MSX was the name of a standardized home computer architecture in the 1980s conceived by Kazuhiko Nishi, then Vice-president at Microsoft Japan and Director at ASCII Corporation. It is said that Microsoft led the project as an attempt to create unified standards among hardware makers.

Despite Microsoft's involvement, the MSX-based machines were seldom seen in the United States and Britain (although heavily advertised by Toshiba in the UK), but they were popular in other markets. Its difficult to estimate how many MSX computers there were sold worldwide, but eventually 5 million MSX-based units were sold in Japan alone, many of which were the later models . This home computer was released in Japan, Middle East, Europe and Brazil.

Before the appearance and great success of Nintendo's Family Computer, MSX was the platform for which major Japanese game studios, such as Konami and Hudson Soft, produced their titles. The ''Metal Gear'' series was originally written for MSX hardware.

History

thumb|The Canon V-20 had 64K of RAM while its little brother, the [[Canon V-10|V-10, had 16K]]

In the 1980s, Japan was in the midst of an economic awakening. Large Japanese electronics firms might have been successful in the early computer market had they made a concerted effort in the late 1970s. Their combined design and manufacturing power could have allowed them to produce competitive machines, but they initially ignored the home computer market and appear to have been hesitant to do business in a market where no industry standard existed.

Nishi proposed MSX as an attempt to create a single industry standard for home computers. Inspired by the success of VHS as a standard for video cassette recorders, many Japanese electronic manufacturers along with GoldStar, Philips and Spectravideo built and promoted MSX computers. Any piece of hardware or software with the MSX logo on it was compatible with MSX products of other manufacturers. In particular, the expansion cartridge form and function were part of the standard; any MSX expansion or game cartridge would work in any MSX computer.

Nishi's standard consisted primarily of several off-the-shelf parts; the main CPU was a 3.58 MHz Zilog Z80, the graphics chip a Texas Instruments TMS9918 with 16 KB of dedicated VRAM, the sound and partial I/O support was provided by the AY-3-8910 chip manufactured by General Instrument (GI), and an Intel 8255 Programmable Peripheral Interface chip was used for the parallel I/O such as the keyboard. This was a choice of components that was shared by many other home computers and games consoles of the period, such as the ColecoVision home computer (an emulator was later available with which MSX systems could run some of its software), and the Sega SG-1000 video game system. To reduce overall system cost, many MSX models used a custom IC known as "MSX-Engine", which integrated glue logic, 8255 PPI, YM2149 compatible soundchip and more, sometimes even the Z80 CPU. However, almost all MSX systems used a professional keyboard instead of a chiclet keyboard, driving the price up again. Consequently, these components alongside Microsoft's MSX BASIC made the MSX a competitive, though somewhat expensive, home computer package.

Debut

On 27 June 1983, the date considered the birthday of the MSX standard, the MSX was formally announced during a press-conference, and a slew of big Japanese firms declared their plans to introduce machines. The Japanese companies avoided the intensely competitive US home computer market, which was in the throes of a Commodore-led price war. Only Spectravideo and Yamaha briefly marketed MSX machines in the US. Spectravideo's MSX enjoyed very little success, and Yamaha's CX5M model, built to interface with various types of MIDI equipment, was billed more as a digital music tool than a standard personal computer.

Adoption

During the 1980s, Europe became the largest computer games (as opposed to console games) market in the world, and the extremely popular Commodore 64, Atari 8-bit, and Sinclair ZX Spectrum computers dominated. By the time the MSX launched in Europe several more popular 8-bit home computers had also arrived, and it was far too late to capture the extremely crowded European 8-bit computer market.

A problem for some game software developers was that the method by which MSX-1 computers addressed their video RAM (to draw a picture on the screen) could be quite slow compared to systems that gave direct access to the video memory. This, and the fact that the completely different features the MSX-1's video chip (using the MSX Video access method) had to compensate for the slower video access were not efficiently used while porting (mostly Spectrum) software, made the MSX-1 to appear slower when running ported games.

Some minor compatibility issues also plagued ported Spectrum games. For example, the Toshiba HX-10 machine was unable to read certain key combinations at the same time, preventing the Spectrum "standard" of "Q, A, O, P steering", whereas machines by other manufacturers worked fine. Later (ported) games tended to use the MSX-1 joystick port or used MSX's official arrow keys and space bar, or offered the option to choose other keys with which to control the program, solving the problem.

A larger problem was that the designers of the MSX standard bank switching protocol did not prescribe to hardware manufacturers in which banks the cartridges, but more important the RAM, should be found. Moreover, the MSX's BIOS did not provide this information either, thus requiring programmers to implement complex routines to "find" these resources. Often programmers assumed that the RAM and cartridges would be available at a "default" bank switch location; in reality some systems had their RAM or cartridge slot(s) not at the "default" location, but on another bank switch location. In those cases programs failed to run because they only "saw" 32K of the available memory, instead of the full 64K that almost all MSX-1 machines offered. With very few exceptions, except for a very early Phillips MSX-1 model, (the VG8000) and the SVI-318 almost all other mainstream MSX-1 machines offered at least the full 64K of RAM.

