So I\'m doing a self-parody there.

So it doesn\'t have anything to do with the story of MGS3?

Kojima-san: Actually, there is story significance there.

On the PlayStation booth Metal Gear Acid is on show on PSP, which is a turn-based strategy game as opposed to a more traditional stealth-action experience. Why did you choose to go in that direction?

Kojima: Metal Gear Solid the series is about stealth-action, and it requires very delicate, very fine button controls, button input. If you make a little mistake with the button input, you might be spotted by the enemy. A handheld system is just not suitable for that kind of fine input, and when I discussed it with the team, we reached the conclusion of coming up with a game that has the Metal Gear Solid look, the feel, the flavour, but something that\'s not action-based because of the buttons and controls. That\'s why we\'ve come up with something with more strategic elements.

Can you give us any insight as to where Metal Gear Acid fits in with the Metal Gear Solid universe?

Kojima: It\'s more like a side-story thing, but the thing is in Metal Gear Acid you\'ll probably see all the characters from Metal Gear Solids 1, 2 and 3.

Have you thought about doing a Metal Gear Solid game for DS?

Kojima: It would be nice to have a Metal Gear game for DS, but the thing is I personally think that the audience for DS will be like that of GBA - it\'ll be a much younger audience. And this Metal Gear\'s not really suitable for them.

What do you think of Nintendo DS? With Boktai on GBA you\'ve proved your commitment to creating innovative handheld products, something which DS facilitates. Are you developing a game for it at the moment, or do you plan to develop for it?

Kojima: I\'m not working on a DS game right now; it\'ll be nice to do one in the future. If I were to do something... If I come up with an idea that allows the player to do things that no other videogames creator would do with the two screens and the touch panel, then I\'d come up with a game. I want to do something totally different. We went in the morning to take a look at the DS but there was a large queue and we couldn\'t see it [laughs]!

If the DS becomes really popular, I think kids will start losing their fingerprints [laughs]!

In the playable version of MGS 3 on the showfloor, there seems to be a lot of cutscenes and text in the game. One of the criticisms levelled at MGS 2 was that there was too much of this type of thing; is the content of the demo representative of the full version of MGS3, or is this predominantly a device used at the start to set the scene?

Kojima: We have to tell the story in the game. Yes there will be the text and the cutscenes but there won\'t be as much [as last time]. We\'re spending a lot of time creating this jungle and we want to give you the opportunity to really enjoy this jungle, so while you\'re actually in the jungle playing the game there won\'t be much of that stuff.


continued...

In the new Metal Gear Solid 3 footage we saw a female assassin character - what role does she play in the game?

Kojima: She\'s a female spy like in the 007 series who co-operates with Snake, but she\'s a spy and if Snake starts trusting her 100 percent - you never know, she could be doing things to him. There might be some romantic stuff between them, too.

There\'s a view that Japanese development in general is in decline in a way. We were speaking to Mr. Nagoshi from Sega [the head of Amusement Vision] yesterday and he was saying that many Japanese developers have trouble thinking outside of Japan now. Metal Gear is a game that has huge appeal in the West; what are your thoughts on the state of Japanese development?

Kojima: I\'m personally not really interested in the Japanese videogame industry right now; there aren\'t really that many interesting games right now, not like looking at the Western games industry. But I don\'t think we should really look at it like different markets, like different industries. It\'s like one global videogames industry and it just happens to be that it\'s more happening in the US and Europe right now.

So I like to present to these areas where it\'s more active what I\'m creating, and these places that accept and like my games so I\'ll do my best with my games so that people in these areas, like the US and Europe, enjoy my games.

And I\'m not going to name any names but I don\'t really enjoy talking to Japanese videogame creators that much. They don\'t have fun stuff to say anyway. I actually talked to Dan Hauser from Rockstar Games a couple of days ago and we had a great chat, and Western videogame creators like him seem to be more passionate and energetic so I hang out with him.

So do you think the Japanese games industry is flat, isn\'t moving forward?

