I work as closely as possible to my staff and make detailed…

Kojima said he tries to watch one film a day and devotes all his non-working time to that; he gets through meals as quickly as possible and spends the rest of his time on film watching and reading, except on weekends when he plays with his children.

“but I do it on my own, so I do them all in parallel. ... This is probably only possible within my own studio.”

Kojima linked the speed and quality of his work to teams small enough to let him walk through the studio, spot problems where they arise, and give directions directly. He compared that method to visiting bookstores: solutions do not come from an automatic search, but from his own judgment, which he must keep refining with his eyes, head, and body.

“I have on average 200 problems at once to do with details of the game, and it's up to me to make decisions on all of them. ... Sometimes I do bug checks in my dreams.”

“Ourselves, we're like the people who made their own films before making it big in Hollywood. I think we've got the skills we need to make anything we want, anywhere we want, on any budget we want. That's where my pride, or my confidence, comes from.”