Evolution

MSX spawned four generations: MSX (1983); MSX2 (1986); MSX2+ (1988); and MSX TurboR (1990). The first three were 8-bit computers based on the Z80 microprocessor, while the MSX TurboR was based on an enhanced Zilog Z800 known as the R800. The MSX TurboR was introduced in 1990 but was unsuccessful due to a lack of support and the rise in popularity of the by then well-established IBM PC Compatible market. Production of the TurboR ended in 1993 when Panasonic decided to focus on release of 3DO.

The MSX3 was scheduled for market in 1990. Delays in the development of its VDP (then named V9978 on the pre-release spec sheets) caused Yamaha to miss its time to market deadline. In its place an improved MSX2+ was released as the MSX Turbo-R; features of the new R800 processor such as DMA and 24-bit addressing were disabled. The VDP was eventually delivered 2 years after its planned deadline, by which time the market had moved on. In an attempt to reduce its financial loss Yamaha stripped nearly all V9958 compatibility and marketed the resulting V9990 E-VDP III as a video-chipset for PC VGA graphic cards, with moderate success. Sony also employed the V7040 RGB encoder chip on many other products. MSX-FAN Magazine also mentions the then impressive power of the V9990, being able to compete with much more expensive hardware such as the Sharp X68000.

Impact

MSX never became the worldwide standard that its makers had envisioned, mainly because it never took off in the United States and the UK. However, in Japan, South Korea, Argentina, and Brazil, MSX was the paramount home computer system in the 1980s. It was also quite popular in continental Europe, especially in the Netherlands and Spain. Classrooms full of networked Yamaha MSX were used for teaching informatics in school in some Arab countries and the Soviet Union.

In the 1980s, Sakhr (صخر) Computers (Developed by Al Alamyyeh, a Kuwaiti company), started the production of the first Arabian version of MSX computers. They started producing a Yamaha AX100, but also a few other models including MSX2 and MSX2+ models. The most popular and affordable model within CCASG was the Sakhr MSX AX170. They were also the first to Arabize BASIC and the MSX LOGO.

Many MSX computers were used during the 1980s in Eastern European (former Eastern Bloc) countries as a tool for subtitling pirated films on VHS, or Betamax cassettes. The MSX computers were used for their simplicity and its ability to display prepared titles in real time as superimpose text on mastering tapes.

In total, 5 million MSX computers were sold, which made it relatively popular but not the global standard it was intended to be. For a comparison with rival 8-bit computers, the Commodore 64 sold 17 million units worldwide in its lifetime, the Apple II sold 6 million units, the Atari 8-bit sold at least 4 million units, the Amstrad CPC sold 3 million units, and the Tandy TRS-80 sold 250,000 units.

One (Sony) MSX2 machine was even launched into space on board of a Russian MIR spacecraft

Name

The exact meaning of the "MSX" abbreviation remains a matter of debate. At the time, most people seemed to agree it meant 'MicroSoft eXtended', referring to the built-in "Microsoft eXtended BASIC" (''MSX-BASIC''), specifically adapted by Microsoft for the MSX system. Another suggested source for the abbreviation was Matsushita-Sony. However, according to Kazuhiko Nishi, MSX could also stand for "Machines with Software eXchangeability". Perhaps because of a general aversion to the global player Microsoft, this version was welcomed by the MSX community. In 1985 Kazuhiko Nishi told that he named MSX after the MX missile. The MSX-DOS disk operating system had file system compatibility with CP/M and was similar to MS-DOS. In this way, Microsoft could promote MSX for home use while promoting MS-DOS based personal computers in office environments.

Similar systems

The system MSX most closely resembled was the Spectravideo SV-328 home computer (Spectravideo even claimed to be "MSX compatible" in advertisements before the actual launch of MSX systems, but it was in fact not completely compatible with it). This led to a new and short-lived kind of software cracking: ''converting''. Since the MSX games were unplayable on the SV-328 computer, SV-328 crackers developed a method of modifying the (MSX) games to make them work on the SV-328. In most cases this included downloading the MSX BIOS to the SV-328 from tape or floppy disk. Spectravideo later launched the SV-728 which completely adhered to the MSX standard.

2001 Revival

thumb|1chipMSX

In 2001, Kazuhiko Nishi initiated a 'MSX Revival' around an official MSX emulator called MSXPLAYer. This is the only official MSX emulator as all MSX copyrights are maintained by the MSX Association. Then in in 2004 a Dutch company Bazix announced they had become the representatives of MSX Association in Europe, being the English contact for any questions regarding the MSX trademarks and copyrights (licensing). and on October 17, 2006, Bazix launched WOOMB.Net, a website selling MSX games (translated to English if necessary), with a selection of 14 games. In Japan, game sales began earlier, through Project EGG. ''WOOMB.Net'' was the English counterpart of this (and other) Japanese services offered by D4 Enterprise, which also announced (in August 2006) the launch of a new MSX2 compatible system called the "one chip-MSX", a system based on an Altera Cyclone EP1C12Q240C8 FPGA. The one chip-MSX" is similar in concept to the C-One, a Commodore 64 clone also build on the basis of a single FPGA chip. The new MSX system is housed in a box made out of transparent blue plastic, and can be used with a standard monitor (or TV) and a PC keyboard. It has two MSX cartridge slots and supports the audio extensions MSX-MUSIC and SCC+. A SD/MMC-flashcard can be used as an external storage medium, emulating a disk drive and can be used to boot MSX-DOS. Due to its VHDL programmable hardware it is possible to give the device new hardware extensions simply by running a reconfiguration program under MSX-DOS. The "one chip-MSX" also has two USB connectors that can be used after adding some supporting VHDL code.