Kojima: I think it\'s evolving but I don\'t see the heat, the passion there - it\'s more like a business now. I guess that people of my generation and Mr Miyamoto, who is not of the same generation you know, but videogames creators who have been around since the beginning of the industry have had to create everything from scratch.

There was really no established job position called "videogames designer", but now the younger videogames designers, when they joined the industry, videogame designing was already established. I guess in that sense the aura that they exude is really a totally different dimension from ours I think.

You\'ve said before that Metal Gear 3 is about a human being versus the elements, the environment. Why is this something you particularly wished to explore in a videogame, in particular the survival elements? What inspired you?

Kojima: I wanted to do something where this person infiltrates enemy ground solo and use his physical body - that\'s like his only weapon, his body and his will, his spirit or power. When he starts using very hi-tech gadgets you don\'t see that will, you don\'t really depend on your body anymore and there\'s the whole thing about "hard boiled-ness" that this guy goes in there and has the strength of will, and the only thing he can depend on is his physical strength. That\'s what we wanted to do with a theme of survival.

In MGS3 you have to hunt for your own food when you are hungry, and if you get ill or are wounded you have to treat yourself. Things like that I want people to feel - it\'s all part of being alive and trying to survive. This kind of power I want people to feel.

In terms of the survival element and hunting for food, can you talk a little about striking a balance between realism and fun? We understand you can hunt animals, but is water involved? Does Snake have to drink liquids to survive at any point?

Kojima: There\'s no drinking water. I thought about it, but it was just going to be too complicated. And there\'s no going to the toilet either [everyone laughs]. But he can throw up as you\'ve probably seen already.

Why the Cold War as the era for the game over any other period?

Kojima: As you probably know, MGS to me is like a 007 series where you have this one secret agent who infiltrates enemy ground and completes missions and escapes. But the thing is, when you have the game set in the near future like in the previous MGS titles, now the whole secret agent idea really doesn\'t work, and you have to get a Special Ops guy so it seems more realistic.

But I wanted to get that secret agent feel so that\'s why I took it back to the 1960s and the Cold War era when the US and the USSR were against each other in terms of sending spies and using double agents and triple agents and all that information warfare. It\'s just the best time for spies, the 1960s. You know, the message of Metal Gear Solid is ant-war, anti-nuclear weapons.

It wasn\'t a real war between the US and USSR; they weren\'t fighting each other. The people who were actually "fighting" the war were the spies, maybe not shooting each other but it was information warfare. By depicting this in the game I think that young people who really don\'t know about the Cold War will able to learn why things are like they are right now.

The Metal Gear series, on whichever platform it\'s appeared on, has always pushed the limits of the hardware. We just wondered what you thought about the next generation of hardware, what you feel the main advantages are in terms of development possibilities they will offer, in terms of game creation?

Kojima: I\'m sure that the new consoles, whatever the next console is going to be for the Metal Gear Solid series... I\'m sure they\'ll be very powerful, but if I were to create a game I really don\'t want to pursue like, you know, great graphics. Like Hollywood films like The Lord of the Rings where you see huge armies, or a movie where you see a meteor hitting the ocean and these tidal waves, like great graphics - that\'s not what I want to do, I like to tackle the thing from a totally different stance.

Is there anything in particular you think will be made easier by the next generation of hardware?

Kojima-san: I think no matter what they do it\'s not going to be easy because there\'ll be more things we\'ll have to do anyway. So I think what we have to do is select what we want to improve. They are many aspects of a game and I think we have to take certain things where we want to really increase the quality, and I think that that\'s what game design will be about.

Finally, the subtitle of MGS3 is \'Snake Eater\' - have you ever eaten snake yourself?

Kojima-san: Never, but I\'d like to try it. I\'d also like to eat crocodile. There are actually freak restaurants in Japan where you can eat reptiles. I\'ve been discussing it with my colleagues. We\'ve just never been there, we\'ve never had the chance!

