How is the progress on Metal Gear Solid: Rising going?
KOJIMA: We're at an experiment level right now. We're doing a lot of experiments for Rising. But let me give you a hint at what's happening at KJP right now. I said this at GDC, as Kojima Productions, and for the Metal Gear Solid series as well, we always want to go to the next step beyond. And how we go up a step is really a big job actually. But what we're doing right now is making totally new, not just an overhaul, engines and A.I.s and things like that. Even the management and team formations that we have at Kojima Productions, we are changing this around. The core of it is, of course, the Rising team. So they're doing a lot of high-level stuff with great staffs. And that doesn't mean the guys who are making PSP are the shitty staffs...it's not that. However, we have the core team who is doing real high-level experiments and alongside we have the PSP team, which are not really good friends right now, but in Kojima Productions and with Rising that is what's happening right now.
The reason why I say they are not good friends is because the PSP is working day and night to make it even better than MGS4, but of course they can't do it because of a lot of restrictions. On the other hand, the Rising team is using loads of money and loads of capacity and hardware specs. If you could imagine the PSP team looking at the Rising team saying, they have all the money and specs. That's the one reason why they are not good friends.
It's interesting for me to see the team members act in this way. This was never before because it was always just one small team. Now we are much bigger. So it's really interesting for me to watch the team right now.
So there's an internal competition between the two teams?
KOJIMA: Well, we are creating a trailer for PSP like crazy. We give our best and think we did great, it looks great. But when we look at the Rising team we say, should we really keep creating PSP? Because the Rising graphics are so high quality.
