Gaming Hardware Platforms Will Ultimately Vanish, says Hideo Kojima

Hardware platforms will eventually disappear and make way for a future in which all games are effectively multiplatform, suggests Hideo Kojima, the celebrated Japanese video game designer behind the Metal Gear and Death Stranding franchises, who was interviewed by IGN as part of Kojima Productions’ seventh anniversary on December 16, 2022, and shared his thoughts regarding various topics, including concerns over how media might be served and interpreted in the future based on advancements that include AI.

I think that gaming hardware platforms will ultimately vanish, and it will all be sharable anytime, anywhere and with anyone, on devices like smartphones, tablets and PCs. My concern, though, is that the world might become one where entertainment is brought down to us from above. Even now, AI will recommend what it thinks you’ll like, and I think we’ll end in a place where individual videos change depending on who is watching them.

The sound of music changed once it started being released on CD instead of vinyl records. You’re able to instantly skip tracks on a CD, so the order of the verses, bridges and choruses in a song began to shift [to engage the listener from the start of the song]. Maybe it’s inevitable that only pleasing works of entertainment will survive as entertainment changes because of the medium, but there is a danger to that as well.

Kojima also shared some new details regarding the Death Stranding movie that’s in development, revealing that it should be more of an arthouse film rather than a blockbuster and how his focus for the project isn’t about money.

I was on video calls with lots of people in Hollywood every week beginning last year, and not just for Death Stranding. I received a lot of offers, but my intention from the start was never to make a blockbuster film. Alex Lebovici from Hammerstone Studios shared my vision with regards to that. There were a lot of pitches to make a large-scale movie with famous actors and flashy explosions, but what good would explosions be in Death Stranding? Making money isn’t something I’m focused on at all, either. I’m aiming for a more arthouse approach, and the only person who offered to make a film like that was Alex Lebovici, which makes me think he’s a rather unusual type.

The 59-year-old game creator goes on to mention that he isn’t even sure if Death Stranding’s protagonist will be in it, explaining how the film might work better by not following too closely with the game.

We haven’t quite decided that yet. The failure of film adaptations of games from a while back has led to a lot of movies that cater to gamers, right? That’s why they have the same kind of look as a game. I don’t want the Death Stranding movie to be like that. Rather, I’m taking the approach of changing and evolving the world of Death Stranding in a way that suits film well. I made Death Stranding to be a game, and games are games. There’s no real need to turn them into films. So in a way, the Death Stranding movie is taking a direction that nobody has tried before with a movie adaptation of a game. I think that what I need to make is something that will inspire some of the people who watch it to become creators 10 or 20 years down the line.

In addition to the Death Stranding movie, Kojima will be busy with the tentatively titled Death Stranding 2, a sequel to the 2019 game that brings back Norman Reedus and Léa Seydoux in their respective roles of Sam Bridges and Fragile, according to an announcement trailer that Kojima Productions premiered at The Game Awards 2022.

Death Stranding 2 was officially announced for PlayStation 5 on December 8, 2022, but Xbox and PC versions will presumably follow.

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