In an interview last night, Hideo Kojima spoke to his future absence at E3 2011. He will be sending Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D in his stead. Oh, and apparently Kojima Productions is about to revolutionize the way we play games or something.
Last week, Kojima announced on Twitter that he would not be attending the Los Angeles gaming convention, but rather would host an interview with former 1Up editor Mark MacDonald to give gamers a glimpse under the cardboard box of secrecy at Kojima Productions. He also recruited the talent of Mega64 to pepper the announcements with their trademark humor, and apparently made a ream of infographic show-and-tell cards.
The Metal Gear Solid HD Collection is real and it’s coming to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in November 2011, followed by the Zone of the Enders HD Collection in 2012. The MGS HD Collection will include MGS 2, MGS 3, and MGS Peace Walker, while the ZOE HD Collection will comprise ZOE 1 and ZOE 2. And they are all coming to the PSP… simultaneously.
But this is a new kind of simultaneous, not that same old "released alongside" method from the days of the Sly Cooper redux. The new technology boasts the title "Transfarring" (the "a" is intentional) and it’s the keystone holding up the theoretical arch that Kojima calls "the future gaming lifestyle".
The briefest explanation is that Transfarring-enabled games (like the HD collections) will be playable on the PS3 and PSP – and eventually the NGP – interchangeably. Say you’re doing some naked Raiden-wheels at home on the big screen and have to catch your handsome cab down to the apothecary for some vigors. Plug your PSP into your PS3, Transfar your save game over to the handheld, then be on your merry way with the full game in tow.
Kojima has preached for a while now about the idea of Transfarring, though this interview is the first detailed look into it. It’s the promise of "cloud gaming," the ability to play any game anywhere. There are clear limitations to this endeavor – like trying to cram a massive PS3 game onto a handheld – but with the details on the NGP still forthcoming, it may be less of a stretch than at first it seems.
As if pioneering "Anywhere Gaming" weren’t enough, Kojima also spoke briefly about the Fox Engine, a development tool created by Kojima Productions just to knock your socks off. And, apparently, to make games; good-looking ones.
The brief, lush demo featured in the interview is not necessarily a game in production, Kojima assures, rather a tech demo for the purposes of "research". But when you’ve got a dog, a horse, a kid, and a jungle, the game practically sells itself, right? The point is that the new engine looks to be on par with other industry development tools like the Unreal Engine and Frostbite 2.0 with complex lighting and shading attributes, smooth rendering, and the obligatory wool cap atop the shirtless child.
Like any Kojima Productions production, the interview is a bit longer than the average but well worth the time. For hands-on impressions of the HD Collections and any other surprises that Konami may have at E3, keep your com-link set to GamerNode.com in the coming weeks.
[flash width="540" height="337"]http:/www.youtube.com/v/VqCneCdZS7Y?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0[/flash]
