‘Death Stranding’ developer will stay independent “as long as I’m alive” says Hideo Kojima
Despite numerous rumours and interested parties, Hideo Kojima has stated that his studio, Kojima Productions, will remain independent for as long as he lives.
Speaking on the latest episode of his Spotify podcast Brain Structure, Kojima stated that despite repeated attempts to acquire Kojima Productions, he would never accept these offers as he wishes for the studio to remain independent.
“I created this company in December 2015 after leaving Konami,” said Kojima. “It was 100 per cent out of my pocket – no funding from anyone whatsover.”
“We are indies, we have no affiliations whatsoever and are not backed by anyone, and are on good terms with everybody in the industry. Every day I am approached by offers from all over the world to buy our studio. Some of those offers are ridiculously high prices but it’s not that I want money. I want to make what I want to make. That’s why I created this studio. So as long as I’m alive, I don’t think I’ll ever accept those offers.”
Kojima’s games have been more closely associated with PlayStation in recent years, with Death Stranding releasing exclusively on PlayStation 4 and 5 before coming to PC. However, he seems to have little interest in producing games exclusively for a single platform, and is currently collaborating with Xbox Game Studios on his next game.
And, just to stress that he isn’t jumping ship to Microsoft, he has also stressed that he still has a “very good” relationship with PlayStation, despite the deal with Xbox Game Studios.
He also used his podcast to remind listeners that he won’t be returning to any of his previous titles, such as the Metal Gear Solid franchise – given that he no longer works at Konami,
“Every single day from all over the world I get messages saying ‘Hey, make a new Metal Gear‘, or PT, or Boktai or Zone of the Enders. I take this as a positive thing but also, as adults, everyone should know that this isn’t going to happen, right? But they still send me stuff like this.”
Elsewhere during the podcast, Kojima spoke out about the internet conspiracies that he is somehow involved in Blue Box Game Studios’ Abandoned, describing them as “really quite a nuisance.”
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Chris Wallace
NME
