Hideo Kojima on making the impossible, possible

Metal Gear Solid developer, Hideo Kojima, has stressed the importance of changing your viewpoint when attempting to tackle "impossible" development situations.

During his keynote speech at this year's GDC in San Francisco Kojima-san used the metaphor of a wall as an obstacle, and how some people find it difficult to get past that obstacle if they can't climb over the wall.

He went on to point out that by getting rid of preconceptions, or looking at the problem from a different perspective, it was possible to see that obstacle in a different light and thereby navigate around, over, under or through it.

He related the metaphor to his development of the original idea for the game that became Metal Gear in the Eighties, from his brief to design a combat game for the MSX 2 - on realising that it was an impossible task he set about working on a new idea from a different viewpoint, and created the stealth game genre.

He went on to describe the various challenges that the Kojima Productions have faced with each new edition in the MGS series over time, and the various methods that they employed to overcome them - sometimes with new ideas, and sometimes with news software or hardware solutions.

"90 per cent of what is considered impossible is, in fact, possible," said. "The other 10 per cent will become possible with the passage of time and technology."

Kojima, who was honoured last night at the GDC Awards with a Lifetime Achievement award, has seen his games sell millions of copies across several different platforms, but most notably the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 consoles.