iLounge

Hideo Kojima, creator of the Metal Gear franchise, discussed Konami’s recent Metal Gear Solid Touch release and future iPhone development plans in a recent interview with Spike TV’s Geoff Keighley, held at the San Francisco Apple Store. Kojima revealed that his team originally had the online group helm the development of MGST with Kojima studios overseeing production, but the resulting game was “crap.” After absorbing the existing assets, Kojima and his team realized developing the controls for a stealth game would prove difficult. “At first we thought this should be a stealth game… There were two parts a stealth and a shooting part ... We mocked up a sample but we thought it wouldn’t work,” Kojima said, adding that the short playing time of iPhone games would make it too difficult to manipulate the character through levels without being discovered by in-game foes. “So we changed the play style to touch shooting.” Kojima said that the final eight stages of the game, to be released later this year, will feature “touch fighting” gameplay as well as more “touch shooting.”

Kojima also revealed that he is a large Apple fan, and uses a Mac computer—one of the few employees at his studio to do so—as well as an iPod. Kojima went on to state that he would like to continue working on the iPhone, and hopes to do “something crazy” on the platform. Finally, he offered a glimmer of hope for those wishing for a true stealth-based iPhone game, saying he thought such a title might be possible as the platform develops and improves.