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In one small sense im a bit surprised but on the other hand im really not. After all the MG series has been based on the US etc for as long as its been around. In a sense i guess it has its "japanese" elements but other than that Its a pretty american game.

And about evolution - thats a subject you could go on about, but theres a lot of me too games still coming out over here. Then again there are a lot of sequels being made over in Japan. It would be interesting to hear what games etc. he finds so appealing in the US market.

Its hard to explain but hey, if he likes the US/European gaming industry then thats kool by me (not to mention he gets more sales here).

Its hard to explain but hey, if he likes the US/European gaming industry then thats kool by me (not to mention he gets more sales here).

The U.S. is the largest market, and after seeing the success of western developed games like Grand Theft Auto and Halo someone would have to be a fool to ignore that market trend.

I ve read a very interesting article a year ago on the japanese declining gaming industry.
Old school developers like Kojima and others see that newer developers dont have the sense of creativity of the older ones.
First of all the education they get to become game developers lacks majorly compared to European and US.They are taught techniques, and generally things that would have been  useful years ago,
Also the game industry in japan has become way too commercial.Deveopers are interested to sell than create.
The author of the article braught certain comparissons of how japanese development was years ago compared to today.
Years ago the japanese where the innovators, the most creative developers.Today old school developers are starting to accept that the role the japanese had before is no longer and that it has shifted to non-japanese developers.
Today most games that we praise from the japanese gaming industry come from the developers we knew decades ago while new developers emerge in US and Europe that bring succesful great games.
Rachet and Clank, Halo, Jak and Daxter, Wipeout, GTA, Getaway,Burnout etc its obvious how creative non-japanese developers got compared to 10 years ago.The effort and money spend clealy surpass many japanese efforts that are reused ideas.
We can see that from Sega\'s offering as well.No more are the great innovative games.They got close with the DC, almost giving the sense they had with the genesis but it didnt last and their games offer nothing new now.We generally see sequels from Japanese gamers while more new franchises emerge outside japan
Despite all that I still praise the japanese gaming industry as long as the old developers bring their great games with a style unmatched by non-japanese developers(DMC,REZ, ZOE2, MGS, SH, GT ,tons of great RPGs, best fighting games etc).Their games are still based on depth,style and skill

While I respect Mr. Kojima and his work alot, I do disagree with some things of him which he states in that interview :

"Hideo Kojima is nevertheless a remarkably down to earth, humble man, who seems almost embarrassed by praise levelled at his wildly successful titles."

He isn\'t quite humble you know... His manner of speaking to the media and such may seem humble and such indeed. But if you look closely at his work and his rare interview to magz such as Edge, you\'ll see he\'s got alot of ego.

The whole Raiden thing in MGS2, the gameplay vs cutscene ratio, the convoluted narrative and currently the reluctancy in
MGS3 to use a 360 degrees free camera ; stuff like this just show that this guy won\'t budge. In Gamespot\'s MGS2 \'The final hours of MGS2\' feature he stated : "This is MY Metal Gear. I can destroy it if I want to". Really, Kojima is a great director , but he\'s also a very BIG Ego.

He smashed his Japanese games industry \'collegues\'  in that Edge interview in a very un-Japanese way though.

"Kojima: Metal Gear Solid the series is about stealth-action, and it requires very delicate, very fine button controls, button input. If you make a little mistake with the button input, you might be spotted by the enemy. A handheld system is just not suitable for that kind of fine input, and when I discussed it with the team, we reached the conclusion of coming up with a game that has the Metal Gear Solid look, the feel, the flavour, but something that\'s not action-based because of the buttons and controls. That\'s why we\'ve come up with something with more strategic elements."

This is kinda BS too imho. We all know by now that Acid is being developed by a Konami junior team. They have some new ideas which conflict with Kojima\'s style of MGS play which is more arcady. Acid will be more tactical. In that respect it will feel more like Splinter Cell. The Button input argument is BS becuz Ghost Bable worked just fine on GBA and GBC, with the same MGS twitch gameplay.

