Topic: Rumor: Metal Gear Solid 4 not a PS3 exclusive?

[capamerica]

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The new confirmed EGM cover with Halo 3 info is nice, but it's a little blurb in the top right that's caught the attention of gamers: Metal Gear Solid 4 on Xbox 360? Drama ensues.

According to a "ex-1UP" staffer, "It's simply a rumor that Konami higher-ups are pressuring Kojima Productions to consider making MGS4 a multiplatform game because production costs on the game are unsurprisingly high and only getting higher."

Konami is not commenting on if the rumor is true or not.

It should be noted that EGM has broken the silence early on games like GTA3, Final Fantasy XI and Assassin's Creed leaving the exclusive market and going multiplatform so they have a good track record. But they have been known to let a couple false rumors sneak by.

It's a brave new world and the ball is certainly in the publishers court. Konami very well may be having cocktails with Ubisoft (Assassin's Creed) and getting whispers that exclusivity isn't as important as making money. We'll have more when it comes available.

This could easliy be files on the 'Sony getting hit Hard lately' topic if it turns out to be true.

I don't know what to think, I actually might pick up EGM next month to see if this is true. If MGS4 does leave the PS3 Exclusive that is going to be a HUGE hit on Sony.

I'm not one who trusts EGM all that much, EGM itself hasn't gotten on my Bad side But 1Up has. So I'm taking it with a grain of salt, But my gut does think this could turn out to be true.

I do remember EGM doing a similar thing with a rumor about Final Fantasy XI coming to the Xbox, it sort of turned out to be true. Square was working on a port of FFXI for the Xbox but they decided to move it over to the Xbox360 cause it was to close to the end of the life of the original Xbox. Alot of fans said that it was BS when the rumor was published but in the end they were right.

It just seems weird that they would print something that misleading on the cover. Exspecially when they don't need to. The issue that is printed on has a multipage story on Halo3 with alot of new pics and info. They already sold that issue to all the Xbox360 owners why did they need to post a false rumor about MGS4 coming to the Xbox360?

[Ceric]

I think this will in the end come to two factors.

1) How much hardware is Sony going to have out?
2) How much would Porting add to the cost?

If the game is fully exploiting the PS3 then a port could be expensive.  On the flipside of Sony can't deliver the User Base to support this game then it may just become a multi-disk 360 title, I'm sure they will use all the space somehow are another.  I don't know what the current projected release date on this is so I'm not sure when the User Base needs to be their.  Though this will indeed be a big blow against Sony if it turns to be true.

[Pryopizm]

If the port is as poor as the PC and XBox versions of MGS2, then it'll hardly be worth it.

[Svevan]

From the sounds of it this wouldn't be a post-release port but a dual release, something that has never before happened with a Metal Gear Solid game. I'll be surprised if it happened, but if it was a dual release I would also expect the Xbox version to not suck.

[Mikintosh]

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Originally posted by: capamerica

Quote
The new confirmed EGM cover with Halo 3 info is nice, but it's a little blurb in the top right that's caught the attention of gamers: Metal Gear Solid 4 on Xbox 360? Drama ensues.

According to a "ex-1UP" staffer, "It's simply a rumor that Konami higher-ups are pressuring Kojima Productions to consider making MGS4 a multiplatform game because production costs on the game are unsurprisingly high and only getting higher."

Konami is not commenting on if the rumor is true or not.

It should be noted that EGM has broken the silence early on games like GTA3, Final Fantasy XI and Assassin's Creed leaving the exclusive market and going multiplatform so they have a good track record. But they have been known to let a couple false rumors sneak by.

It's a brave new world and the ball is certainly in the publishers court. Konami very well may be having cocktails with Ubisoft (Assassin's Creed) and getting whispers that exclusivity isn't as important as making money. We'll have more when it comes available.

This could easliy be files on the 'Sony getting hit Hard lately' topic if it turns out to be true.

I don't know what to think, I actually might pick up EGM next month to see if this is true. If MGS4 does leave the PS3 Exclusive that is going to be a HUGE hit on Sony.

I'm not one who trusts EGM all that much, EGM itself hasn't gotten on my Bad side But 1Up has. So I'm taking it with a grain of salt, But my gut does think this could turn out to be true.

I do remember EGM doing a similar thing with a rumor about Final Fantasy XI coming to the Xbox, it sort of turned out to be true. Square was working on a port of FFXI for the Xbox but they decided to move it over to the Xbox360 cause it was to close to the end of the life of the original Xbox. Alot of fans said that it was BS when the rumor was published but in the end they were right.