On 7 June 2008, the MSX Resource Center Foundation reported that the MSX trademark had moved from ''MSX Association'' to the ''MSX Licensing Corporation'', referring to a Benelux trademark register page of MSX, which names the ''MSX Licensing Corporation'' as entitled entity till 28-10-2013. At that time the website of the ''MSX Licensing Corporation'' that they linked to as source, had a text saying 'We are planning to revitalize MSX, the innovative computer platform.' on it. However, the website was later changed to contain only the logo of ''ITNY & Partners'', and a link to ''ITNY & Partners''' English and Japanese websites and has no mention of the MSX Licensing Corporation at all. and on 26 June 2008, Bazix reported on their website's frontpage that they are no longer the representative of MSX Association, due to being unable to achieve their goals of ''"bringing about the commercial MSX Revival beyond the Japanese borders"'' and ''"the transfer of the MSX trademark from MSX Association to MSX Licensing Corporation"'' and ''"no outlook on any progress in the Western One Chip MSX project any time soon"''. As a result of this, ''WOOMB.Net'' is taken offline as well, with its website redirecting to the Bazix website, till "''a solution free of MSX Association's contributions has been completed''". According to their post, they will cooperate with D4 Enterprise and the MSX Licensing Corporation ''"in one or more retro gaming related projects"''.

On 4 July 2008, MSX Association's European contact website, which states to be the ''"only official contact place for MSX Association in Europe"'', reports that the MSX trademark and copyright has been under the MSX Licensing Corporation holding ever since 1983. It explains that MSX Association, chaired by Dr. Kazuhiko Nishi is the operational division of MSX Licensing Corporation which manages the trademarks, logo and copyrights for MSX. According to the same article, D4 Enterprise ''"refuse to pay royalties to MSX Association for the use of ESE Artists' Factory's work in 1chipMSX and the software licenses in Project Egg"'', thus they deal with Kazuhiko Nishi 'directly' through the MSX Licensing Corporation. The article mentions as well the ''ESE MSX System 3'', on which the ''1chipMSX'' (also known as ''One Chip MSX'' or ''OCM'') is based.

On 5 July 2008, the MSX Association's Europe website posted an announcement reporting that D4 Enterprise was selling the ''1chipMSX'' illegally. In the same post it is stated that ''Bazix'' no longer is their representative in Europe, due to ''Bazix'' cutting off their relationship.

Nintendo virtual console

Nintendo of Japan posted on its Virtual Console webpage that MSX games will be available for Wii's Virtual Console emulator. In February 2007, it was confirmed again and announced that the games would cost 700 Wii Points and will become available in the middle of 2007 (for Japan only, at least initially).

Franchises established on the MSX

The most popular and famous MSX games were written by Japanese software-houses such as Konami and Hudson Soft. Several popular video game franchises were initially established on the MSX:

''Aleste'' and ''Zanac'' (the latter developed and released alongside the original FDS version)

''Bomberman''

''Penguin Adventure''

''Eggerland''

''Metal Gear''

''Parodius''

''Puyo Puyo''

Others got various installments on the MSX, including some titles unique to the system or largely reworked versions of games on other formats:

''Castlevania'' (as ''Vampire Killer'')

''Contra''

''Dragon Quest''

''Dragon Slayer''

''Final Fantasy''

''Gradius'' (''Nemesis'')

''R-Type''

''Wizardry''

''Xak''

''Ys''

Manufacturers

; MSX: Spectravideo, Philips, Al Alamia, Sony, Sanyo, Mitsubishi, Toshiba, Hitachi, National, Panasonic, Canon, Casio, Pioneer, Fujitsu General, Yamaha, JVC, Yashica-Kyocera, GoldStar, Samsung/Fenner, Daewoo/Yeno, Gradiente, Sharp/Epcom, Talent. ; MSX2: Philips, Sony, Sanyo, Samsung, Mitsubishi, Victor (a.k.a. JVC), National, Panasonic, Canon, Yamaha, ACVS, DDX, Daewoo/Yeno, NTT, Talent. ; MSX2+: Sony, Sanyo, Panasonic, ACVS, DDX. ; MSX TurboR: Panasonic.

System specifications

MSX

thumb|Philips MSX, Model VG-8020

Processor: Zilog Z80A running at 3.58 MHz

ROM: 32 KB

* BIOS (16 KB)

* MSX BASIC V1.0 (16 KB)

RAM: 8 KB minimum, most machines provided either 32KB or 64KB, machines with 128 KB exist

Video Display Processor: Texas Instruments TMS9918 family

* Video RAM: 16 KB

* Text modes: 40×24 and 32×24

* Resolution: 256×192 (16 colours). Actually there are just 15 colour tints available, because, just like Sinclair spectrum there are two versions of black. Unlike the Spectrum however, one of the blacks is actually "transparent", so the MSX video picture could be overlayed on another video signal, for example one from a video disk.

