The folks behind the Game Developers Conference confirm this year's recipient of the spiffy "Lifetime Achievement Award" at their 2009 Game Developers Choice Awards event will be none other than producer Hideo Kojima. The man behind several of publisher Konami's most well received franchises, including Metal Gear and Zone of the Enders, will already be on hand at the conference to deliver a keynote address titled "Solid Game Design: Making the 'Impossible' Possible".

"For years, Hideo Kojima's contributions to game development have broken new ground and inspired the community to think about creating games in never-before-imagined ways,” said Meggan Scavio, event director of the Game Developers Conference.

"From giving birth to the stealth action game genre to showing game makers how to interact with their players by breaking the 'fourth wall,' Kojima’s achievements make him an obvious choice for an award that in previous years has gone to luminaries including Sid Meier, Shigeru Miyamoto, Richard Garriott, Eugene Jarvis, Mark Cerny, Gunpei Yokoi, Yuji Naka and Will Wright."

Earning the respect of his fellow developers ought to come easy for Kojima, and he's previously been honored outside of the gaming community when Newsweek named him one of the top ten talents to watch in 2002.