It just seems weird that they would print something that misleading on the cover. Exspecially when they don't need to. The issue that is printed on has a multipage story on Halo3 with alot of new pics and info. They already sold that issue to all the Xbox360 owners why did they need to post a false rumor about MGS4 coming to the Xbox360?

Welll, it's not "false" if it hasn't been confirmed either way. Besides, not every single XBox 360 owner is a Halo fan, I'm sure, as many thousands have bought the system even though they pretty much knew a new Halo game wouldn't be coming out for awhile.

I wouldn't be surprise if this was the case, as Konami's probably realized by this point that PS3 isn't going to have the market penetration neccessary by the time the game comes out in order to deliver the blockbuster numbers the game needs. MSG4 is probably going to be a little too hard-core for the way the Wii's being marketed, but the 360's sales numbers would be enough, I think.

Personally, my entire hands-on experience with the franchise is an hour or two playing MSG2 on the original XBox, so meh.

[GoldenPhoenix]

Personally I wouldn't be surprised, I think many companies are getting worried about PS3 and want to create games for multiple platforms just to be on the safe side.

[Svevan]

Yeah, why rush a game out for PS3 when you know only a fraction of the million people who own PS3s by next year will buy it? Those games HAVE to be $60, or they'd never make back their development cost.

[couchmonkey]

See I think this kind of thinking is going to begin to prevail for a lot of third parties - that's the price Sony pays for being so late to the race.

[JonLeung]

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Originally posted by: Pryopizm
If the port is as poor as the PC and XBox versions of MGS2, then it'll hardly be worth it.

I don't know what you mean.  I bought (yes, actually bought) MGS2: Substance for the PC.  I don't think anything was poorly done or missing, and if anything, it's still better than buying a whole 'nother console if I just wanted to play that.

Anyway, this really shows Sony (and their consumers) that having the most powerful console isn't worth it if it's not utilized to the max because with the rising costs of game development, developers are going to make games for the lowest common denominator (or at least far back enough that most PCs and the Xbox 360 can handle them), and then exclusivity is gone.

I would say that if this rumour is true, it'll be one of the bigger hits against Sony...people buy consoles for the games.  Something like a high price is a one-time thing (before the microtransactions, at least) that can be eventually shrugged off but now we just need to hear about FF XIII not being exclusive and the PS3 will be near impossible for anyone to justify.

[Pryopizm]

The only reason I was planning on saving up for a PS3 was for MGS4.   So, if they do lose the exclusivity, that would be a boon for me.  I'd save $600.

[GoldenPhoenix]

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Originally posted by: JonLeung

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Originally posted by: Pryopizm
If the port is as poor as the PC and XBox versions of MGS2, then it'll hardly be worth it.

I don't know what you mean.  I bought (yes, actually bought) MGS2: Substance for the PC.  I don't think anything was poorly done or missing, and if anything, it's still better than buying a whole 'nother console if I just wanted to play that.

Anyway, this really shows Sony (and their consumers) that having the most powerful console isn't worth it if it's not utilized to the max because with the rising costs of game development, developers are going to make games for the lowest common denominator (or at least far back enough that most PCs and the Xbox 360 can handle them), and then exclusivity is gone.

I would say that if this rumour is true, it'll be one of the bigger hits against Sony...people buy consoles for the games.  Something like a high price is a one-time thing (before the microtransactions, at least) that can be eventually shrugged off but now we just need to hear about FF XIII not being exclusive and the PS3 will be near impossible for anyone to justify.

Is it even true that PS3 is the most graphically powerful system? I've heard conflicting reports, many of which have stated that PS3 and Xbox 360 are just different in architecture, and determining which is more powerful is difficult. Personally that would not shock me because it is obvious a big bulk of the system cost is the Blu-ray.

[couchmonkey]

I've heard conflicting reports too...but as for porting MGS4 over to Xbox 360, even if 360 is technically capable of handling it, the difference in architectures will make the porting process a challenge and the developers may not consider getting the 360 version to run perfectly a neccessity.  In the case of MGS2 on Xbox, we know Xbox is more powerful than PS2, but the Xbox version apparently had framerate issues compared to the PS2 version.

[capamerica]

what you have heard it true VGrevolution.
The PS3 and the 360 are pretty much the same. There are only a few slim differneces. Infact if you look at the specs the Xbox360 acttually has more graphic power then the PS3. The only upper hand the PS3 has over the Xbox360 is that they use Blu-Ray which gives them more room for textures, sounds and movies, BUT from what I've heard the PS3 doesn't really uses the space on the disc in a way which would make the games better. Sony has this thing about using compression on files and cause of this a game that would be able to fit on a 8.5GB DVD needs a freaken 25GB Blu-Ray disc.

