Dengeki Asks 5pb.'s CEO About His Hideo Kojima Collaboration

Scene from Chaos; Head Noah

A couple of weeks back, 5pb CEO Chiyomaru Shikura made some comments to 4gamer suggesting that he and Hideo Kojima were in the early stages in the co-development of an adventure game. The topic came up again in a Shikura interview featured in last week's issue of Dengeki PlayStation.

Shikura originally told 4gamer, in response to a question about his future projects, "With regards to the projects that I'm directly involved in, there's the third entry in the science series, and the project with Konami's Hideo Kojima. I think these are the two things that I should first put my full effort behind." Later in the interview, he clarified that specifics have yet to be finalized on the Kojima project and that they're at the point in development where they'd want to lock themselves away in the mountains somewhere and iron out the plot.

Dengeki brought up the issue by asking Shikura about the "top secret" meeting he'd had with Kojima and Grasshopper Manufacturer's Suda 51. Back in May, Shikura posted a picture of this meeting on his Twitter along with a comment suggesting that the meeting had resulted in the start of a new adventure game project. At the time, it was unclear if he was joking.

In response to Dengeki's mention of the Tweet, Shikura said "Nothing has been finalized, but it would be nice if we could make something interesting together. Above all else, I'm a huge fan of Snatcher, and Mr. Kojima is a god-like existence."

Shikura's short comment to Dengeki suggests that the mysterious Kojima tie-up project may actually be a lot more preliminary than was implied in the 4gamer interview.

It should be noted that, given the lead times required for print, it's not clear which of the two interviews was conducted first.

May meeting between Suda 51 (left), Shikura (center) and Kojima (right).

Elsewhere in the Dengeki interview, Shikura expressed interest in iPhone and 3DS, in particular because he feels touch screens fit the adventure genre well. Regarding iPhone, he noted that Memories Off is already available for the system, and also revealed that 5pb. is looking into getting one of its science-themed adventure games (titles like Chaos; Head and Steins; Gate) on the platform. Regarding 3DS, while making sure to specify that 5pb. has not necessarily started up support for the platform, he said that he's interested in seeing how other developers use the 3D.

Memories Off -- a different type of adventure game from 5pb's science-themed titles.