So, imho, Kojima is a great director indeed, but like Mr. Miyamoto they are men of their \'time\'. I\'m not saying they\'re stuck or anything, but I think it\'ll be good for their own evolution as gamedevelopers to move on to totally new projects. I haven\'t played MGS3 myself yet, but from previews and reviews I\'ve read it seems it\'s the pinnacle of vintage MGS gameplay.
It\'s an evolution, certainly no revolution. Splinter Cell broke the mold already and set up the new.

For all applies : "The revolutionaries of yesterday and today need to change from time to time to prevent being the conservatives of tomorrow" :thepimp:

Nice points you brought there

But Hideo kojima isnt the only person that has the same idea about the Japanese gaming industry..



People hated Raiden just because he doesnt represent the old hard ass kicking muscular hero everyone expects from an action game fo that type.He was feminine and intentionally flawed.But his intention wasnt to give us the best coolest character we can get.But the character that will fit to the way the plot should unfold to send the messages he wants.
knowing what Kojima wants with the MGS I thank God he didnt take the approach of oher games.

I find the value of MGS1 and 2 to be very deep.I said it before and I ll said it again.MGS2 wasnt and its not a game to play beat and marvel just for the graphics, sound and gameplay just like every game.It has a value that can only be seen in literature.It may not be 100% as good as a book but it\'s completely understandable.

For all the people complaining about the plot or cut scenes and text I say that this is just not the game for them.It does perfectly what it should have done.Be something more than just a game.

Ofcourse I do comprehend that there was lots of room for improvement.The AI is very predictable after a few times of play and their actions are set and feel fake.But considering it came in 2001 as one of the first AAA PS2 titles its unfair to compare with the newer Splinter Cell which isnt exactly the revolution either.

Lets not forget that MGS2 was the first to show the capabilities of the PS2 in such a degree.


:thumb: for your last comment though

Well, Unicron,

I agree with you on the content of MGS2 and MGS1 ; very great stuff.

It\'s just that Kojima IS indeed a strong personality who won\'t make concessions. The superficial ways of Japanese manner of talking to them, tricks the Western gaming press into thinking Kojima is very very humble guy.

But the 3/4 topdown gameplay reaches it\'s pinnacle in MGS3 i guess. If there\'s another MG down the line, it should evolve imo, drastically, with a new director.

But not all hope is lost for Japanese developers imo. Sony\'s Ico team is still very young and their Wanda game seems very promising. The good thing probably is that it only resembles Ico as for visual style - the gameplay will be quite different. They\'re innovating.

(BTW. I\'m still we PAL gamers have to wait another 3 months to play Snake Eater. GRRRR)

hehe I didnt meet the guy in person so I cant comment on his character
But I think he feels that he deserves more than other japanese developers due to differences in ideas if indeed japanese developers are seeing the videogame industry only as business.

 I ve heard him many times mentioning his disliking for the japanese gaming industry.He sometimes reminds me of people who want to get away from their countries routine.I personally feel similarly for my country since I grew as a kid in a different enviroment than many of my narrow minded compatriots.
 
I think he feels that other japanese developers are closed in their own kind of living not trying to see outside, not expand, not accept ideas from abroad, or try something different.Probably they are less hospitable with foreign ideas and feels that he doest get understood by others when he is trying to implement non-japanese ideas.thats why he has this attitude I believe.
 
Something similar I ve seen with some Chineese as well that want to get characteristics of foreign living in their live style.They will often talk with a similar manner about other other narrow minded chinese


ABout MGS: Its true he should try to improve and make some alterations.I dont know if it would prove a good idea to implement a camera system like Splinter Cell though.But a different camera system I believe can help to implement some other gameplay ideas.The 3/4 topdown gameplay would have prevented Splinter Cell from being what it was.But the camera system gave the oppotunity to trympre things.


I hope Wanda gets more recognition than ICO.Its sad that innovative and creative games fail to get the recognition they deserve.

Hey atleast we get the extras