As detailed in our initial report, the interview is as much a tease as the KojimaProductions teaser site, with the juicy bits censored like a Nixon transcript. This makes it pretty much impossible to understand what's actually being said.
Surprisingly, the opening of the interview lacked the censorship but was still too vague to offer any valuable details. During the opening, Kojima and interviewer Hirokazu Hamamura (Enterbrain's CEO) discussed the teaser site itself.
We'd suggest skipping the following if you actually enjoy being teased by Kojima Productions.
Currently, the teaser site has S (or possibly 5), 3, e, P, E and R. Based on images in the magazine, a future update will see the following added: the letter O or the numeral 0, C, and 6.
Kojima toyed with Hamamura as Hamamura attempted to make some sense out of the numbers. Hamamura pointed to an image from the site and said that it was a "5." To which Kojima responded, "Eh? That looks like a 5?" This could suggest that it's actually an S.
Hamamura also tried to order the number and letter appearances, saying that the countdown starts with a 5 (or S, as it may be), then goes to an E and a 3. Kojima wouldn't confirm that E is actually an E. He did say that the "e" is a lower case letter, suggesting that it is indeed an "e" instead of an "@" symbol or a kanji snake symbol as some have theorized.
This is where the censoring started. Hamamura started a discussion of the P, but most of what he said was blocked off.
Moving on to the first image that appeared at the site, which everyone and their mom assumed to be Big Boss, Kojima noted that the way the teaser site character wears his "XX" is different.
The XX in the above is one of the censored phrases. The magazine actually uses white circles to block individual characters. Here, the two Xs mean that the blocked phrase consists of two characters. They could be numbers, roman characters, Japanese alphabetic characters, or kanji.
To perhaps help clarify, Kojima reminded Hamamura about the time that Hamamura had asked him, "Won't you make Metal Gear?" Kojima recalled having replied at the time, "I won't make XXXX." Here, he noted, "XXXXXX has become XXXX." He also added, "When I told my son that Metal Gear Solid was finished, I was told, 'If XXXXXXXXXXX, it will be really funny. At least don't do that.' (laughter)."
Changing the subject, Kojima became the interviewer and asked Hamamura what expected to be announced at E3.
Hamamura: I think it will be the announcement of "We will do Metal Gear XXXXXXX."
Kojima: Not quite.
Hamamura: Really!?
Kojima: It's just as I'd planned.
Hamamura: Really!? Because, when the thunder sounded and the screen lit up, "5"...
Kojima: It's X.
[remember, "X" is a censored character]
Hamamura: X!? It's different from 5?
Kojima: No. It is XXX. Oh, I might as well say everything. XXX will appear.
Hamamura: Really!
The circle characters become really abundant from this point on, making it almost impossible to translate to English without placing some sort of unintended meaning in the words. Even translated to English, it would probably be impossible to figure out the meaning of anything.
As an example of how bad things get, here's the little passage about the meaning of the teaser site's P:
Kojima: What do you think the P is?
Hamamura: XXXXXXXXXX's XXXXXX?
Kojima: But XXXXXXXXX. It's XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.
Hamamura: Oh! Of course!
The Famitsu interview with Kojima has four pages of this, with the third and fourth pages being particularly packed with the circle characters. We read through the whole thing over and over again and picked up a number of little bits, like Kojima comparing something about the game to being like Western game development and Kojima suggesting that the game's release won't be too far off. But without the full context, we'll avoid making "solid" statements.
Next week's issue promises the full interview minus all the circles. By then, the teases at the teaser site will have hopefully come to an end, and we'll know the true identity of Hideo Kojima's latest.