MGS4 more then likely can be made to fit on a normal dual layer DVD the only thing that would be lost is that it would need to be up scalled to 1080p/i which is more then likley what will be happening to the PS3 version anyway since the PS3 actually doesn't have enough V-RAM to play games natively in 1080p/i. I wouldn't be at all surprized to find that MGS4 will only be running at 720p.

[Ceric]

I believe that Blu-Ray can also read data off the disc much faster then regular DVD.  Just throwing that in.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Here, people, we are seeing the true face of the pre-mature "HD revolution".

[Smash_Brother]

Am I the only one who thinks that the promises by Square and Konami for their respective killer apps are just stall tactics to see how the PS3 does first?

SNK, who hates Sony's guts already because of the whole 2D/3D issue, has publicly stated they'll be waiting to develop for the PS3 to see how it does after its first year.

Square and Konami are likely doing the same thing, just not making it public. Don't be surprised if FF13 and MGS4 both get pushed back even further as their launch dates approach.

You have to figure that no system has historically EVER had as many titles canned for it PRE-LAUNCH as the PS3. What developer in their right MIND can look at that at NOT be more than a bit leery?

[capamerica]

actually the Blu-Ray drive in the PS3 reads slower then the DVD drive in the Xbox360.
The PS3 has a 2x Blu-Ray drive the Xbox360 has a 12x DVD drive (but it acts like a 8x with Dual Layer DVDs)

Still the DVD drive is faster. Blu-Ray only has a 9Mb/sec transfer rate while the DVD has a 16.2 Mb/sec (11.08 MB/sec for Dual Layer)

The one thing the Blu-Ray drive does better then a DVD drive is it has a faster seek time, but because it transfers data slower you don't see a differnce between the 2.

[Ceric]

Welp glad we cleared that up.

[KDR_11k]

So much for experimental technology. Reminds me of the stupid ideas the Nazis had throughout WW2.

[couchmonkey]

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Originally posted by: Smash_Brother
Am I the only one who thinks that the promises by Square and Konami for their respective killer apps are just stall tactics to see how the PS3 does first?

SNK, who hates Sony's guts already because of the whole 2D/3D issue, has publicly stated they'll be waiting to develop for the PS3 to see how it does after its first year.

Square and Konami are likely doing the same thing, just not making it public. Don't be surprised if FF13 and MGS4 both get pushed back even further as their launch dates approach.

You have to figure that no system has historically EVER had as many titles canned for it PRE-LAUNCH as the PS3. What developer in their right MIND can look at that at NOT be more than a bit leery?

I don't think that would make sense though, because they're still putting money and effort into developing products for PS3.  Unless they're secretly developing them to be platform-independant so that the games could be released on any system with enough power, but Kojima has implied the opposite: he seems to be trying to take full advantage of PS3.

I think it just takes a long time to develop a big game.  That's why Halo 3, Gears of War, Mario Galaxy, and Metroid Prime 3 weren't/aren't launch games.  Of course, I totally agree that being leery makes sense at this point, but delaying those games until you know which system is going to win would be costly...unless you suspend development on them.

What I definitely do see happening is these companies holding back a bit on new game announcements until they get a better idea of who to support, or porting games later on to try and make some money back.

[Ceric]

I think that both sides had there share of Stupid ideas for technology during WW2 but it is still one of the biggest technology pushes.

[Smash_Brother]

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Originally posted by: couchmonkey Unless they're secretly developing them to be platform-independant so that the games could be released on any system with enough power, but Kojima has implied the opposite: he seems to be trying to take full advantage of PS3.

First of all, I think Konami "urged" him to say that.

Second, I think it's fully possible that dev companies will silently take the "wait and see" approach to the PS3.

Many companies pledged GC support then later dropped it. Right now, companies are already axing PS3 support.

In the business world, there's nothing uncommon about telling someone you'll do something, like support their console, and later change your mind, citing bizarre and unlikely reasons, just as most companies who axed PS3 support said "It's too expensive to develop for." whereas SNK, since they had nothing to lose, already came out and said, "We're gonna wait a year and see how long it takes Sony to die."

So yeah, I think the "secretly developing it multiconsole" theory sounds accurate to me. Square and Konami haven't been around as long as they have because they make piss-poor business decisions.

No doubt, they see the same warning signs in Sony that everyone else does and, whether they'll publicly announce it or not, they'll act accordingly.