Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima has admitted that there are tensions between the Kojima Production teams for the PS3/360 MGS: Rising and the PSP MGS: Peace Walker, saying that the two teams “aren’t friends.”
GamePro spoke with auteur game designer Hideo Kojima at GamesCom last month, where the Metal Gear creator admitted that there were internal tensions between the two teams working on the next games in the Metal Gear Solid franchise. The conflict, he explained, stemmed from the fact that the team working on MGS: Rising for PS3 and 360 has access to higher-end equipment and a bigger budget than the Peace Walker developers.
So perhaps it was simply a matter of jealousy that was “why they are not good friends,” said Kojima. “If you could imagine the PSP team looking at the Rising team, they have all the money and specs.”
Even so, Kojima isn’t worried about the competitive dynamics between the two teams. In fact, he seems to find it funny: “It’s interesting for me to see the team members act in this way,” he laughed, “This was never before because it was always just one small team. Now we are much bigger.”
It’s true that having envy or competition between developers isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it might lead to better games overall as both teams try to outdo the others. Still, there might be room for caution: Today it’s just jealousy, but you never know when one of the programmers might snap and go all Cyborg Ninja on his coworkers. That’s just the sort of risk you need to take when you work for Kojima Productions, I guess.
(Via CVG)
Published: Sep 3, 2009 04:39 pm