* Sprites: 32, 1 colour, max 4 per horizontal line

Sound chip: General Instrument AY-3-8910 (PSG)

MSX2

Processor: Zilog Z80A running at 3.58 MHz

ROM: 48 KB

* BIOS + Extended BIOS (32 KB)

* MSX BASIC V2.0 or V2.1 (16 KB)

* DiskROM (16 KB) (optional, common)

* MSX-Audio BIOS (32 KB) (optional, no machines are known with this BIOS built in)

RAM: 64 KB minimum, commonly 128 KB in Europe, 64 KB on Japanese computers, machines with up to 512 KB were made

* Memory mapped (4 MB (MiB)/slot max) (optional)thumb|209px|The effect of attribute clash when using the old 256×192 Highres mode of MSX 1, (which was less severe than for example the Spectrum, but still a nuisance). Later MSX models added new video modes without this problem

Video Display Processor: Yamaha V9938 (a.k.a. MSX-Video) Supports all MSX video modes plus:

* Increased video RAM: 128 KB (sometimes 64 KB or 192 KB)

* New text mode: 80×24

* New video modes without the attribute clash of MSX 1, (a problem shared by several other home computers of the era). See the picture on the right showing an example of the attribute clash of MSX 1.

* New resolutions: 512×212 (16 colours out of 512) and 256×212 (256 colours)

* Increased number of, and more advanced sprites: 32, 16 colours, max 8 per horizontal line

* Hardware acceleration for copy, line, fill, etc.

* Interlacing to double vertical resolution

* A vertical scroll register

Sound chip: Yamaha YM2149 (PSG)

Clock chip: Ricoh RP5C01 (or compatible)

3.5" Floppy disk drive is common

MSX2+

thumb|MSX2+ computer: a Panasonic FS-A1WSX

Only officially released in Japan (available in Europe and Brazil via upgrades)

Processor: Zilog Z80 compatible running at 3.58 MHz or more (5.37 MHz versions were available)

ROM: 64 KB

* BIOS + Extended BIOS (32 KB)

* MSX BASIC V3.0 (16 KB)

* DiskROM (16 KB) (optional, very common)

* Kun-BASIC (16 KB) (optional)

* Kanji ROM (optional)

RAM: commonly 64 KB (on Japanese computers)

* Memory mapped (4 MB/slot max)

Video Display Processor: Yamaha V9958 (aka MSX-Video) All of MSX2's specifications plus:

* The video RAM now always is 128 KB

* a new 256×212 YJK video mode with 19268 simultaneous colors

* a new 256×212 mixed-YJK/RGB video mode with 12499 simultaneous colors

* a horizontal scroll register

Sound chip: Yamaha YM2149 (PSG)

Optional sound chip: Yamaha YM2413 (OPLL) (MSX-Music)

Clock chip RP5C01

3.5" Floppy disk drive is very common

MSX TurboR

Only released in Japan

Processor: R800 and Zilog Z80A compatible

* R800 running at 7.16 MHz (instructions use about 4x less clock ticks than the Z80, so often quoted as 28.6 MHz when comparing with the Z80)

* Zilog Z80A compatible (embedded in the T9769C MSX-Engine) running at 3.58 MHz for backwards compatibility

ROM: 96 KB

* BIOS + Extended BIOS (48 KB)

* MSX BASIC V4.0 (16 KB)

* DiskROM (16 KB)

* Kun-BASIC (16 KB)

* Kanji ROM (256 KB)

* Firmware (4 MB)

RAM: 256 KB (FS-A1ST) or 512 KB (FS-A1GT)

* Memory mapped (4 MB/slot max)

* Additionally 16 KB (FS-A1ST) or 32 KB (FS-A1GT) of SRAM (battery-powered)

Video Display Processor: Yamaha V9958 (aka MSX-Video) so the same capabilities as MSX2+

Sound chip: Yamaha YM2149 (PSG)

Sound chip: Yamaha YM2413 (OPLL) (MSX-Music)

Sound chip: PCM

* 8-bit single channel (no DMA), 16 kHz max using BIOS routines.

* Microphone built-in

Sound chip: MIDI in/out (FS-A1GT only)

Clock chip

3.5" Floppy disk drive

Peripherals

Floppy disk drives

MSX systems generally did not have a built-in disk drive, so games were published mainly on cartridge and cassette tape. Floppy disk drives were available for MSX however, in the form of a cartridge containing the disk interface electronics and a BIOS extension ROM (the floppy disk drive interface), connected to an external case with the drive. In South-America, many of these systems used a 5¼" floppy disk drives, but in Europe, mostly the 3.5" drives were popular. In Japan, some MSX1 systems included a built-in 3.5" disk drive, like Panasonic (earlier named Matsushita) CF-3000. In Europe a whole range of Philips MSX2 systems NMS 8230, 8235, 8245, 8250 and up features either 360Kb or 720Kb 3.5" floppy drives.

In 1985 the MSX2 was released, which systems often (but not always) included a built-in 3.5" disk drive too, and consequently the popular media for games and other software shifted to floppy disks.

The MSX 3.5" floppy disks are directly compatible with MS-DOS (although some details like file undeletion and boot sector code were different). Like MS-DOS 1, MSX disks (formatted) under MSX-DOS 1 have no support for subdirectories.

