Norman Reedus plays Sam Porter in Death Stranding. He's a mail man.
Norman Reedus plays Sam Porter in Death Stranding. He's a mail man.
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The DeanBeat: Death Stranding and the madness or genius of Hideo Kojima

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 4 min

Very soon, starting on November 8, we’re going to find out one of the answers to one of the great mysteries of the video game industry. And that is whether Hideo Kojima, the head of Kojima Productions and the creator of Death Stranding for Sony’s PlayStation, is a genius creator or a bit kooky. And we’ll also see whether Sony is sane or mad at the same time.

Kojima parted ways with longtime publisher Konami in 2015, after he completed Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. At The Game Awards in December 2015, host Geoff Keighley skewered Konami for not allowing Kojima to travel to Los Angeles accept an award for the game. Instead, Keifer Sutherland accepted the award on Kojima’s behalf. This was a perfect way for the cult of personality to build around Kojima, through the “bromance” with Keighley.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.