Kojima Productions

Since 2005 Kojima presented his own program on the official Kojima Productions blog, "HIDECHAN! ラジオ", which was published in numbered installments; on July 3, 2007 it was at episode 148, and the blog’s archived version in July 2011 shows episode 296 and a monthly archive beginning in September 2005. Kojima is credited as responsible for the program’s script and structure alongside Takaaki Kitamura.

In 2008 Kojima’s business card listed “Creative Officer, Konami Digital Entertainment” and “Director, Kojima Productions.” He argued that job titles don’t hire people, don’t make anything, don’t create profits and do not endure, and that he wanted to be remembered for his deeds and his name rather than any position; he intended to spend the rest of his life on his personal mission, not a title. When exchanging business cards he introduced himself simply as Hideo Kojima, a game designer.

“There were a lot of surprises - the way the Western developers do things are so different! What I'm thinking now is, OK, we need to be a global studio.”

“You know, we've been asked this a lot - how do you guys know this? Even my wife didn't know!”

“Not really! Recently, Kojima Productions was involved in the creation of a foreign currency trading game - so I guess that kind of counts!”

“I think creating that now wouldn't really be 'cool' [laughs]. I'm not saying that I shouldn't do it, but I think that I probably won't.”

“Sure, there is definitely pressure. We don't belong wholly to Konami, so that pressure might be lighter, but since Kojima Productions is a part of Konami and Konami does the business side of things, yeah, I feel pressure there, that there's a need for it to be a successful, ongoing series.”

“I won't make games with senseless violence. There has to be a reason for it, such as war.”

In 2012, while preparing to open Kojima Productions Los Angeles, Kojima envisioned the Tokyo and LA teams not as two separate sides but as a studio located in a third space between the two cities. He wanted a global goal to render location irrelevant and for the outcome to be not merely a patchwork of Japanese memes with something American, but a creation global in the truest sense.

In August 2014 Kojima released P.T. under a fictitious studio name, 7780s Studio, to conceal that it was from Kojima Productions; the project was actually a playable teaser for Silent Hills, the game he was preparing with Guillermo del Toro, a connection that was revealed only upon completing the demo. Silent Hills was later cancelled.

Kojima spent almost three decades at Konami, beginning in 1986. In 2015, amid a bitter split, Konami removed Kojima's name from Metal Gear Solid V marketing; at The Game Awards in December 2015 the game won awards but Kojima did not attend, reportedly barred from attending by Konami. That same month Kojima re-established Kojima Productions as an independent studio partnered with Sony. Silent Hills had been cancelled in April 2015.

Since Kojima Productions was founded in 2015, its motto has been "From Sapiens to Ludens": the idea of humanity evolving from Homo Sapiens (the one who thinks) to Homo Ludens (the one who plays and creates). Its mascot, Ludens — designed with Yoji Shinkawa — is a spacesuit-clad figure carrying a flag, a symbol of arrival and exploration rather than conquest.

“Hideo Kojima's lifetime achievement award from @BrasilGameShow just arrived. Obrigado Brasil, it's already in display in our entrance!”

“It is not directly related to DEATH STRANDING but I wanted to let them know the direction and the world of Lynch.”

“So Conan, do you want to be in the game? [...] We have a 3D scanner right there.”

“In the future, Kojima Productions will start making films. If you can do one thing well, then you can do everything well.”

To launch Kojima Productions after going independent in December 2015, Kojima rented an office of under nine square meters and conducted an international search for staff, software tools, and engines while the studio began production on a new game.

VIZ's biographical note places Kojima's birth in Tokyo in 1963, his directorial debut with Metal Gear in 1987, the establishment of his independent studio Kojima Productions at the end of 2015, and the release of Death Stranding in 2019.

“It was 100% out of my pocket. No funding from anyone whatsoever. So we're independent.”

Kojima Productions’ Tokyo headquarters has a pure white lobby where a life‑size statue of Ludens, the studio’s mascot, greets visitors; inside the studio there is a movie theatre and a gallery space where Kojima’s body of work is presented like a museum exhibit.

“As far as digital contents go, we basically only had a naked Norman, a naked Lou, a beach and a whale. And well, that reflected the state that Kojima Productions was in. We were naked.”

“Sony has this new technology system called the Mado. It means window in Japanese. […] It feels like an illusion almost. Like the person on the screen is right there.”

“But you know, I'll probably become an AI and stick around.”

“People may not use them, but I want them to feel cared for when they're here.”

“Yes, he visited and we got to do the long-awaited 3D scan of him. […] He could be someone just walking around and you run into him if you're playing offline. He won't be part of the story.”

“I think, ultimately, Kojima Productions will end up being just me and AI. My staff is in the room right now, so I'm sorry to say this, but what I want to do is create a simulation databank of me.”

“People often describe it as like a chemical reaction. Like A and B react to create C or D. What Woodkid and I are doing is like a DNA modification. It's like something completely new that doesn't exist in this world is born every time.”

“We've taken a first step, a giant leap in the entertainment industry.”

“The films they are delivering to the world are high in quality and very innovative. I have been attracted to their creations and they have even inspired my own work.”

“I don't want them to just manage our existing IP”

“I gave a USB stick with all my ideas on it to my personal assistant, kind of like a will.”

“I gave a USB stick with all my ideas on it to my personal assistant, kind of like a will. [...] Perhaps I have ten years?”

“We met before the pandemic, and he used some of my songs in the first episode [Death Stranding], but it was songs from my previous records. He used "Goliath" and "Pale Yellow" in the gameplay.”

For the tenth anniversary of Kojima Productions, at the «Beyond the Strand» event in September 2025, Kojima announced, in addition to video games, an augmented reality game with Niantic, an official sake called ZAKU LUDENS, and a branded credit card with the bank Mitsubishi UFJ.

“This watch is a collaboration piece by Seiko and Kojima Productions. My first watch was a Seiko. It brings back memories. ... To sync it on a business trip ... I have to go outside but it doesn't always work. Hence my collaboration watch with Hamilton. ... I adjust this manually.”

In mid-June 2026, PlayStation Studios notified Kojima and KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS that it would cancel PHYSINT. The project was important both to Kojima and to his studio. After three months of searching for a new partner, Kojima and his team found a shared vision with XBOX and decided to work together again. Development of PHYSINT continues.

“We sign contracts according to projects, and that's how we survive one by one as an indie. So I need to find a new project before the previous project ends, and that's how we stay alive.”

“But if Kojima Productions collapses, that doesn’t follow this trend at all. It’s a step backwards for indies. So I needed to stand firm and continue this project.”

In a statement supplied to IGN after the interview, Kojima Productions urged scepticism toward unofficial explanations for Physint’s change of partner. The studio said it was healthy and profitable, that development was continuing with Xbox and that its relationship with PlayStation remained strong.

“You enter through Phase One. […] It starts with our independence, in a small four-and-a-half-tatami room.”

Kojima and his team released a limited-edition merchandise set when they became independent. At the time, they only had the KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS logo; they had the design for Ludens, but the CG model had not yet been created.

Kojima is a video game designer, writer, director, and producer, best known for the Metal Gear franchise and for Death Stranding; he heads his own independent studio, Kojima Productions.