MSX-Audio

Yamaha Y8950, also known as:

* Panasonic: MSX-Audio (standard name)

* Philips: Music Module (no MSX-Audio BIOS)

* Toshiba: MSX FM-synthesizer Unit (no sample RAM, no MSX-Audio BIOS)

9 channels FM or 6 channels FM + 5 drums

ADPCM record and play

32 KB of sample RAM, which can be upgraded to 256 KB

MSX-Music

Yamaha YM2413 (OPLL), also known as:

* MSX-Music (standard name)

* Panasonic: FM-PAC

* Zemina: Music Box

* Checkmark: FM-Stereo-Pak

9 channels FM or 6 channels FM + 5 drums

15 pre-set instruments, 1 custom

Built-in as new standard on MSX2+ and MSX TurboR computers

Emulation

MSX computers are emulated on many platforms today. Most MSX emulators are (or were) based on the code of the pioneer fMSX, a portable MSX emulator by Marat Fayzullin. fMSX source code license is not free and many emulators removed Fayzullin's Z80 emulation code entirely in later versions to avoid legal problems.

The official MSX emulator MSXPLAYer is produced by the MSX Association, of which MSX standard inventor Kazuhiko Nishi is the president.

Some MSX titles are emulated in the Nintendo Wii's Japanese Virtual Console.

See also

History of computing hardware

List of MSX compatible computers

List of MSX games

SymbOS

Zemmix

Canon T90

References

External links

Category:Home computers Category:Retrocomputing

ar:صخر (شركة) ca:MSX de:MSX es:MSX eu:MSX fa:ام‌اس‌ایکس fr:MSX ko:MSX id:MSX ia:MSX it:Standard MSX nl:MSX ja:MSX no:MSX pl:MSX pt:MSX ru:MSX simple:MSX fi:MSX sv:MSX

Coordinates	33°51′35.9″N151°12′40″N
name
years active	1986–present
birth date	August 24, 1963
birth place	Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan
occupation	Film director, producer, screenwriter, video game designer, game director, game producer
website	Hideo Kojima's Blog }}

is a Japanese game director originally employed at Konami. He is currently the director of Kojima Productions and was promoted to Vice President of Konami Digital Entertainment in early 2011. His previous positions include being vice president of Konami Computer Entertainment Japan.

He is the creator and director of a number of successful video games, including the ''Metal Gear'' series, ''Snatcher'', and ''Policenauts'', and also produced both the ''Zone of the Enders'' and ''Boktai'' series. Kojima is consistently named by fans and industry experts alike as being one of the most influential and innovative video game directors and writers in the industry. ''Newsweek'' named Hideo Kojima as one of the top ten people of 2002. In 2008, ''Next-Gen'' placed him #7 in their list of "Hot 100 Developers 2008." In early 2009, IGN placed him sixth in their ''Top 100 Game Creators of All Time'' list. At the 2008 MTV Game Awards, Hideo was given the award show's first Lifetime Achievement Award for a game designer and was also honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2009 Game Developers Conference.

Early life

Born in Tokyo, Japan in 1963, Kojima moved to western Japan at the age of three. Kojima has said that early on in his life he often had to deal with death.

When he was little the Kojima family moved to a small city called Shirasaki. Just as quickly, his family soon moved to Kawanishi, Hyōgo in the Kansai region. Kojima has noted that growing up he was a latchkey kid, often having to watch television and look after himself when he came home from school. Staying at home by himself in isolation still affects him to this day stating, "[whenever] I travel and stay at a hotel I put the TV on as soon as I enter the room, just to deal with the feeling of loneliness."

Initially wanting to be an artist or illustrator, he was often discouraged by societal norms of Japan which favored finding safe and well paying jobs. He was also discouraged because his uncle was also an artist but suffered from financial difficulties.

He eventually started writing short stories and began to send them to Japanese magazines but was never able to get anything published. He cites that his stories were often 400 pages long while most magazines wanted their short stories to be around 100 pages. Eventually he shifted his focus to making films with his friend who had an 8mm camera.

Career

In an interview on G4's TV series ''Icons'', Kojima describes much of his earlier career and influences for game design. Kojima grew up early in life watching movies with his parents. While studying economics in university, Kojima found himself playing video games during his free time, mainly games on the Famicom. In his fourth year in university, Kojima surprised colleagues by announcing his intentions to join the video game industry, despite initially having ambitions of becoming a film director. He felt a career in video games would be more satisfying. Kojima has cited Shigeru Miyamoto's ''Super Mario Bros.'', as well as Yuji Horii's ''Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken'' as the games that inspired him to make this decision.

1980s

Kojima tried joining the game business but was unable to do so at first. His game design ideas were rejected but he never gave up and eventually he was accepted. He joined video game publisher Konami's MSX home computer division in 1986 as a designer and 'planner'. Initially, he was disappointed with his assignment, and desired to work on Nintendo Entertainment System and arcade games instead—Kojima felt the color palette of the system was too restrictive. Kojima's gameplay ideas were often overlooked initially, and due to his lack of familiarity with programming was repeatedly snubbed for his failures in his initial years at Konami. At one point Kojima considered leaving the company, but he hung on.

