Gaming on Demand on the Internet: The Future

Considered one of the world’s most famous game creators, Hideo Kojima predicts that digital entertainment’s future looms outside the box.

Kojima, who sold more that 27 million copies of Metal Gear SolidMetal Gear Solid believes that networks will unshackle players from consoles supplied by big entities like long-time partner Sony.

"In the near future, we'll have games that don't depend on any platform," Kojima said in Tokyo, Japan at a news conference. "Gamers should be able to take the experience with them in their living rooms, on the go, when they travel wherever they are and whenever they want to play. It should be the same software and the same experience."

Kojima makes his prediction as he designed a follow-up game called Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, scheduled for a late April launch. His development company, Konami Corp. has partnered with Sony and the portable PSP device.

"It's a bold prediction," Sony Computer Entertainment Japan President Hiroshi Kawano told reporters nervously. "We hope he continues to develop for platforms, but we deeply respect his sense of taking on a challenge."

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker begins its march in Japan at the end of April and the United States and Europe in June.

In the latest foray, Kojima features Metal Gear's mercenary hero, Snake, as he and a group of soldiers of fortune set off to save a country from invasion in 1974 by a stealth army. In this version, Kojima said players are rewarded for cooperating and encouraged to stun and capture - not kill - enemy soldiers they encounter in order to put them to work.

"This is software that develops management skills," Kojima said. "You can even fire workers, something that you can't really do in real life. In the game, I couldn't stop doing it."

Kojima said he hoped the release of the new game on Sony's portable PSP device would give his Konami development team a feeling of what works in portable gaming as they gear up for his maverick vision of gaming on demand over the Internet.