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Game Informer: Sony and Microsoft are placing a focus on expanding the gaming audience. Do these expanding horizons change the way Konami and Kojima Productions will be approaching next-gen development?
Hideo Kojima: First of all, I can only speak from the point of Kojima, myself, not that of Konami, but if you referring to the core gamer going to the casual gamer or extending the market to that aspect, I think its very essential to keep my titles to targeting the audience that wishes to have our games in the first place. Another point is that everything is so digital these days like not just games, but music, movies, even books so these could all just merge together or just like movie like games or game like movies and all of these could be merged together so what I’m trying to say is that it will form to a shape that is still entertainment and that might go to the casual gamers so I’m not really thinking should I create for the causal gamers or core gamers because I have no fear that everything is entertainment, everything can be merged together today. I don’t have any worries about that actually.
GI: A lot of people are saying, or maybe worried, that the next generation games from what we’ve are pretty much like the games we have now but they just look a little bit different. What is it that you think will set the next generation of games apart form what we have now?
Kojima: I understand your worry completely. Looking at the Sony and Microsoft presentations, I felt the same as well. If we are just enhancing the graphics and sound, there will be no difference and the worry will become true. When PlayStation appeared, there was a big change from 2D to 3D and when Xbox and PS2 appeared, there was a big change in online and now, the next-gen; PS3 and the 360, we have nothing there at the moment. Looking at the presentation, you could say that everyone was trying to create a “set” if I phrase it like a movie. Everyone was trying to make a prettier set, a more realistic set, but it was all just a set. When I refer to the word set, I mean it’s very hollow, nothing in the back of that set, it’s just something trying to hold that wall up. If we were to recreate a jungle, we would just try and create a jungle set. It didn’t need to be real trees in that jungle as long as it looked pretty and everyone tried to enhance this and make it look more pretty and more realistic, but everyone kept the same concept as just creating the surrounding as a set.
So what I want for us to do in order to take the next step in not create the set anymore, not make the trees look prettier in the set. I want to create the actual thing. The tree for example, if you burn it, it will die, if you cut it and water that cut, maybe a new flower will grow. I want to put that realness of life, not creating a set, but actually creating things from scratch. And that’s what I meant at the Sony press conference when I said I want to decide what we cannot see.
There was one step forward with Half-Life 2, for instance, a blow-up sequence, the physics were considered in that blow up and in the past there was only one animation of blow-up, but in Half-Life 2, they created physics where if you bomb this way this strongly, it will explode in all sorts of ways. That’s kind of the direction I am saying, I want to create an even more wider atmosphere, the whole life simulation in there and that’s my next step. So having that said, I think the graphics of the games I produce will not enhance so much because I will concentrate on what we cannot see.
GI: I’m going to shift gears from Sony over to Microsoft real fast. Microsoft said they have a goal of reaching one billion consumers, do you think that’s an unrealistic goal?
Kojima: Well, I’m not sure. Isn’t there only 6.5 billion people in the world right now?
GI: Yeah, that sounds about right.
Kojima: So if they’re aiming for a billion, that’s quite a lot and I cannot say, but looking at the game industry, the game industry has expanded and will expand, so I don’t say that is not achievable. However I haven’t heard the actual strategy of reaching one billion, so I will have to consider after that. So whether it’s Xbox 360 or Microsoft hardware or Nintendo hardware or Sony hardware or PC hardware, if you don’t specify a certain platform, I think getting one billion people to play games is achievable.
GI: What differences do you see in the approach that Microsoft and Sony are each taking differently to the next generation?
Kojima: I get the impression that Sony is aiming at a higher level. In order to meet the demands of Sony for instance, I think that budgeting the time and human resources, we really have to have high standards to live up to what Sony is expecting, and I’m not just technically, either. I’m talking about more of the human resources and that part. So it will be very, very difficult. And looking at the other, 360, it’s a little more realistic and down to earth I think. The roof is not high as much as PS3 is expecting. I’m not talking about the technical side, but more of the staffing a d budgeting, so 360 is a little easier I think. So what I want to emphasize here is that there’s not so much difference in Sony and Microsoft, for example, they both want dinner and Sony’s dinner you only have once or twice a year, they’re expecting that one special dinner, but Microsoft is expecting something a little more down to earth meaning once or twice every month. But the dinner itself is not different, the steak, you have the main course, the salad, these are the same. But maybe Sony has a little more fancy dessert, but the dinner itself is not much different amongst Microsoft and Sony in what they are expecting. So the battle between Microsoft and Sony will not be about the dinner but how much it will be or how much people are willing to pay for that amount or where can the people eat, and the number of restaurants. I think the battle lies there.
GI: The three products you announced yesterday at the Konami press conference were all on Sony products, does Kojima Productions plan to only work with Sony in the future?
Kojima: That’s totally by coincidence. I am planning to create a total new original project once I get the Metal Gear 4 going, but this does not have to be Sony. It could be Sony, but it could be Microsoft and what I want to say is that based on the title that I create, I should choose the hardware based on how many users are there, the infrastructures, the hardware environment, and I want to decide absolutely on that. For Metal Gear Solid 4, for all the Metal Gear games in the past we started with Sony and walked together for ten years with Metal Gear Solid 1and the reason is it was a match; a good combination of Sony’s environment, Sony’s users and we had Sony’s technical side down right. Everything was a good combination for us so Metal Gear Solid 4 was theobvious choice to produce on the PS3.
GI: After saying you were not going to be as involved in Metal Gear Solid 4, what was the inspiration for you to take a hands on approach to MGS4.
Kojima: Well back in March, we did kind of a launch party in Europe and at that event, we officially announced Metal Gear Solid 4. And also during that announcement of MGS4, I said that I will be doing game design and acting as producer. But, there will also be another producer and another director and I wanted to say that I will take a little step back at that event. And the only reason I said I was going to do a step back on MGS4 is because I wanted to work on the new original title that I have planned. After that European tour, when I returned to Japan, I received so much feedback; mail, letters, users and everyone said that Metal Gear needs to be created by Kojima. Kids under 10 or even 70 or 80 year olds saying you have to do Metal Gear. That kind of feedback goes into team members ears as well so the team members got surprised and got worried and came to me saying that I should do it. So the bottom line is I was moved by both the users and my team members. But as I said in the original event, there will be another director and another producer, I’ll be the director and I’ll be the producer but there are new guys as well so I can show you a new Metal Gear Solid. But I’m reluctant to say because I will be involved so much; obviously the new title will take a little bit longer. |
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发表于 2005-6-11 15:02:29
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