The first game he worked on was ''Penguin Adventure'', the sequel to ''Antarctic Adventure'', as an assistant director. It significantly expanded upon the gameplay of ''Antarctic Adventure'', adding more action game elements, a greater variety of levels, RPG elements such as upgrading equipment, and multiple endings. The first game he actually developed was ''Lost Warld'', a platform game starring a masked female wrestler, in . However, the game was ultimately rejected by Kojima's superiors at Konami.

Kojima was asked to take over a project, ''Metal Gear'', from a senior associate. Hardware limitations hindered development of the game's combat. Inspired by ''The Great Escape'', Kojima altered the gameplay to focus on a prisoner escaping. It was released in for the MSX2 home computer in Japan and parts of Europe. The game centers around a special forces operative codenamed Solid Snake, who is sent to the fortified state of "Outer Heaven" to stop a nuclear equipped walking tank known as "Metal Gear". ''Metal Gear'' is one of the earliest examples of the stealth action game genre, where avoiding encounters from the enemies is emphasized over direct combat. A port of ''Metal Gear'' was also released for the Nintendo Entertainment System through Konami's Ultra Games division. Kojima was not directly involved in the production of this version and he has openly criticized some of the changes made in this version.

His next project was the graphic adventure game ''Snatcher'', released for the NEC PC-8801 and MSX2 computer platforms in Japan in . The game, influenced by science fiction works such as ''Blade Runner'', ''The Terminator'', and ''Bubblegum Crisis'', is set in a post-apocalyptic world and centers around an amnesiac detective who faces a race of cyborgs (the titular Snatchers) that kill their victims, copy their likeness and assume their place in society. While Kojima and his team wrote the entire story of the game, they were forced to leave out the final act of the game due to time constraints. The game was highly regarded at the time for pushing the boundaries of video game storytelling, cinematic cut scenes, and mature content, and was praised for its graphics, soundtrack, high quality writing comparable to a novel, voice acting comparable to a film or radio drama, post-apocalyptic setting, light gun shooter segments, and in-game computer database with optional documents that flesh out the game world. The Sega CD version of ''Snatcher'' was for a long time the only major visual novel game to be released in America, however, partly due to a Teen rating limiting its accessibility, it only sold a "couple of thousand units", according to Jeremy Blaustein, a member of ''Snatchers localization team.

1990s

In Kojima was involved in the productions of two MSX2 games: a spinoff of ''Snatcher'' titled ''SD Snatcher''; and a sequel to ''Metal Gear'' titled ''Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake'', which further evolved the stealth game genre. The player had more abilities, such as crouching, crawling into hiding spots and air ducts, distracting guards by knocking on surfaces, and using a radar to plan ahead. The enemies had improved AI, including a 45-degree field of vision, the detection of various different noises, being able to move from screen to screen, and a three-phase security alarm. The game also had improved graphics and a complex storyline dealing with themes such as the nature of warfare and nuclear disarmament.

''SD Snatcher'' is an RPG which adapts the storyline of the original ''Snatcher'', while featuring its version of the originally planned ending. The characters are depicted in a "super deformed" art style, in contrast to the original game's realistic style. Like the original computer versions of ''Snatcher'', it was only released in Japan. It abandoned random encounters and introduced an innovative first-person turn-based battle system where the player can aim at specific parts of the enemy's body using firearms with limited ammo. Such a battle system has rarely been used since, though similar battle systems based on targeting individual body parts can later be found in Square's ''Vagrant Story'' (2000), Bethesda's ''Fallout 3'' (2008), and Nippon Ichi's ''Last Rebellion'' (2010).

Due to the success of the original ''Metal Gear'' on the NES, Konami decided to create a sequel to the game, ''Snake's Revenge'', without the involvement of Hideo Kojima. During a ride home on the train, Kojima met one of the staff member who worked on the game who asked him if he would create a "true" ''Metal Gear'' sequel. As a result Kojima began plans for his own sequel titled: ''Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake''. The game was only released in Japan for the MSX2 as one of the last games Konami produced for the computer system. The game would not be released overseas in North American and Europe until its inclusion in 's ''Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence''.

All of his subsequent projects after ''Metal Gear 2'' were produced primarily for disc-based media, allowing for the inclusion of voice acting in his games. He remade ''Snatcher'' in for the PC Engine Super CD-ROM². An English localization of the game was produced for the Sega CD in North America and Europe in . Kojima was not directly involved in the Sega CD version nor the subsequent PlayStation and Saturn ports released in Japan in .

In , Kojima released ''Policenauts'', a film noir/sci-fi-themed adventure game set in a space colony, for the NEC PC-9821. Kojima oversaw the subsequent ports released for the 3DO in ; and the PlayStation and Saturn in , which all featured animated cut-scenes not in the PC-98 release. Despite announcements for an English release in 1996, problems with synching the English dialogue with the cut-scenes stopped its production. An unofficial English translation patch was released to the public at midnight (JST) on August 24, 2009, to coincide with Hideo Kojima's 46th birthday. From 1997 to 1999, he developed the ''Tokimeki Memorial Drama Series'', a trilogy of visual novel adventure games.

