true giving the development aspect to Sk frees up some Konami dev teams to work on MGS3 and other games however, the real reason (I SEE) that they gave the work to SK is because
Konami don't WANT to put MGS on the GCN. Kojima has been pretty blatent that if they don't see a market for a "mature"-themed game such as MGS, then they won't put up the resources.
Now remember that it's pretty much a catch 22 with respect to nintendo's "mature" situation: developers won't develop mature games for GCN because they don't see a market for it, but a market for it won't exist unless mature games are on the system.
Therefore, this game can be thought of as both a starting point (to get out of the cycle) and a feeler for Konami to see if games besides those involving Mickey Mouse and Co. will sell on the cube. LIke the grain of sand that starts the creation of a pearl in an oyster, having a game such as MGS (and RE exclusive, and ED, and more incentive for sports games) allows the generation of an older market which will lead to more games and then a bigger market and so on and so forth.
But to get it, nintendo has to sacrifice resources. Until this point Konami has viewed bringing Silent Hill and MGS to GCN as a high-risk situation. With Nintendo footing the bill and dev hours, it becomes a no-risk situation for Konami (or a lesser risk situation), since nintendo pumps in all the resources, Konami gives up some of Kojima's time but that is pretty much it. Minimal money would be lost on their part if this game doesn't sell well, all they will get is a confirmation of their initial assumption; mature games do not sell on GCN. Additionally, since a second party is responsible, the game is assurred as being exclusive.
Personally, i think this this will be a great game... the original MGS was a great experience which was the one reason why i bought a PSX. To experience MGS again, with syncronized lip synching (instead of just head nodding), more detailed surroundings, characters, and environments, and most probably new gameplay elements (new moves and evasive techniques) as well as added material (probably)... i'll be picking this one up on the release day for sure.