Hideo Kojima wants to expand his entertainment portfolio beyond gaming, the famous video game designer said Saturday. While giving an acceptance speech at this year’s edition of the Anan Awards in Japan where he won an accolade for culture, the 59-year-old reiterated his oft-repeated desire to go into the movie business, in addition to confirming he’s equally interested in producing music. The ex-Konami designer also suggested that neither ambition should interfere with his continued involvement inKojima Productions.
Kojima’s love for the seventh art is a well-documented fact, not least because his seminal work on theMetal Gear Solidseries was largely inspired by movies. His adoration of film was also the driving force behind many creative decisions made during the development ofDeath Stranding, whose main cast mostly consisted of well-known movie and TV industry veterans such as Norman Reedus, Mads Mikkelsen, and Lea Seydoux. Over the years, Kojima cultivated friendships with a number ofhigh-profile Hollywood directors such as Guillermo Del Toroand Nicolas Winding Refn, the latter of whom even gave him a cameo in his trippy 2019 Amazon TV seriesToo Old To Die Young.
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Kojima appeared in good spirits at this weekend’s Anan Awards 2022, which took place in the An An magazine’s home city of Tokyo. He took to the stage by jokingly asking whether he’s allowed to be “among such gorgeous young people” before accepting a culture award in the shape of a golden panda designed after the magazine’s eponymous mascot and reiterating his ambition to expand into “fields like video and music.”
While Kojima received dozens of accolades over the course of his long career, yesterday’s honor was unusual in the sense that it came from a popular women’s weekly magazine and not an organization focused on gaming or general entertainment. As such, this award is yet another testament to his success that has long been seeping into the mainstream. His acceptance speech also dovetailed with the fact thatKojima Productions opened a TV and music studioin Los Angeles late last year.
According to previous insider reports and Kojima Productions' own communication, the company currently has at least two games in active development. One of them is aDeath Strandingsequel that’s believed to be a timed PS5 exclusive, same as its predecessor. The other is acloud-based horror game calledOverdose, which is rumored to be exclusive to the Xbox Cloud Gaming platform.
Kojima’s company announced its partnership with Xbox Game Studios in mid-2022, vowing to deliver a game based on a never-before-seen concept that will also leverage Microsoft’s latest and greatest cloud technologies. A few weeks ago,Kojima himself doubled down on that promise, stating that the upcoming project will transcend traditional media to the point that it could mean big things for both movies and games.