With the release of ''Metal Gear Solid'' (''MGS'') in for the PlayStation, Kojima became an international celebrity among the video game media. ''Metal Gear Solid'' was the first in the ''Metal Gear'' series to use 3D graphics and voice acting, which gave a more cinematic experience to the game. ''MGS'' was highly regarded for its well-designed gameplay and for its characters and storyline, which featured themes of nuclear proliferation and genetic engineering.

2000s

In early 2001, Kojima released the first details of the sequel to ''Metal Gear Solid'', ''Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty'', for the PlayStation 2. The game's highly detailed graphics, physics, and expanded gameplay quickly made it one of the most anticipated games yet. The game was highly successful and critically acclaimed at release, due to its graphics, gameplay and storyline, which dealt with myriad philosophical themes as specific as memes, censorship, manipulation, patricide, the inherent flaws of democracy and as grandiose as the nature of reality itself. While ''MGS2'' broke ground with the breadth of its subject matter, the lengthy exposition of these issues, particularly in the bewildering maze of dialogue and plot revelation in the final hours of the game, left a sour taste in the mouths of many gamers, who expected the Hollywood-style resolution of its forerunner.

After the release of ''MGS2'', Kojima produced the game and anime franchise ''Zone of the Enders'' in 2001 to moderate success. In 2003, he produced ''Boktai: The Sun Is in Your Hand'' for the Game Boy Advance. In this, players take the role of a young vampire hunter who uses a solar weapon which is charged by a photometric sensor on the game cartridge (forcing them to play in sunlight). Another team inside Konami (in a collaboration with Silicon Knights) began work on ''Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes'', a GameCube remake of the first ''Metal Gear Solid'' with all the gameplay features of ''Metal Gear Solid 2'' and with cutscenes redirected by action/horror film director Ryuhei Kitamura. It was released in 2004.

Afterwards, Kojima also designed and released ''Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater'' for the PlayStation 2. Unlike the previous games in the series, which took place in the near future and focused on indoor locations, the game is set in a Russian forest area during the year 1964, and involves wilderness survival and camouflaging. The North American version was released on November 17, 2004, with the Japanese counterpart following on December 16. The European version was released on March 4, 2005. Critical response to the game was highly favorable.

At that time Kojima produced ''Boktai'''s sequel, ''Boktai 2: Solar Boy Django'' for the Game Boy Advance. Released in summer 2004, it makes more extensive use of the cartridge's sunlight sensor and allows players to combine various new solar weapons.

Also released was ''Metal Gear Acid'' for the PlayStation Portable handheld. This turn-based game is less action-oriented than the other ''Metal Gear'' games and focuses more on strategy. It was released in Japan on December 16, 2004. Its sequel ''Metal Gear Acid 2'' was released on March 21, 2006.

Kojima wanted Solid Snake to appear in Nintendo's ''Super Smash Bros. Melee'', but due to development cycle problems Nintendo was unable to add Snake in. When ''Super Smash Bros. Brawl'' was announced, series producer Masahiro Sakurai, contacted Kojima to work Snake into the game. Kojima also worked on Snake's stage for SSBB.

Released in June 2008, Kojima co-directed ''Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots'' with Shuyo Murata.

Kojima received a lifetime achievement award at the MTV Game Awards 2008 in Germany. In his speech, he said in English, "I have to say, even though I received this award, let me state that I will not retire. I will continue to create games as long as I live."

Before E3 2009, Kojima stated interest in working with a western developer. This later turned out to be a collaboration between him and MercurySteam to work on ''Castlevania: Lords of Shadow''.

Although he announced that ''Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots'' would be a film adaptation of the last ''Metal Gear'' game he would be directly involved its direction, he announced at E3 2009 that he would return to help on two ''Metal Gear'' games: ''Metal Gear Solid: Rising'', as a producer and ''Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker'' as writer, director and producer. When interviewed at Gamescom 2009, Kojima stated that he got more involved with ''Peace Walker'' because, "there was a lot of confusion within the team and it didn't proceed as I wanted it to. Therefore I thought that I needed to jump in and do ''Peace Walker''".

He recently stated he is currently working on a new intellectual property with Suda-51, tentatively titled ''Project S'', as well as preparing new projects. On July 8, 2011 Kojima announced that ''Project S'' was a radio-show sequel to ''Snatcher'', entitled ''Sdatcher'' as a reference to the show's producer Suda-51. The show would air on Fridays on Kojima's bi-weekly radio show, starting with show #300 which is scheduled to air in August 2011.

2010s

Hideo Kojima was at E3 2010 to show off his team's latest project, ''Metal Gear Solid: Rising'', but a report from CVG says the game developer has a "massive PS3 exclusive" to unveil at Tokyo Game Show however nothing to date has been mentioned. He was also seen in Nintendo's 3DS interview video, where he stated he was interested in making a ''Metal Gear Solid'' game for the 3DS and wondered what it would be like in 3D.

2011

Hideo was promoted to Vice President of Konami Digital Entertainment, effective April 1, 2011.

In an exclusive E3 video review, Hideo Kojima revealed his new innovative gaming technology labeled as "Transfarring" This new technology enables gamers to transfer their gaming data from the PSP to PS3 in a quick data transferring process and bring it on the go from home into the outside world.

He is also currently working on Sdatcher, a radio drama set in the world of Snatcher, working alongside Suda 51 and Akira Yamaoka.

