I bought the second generation Walkman in college. ... Looking at the…

Kojima even used the Walkman at home because he needed private music for any activity. He pushed each player so hard that, on average, he wore one out every two to three years and replaced it; along the way he also cheated on Sony with Aiwa and Panasonic.

When the first Walkman appeared, Kojima was in the first year of high school, lived in a household headed by his mother, and could not afford one. Two years later a classmate lent him a Walkman in class; on hearing "Habana Express" by Akira Terao he felt the voice inside his body, a three‑dimensional sound that enveloped him and seemed to filter into his sight, leaving him speechless, though he could only aspire to buy one someday.

Kojima wrote that the various incarnations of the Walkman had supported him through half of his life: during heartbreak, despair, mistakes, sickness, low spirits, loss, fear of dying, pressure, stress, feelings of failure, and creative drought. He summarized that companionship as two people walking together with three legs between them.

“It was like your fingerprint. The pattern of the little crackling noises could help you identify whose record it was.”

Although he remained attached to MiniDisc after the iPod’s release, Kojima bought a 6 GB iPod mini in 2005. For Christmas 2007 he gave his son his first iPod, a nano, and impulsively bought himself an iPod classic 120 GB, his third iPod after an iPod 5.5.