Influence from movies and books

Kojima's love of film is noticeable in his games where he pays homage through his stories and characters, sometimes to the point of pastiche, as in ''Snatcher''. Snatcher is inspired by many science fiction movies, particularly from the eighties, including ''Blade Runner'', ''Akira'', ''The Thing'', ''Invasion of the Body Snatchers'' and ''The Terminator''.

Examples of influence by films include Solid Snake's codename (named after Snake Plissken from ''Escape from New York''), Snake's alias in ''MGS2'': Pliskin (in reference to the last name of Snake Plissken from the ''Escape'' movies), Snake's real name (Dave from ''2001: A Space Odyssey''), and Snake's trademark bandana (''The Deer Hunter'').

Movies would also have influence on other aspects of his games. Hal "Otacon" Emmerich (named after HAL from ''2001: A Space Odyssey''), Sniper Wolf shooting Meryl in ''Metal Gear Solid'' (''Full Metal Jacket''), Psycho Mantis (inspired from the film ''The Fury'') and the whole ''Metal Gear'' stealth concept (''The Great Escape'' and ''The Guns of Navarone''). James Bond also had a large influence on the Metal Gear series, with ''Metal Gear Solid 3'' having a ''James Bond''-like introduction sequence.

Game designer mentality

In regards to storyline development and interaction with them, he said:

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Works

Metal Gear series

Year	Game	Credited as				Systems
		! width=65	! width=65	! width=65	Game designer
	style="text-align:left;"					: MSX2, :					: PS, : [[Microsoft Windows">Mobile phone
						: MSX2, : MP, : PS2
	style="text-align:left;"					: PS, : [[Microsoft Windows
	style="text-align:left;"
						: PS2
						: Xbox, : PS2, Microsoft Windows
						: PS2, : PS3, 360
						: PSP
	style="text-align:left;"					: PS2
						: PSP
						: PSP
						: PSP
	style="text-align:left;"					: DVD
						: MP
						: MP
						: PS3
						: PS3
						: PS3
						: PS3
						: PSP, PSP Go, : PS3, 360
	style="text-align:left;"					: PS3, 360
	style="text-align:left;"
						: PS3, 360, Microsoft Windows

Adventure games

''Snatcher'' (1988: PC88, MSX2) – Writer, director

''SD Snatcher'' (1990: MSX2) – Original writer

''Snatcher CD-ROMantic'' (1992: PC-Engine) – Writer, director

''Policenauts'' (1994: PC98, 1995: 3DO, 1996: PlayStation, 1996: Saturn) – Writer, director

''Sdatcher'' (2011: Radio Drama) - Director

Tokimeki Memorial Drama series

''Tokimeki Memorial Drama Series Vol. 1: Nijiiro no Seishun'' (1997: PlayStation, Sega Saturn) – Planner, producer, drama director

''Tokimeki Memorial Drama Series Vol. 2: Irodori no Love Song'' (1998: PlayStation, Sega Saturn) – Planner, producer

''Tokimeki Memorial Drama Series Vol. 3: Tabidachi no Uta'' (1999: PlayStation, Sega Saturn) – Executive director

Zone of the Enders series

''Zone of the Enders'' (2001: PlayStation 2) – Producer

''Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner'' (2003: PlayStation 2, 2003: Special edition for PlayStation 2) – Producer

Boktai series

''Boktai: The Sun Is in Your Hand'' (2003: Game Boy Advance) – Game designer, producer

''Boktai 2: Solar Boy Django'' (2004: Game Boy Advance) – Producer

''Boktai 3: Sabata's Counterattack'' (2005: Game Boy Advance) – Producer

''Lunar Knights'' (2006: Nintendo DS) – Producer

Castlevania series

''Castlevania: Lords of Shadow'' (2010: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3) - Executive producer

Other games

''Penguin Adventure'' (1986: MSX) – Assistant director

''Lost Warld'' (1986: MSX, canceled) – Writer, director

''Stock Trading Trainer : Kabutore'' (2006: Nintendo DS) – Producer

''Kabushiki Baibai Trainer Kabutore! Next'' (2007: Nintendo DS) – Producer

''Super Smash Bros. Brawl'' (2008: Wii) – Designer of Shadow Moses Island stage

''Twelve Tender Killers'' (2008: mobile phones) – Producer

''Gaitame Baibai Trainer: Kabutore FX'' (2009: Nintendo DS)

Movies

''Versus'' (2000) – Cameo (extra)

''Azumi'' (2003) – Cameo (extra)

Voice acting roles

''Policenauts'' () – AP Officer No. 2 ''Eurasia Express Satsujin Jiken'' () - Traveler ''Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions'' () – Genola ''Internet Pilot Drama Idea Spy 2.5 Daisakusen'' () - Idea Spy 2.5 ''Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots'' () – Voice of God ''Castlevania: Lords of Shadow'' () - The Chupacabra

References

External links

Konami Entertainment

Kojima Productions

Hideo Kojima Blog

* Official English translation

* A summary of his blog in English as of 9/27/05 (by IGN)

Category:Japanese video game designers Category:Konami Category:Video game producers Category:Video game directors Category:Video game writers Category:People from Tokyo Category:1963 births Category:Living people

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