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MGS Creators on 'Masochistic' PS2, U.S. Popularity

Posted by simoniker on from the flagellation's-what-you-need dept.

Thanks to GameSpy for its article interviewing Hideo Kojima and Scott Dolph of Konami about the continuation of the Metal Gear Solid series. Notable sections include Kojima's comments about the programming difficulties of Sony hardware: "People on my team are masochistic. They enjoy the difficulty of working with PlayStation 2 and we assume that PlayStation 3 will be even more difficult. We know nothing about the system; but it's from Sony, so we assume so", as well as Dolph discussing Metal Gear Solid's regional popularity: "You know, it sells better in the United States. There are more people who buy the game and are waiting for the game. Also, the hype from the U.S. travels and that helps sales in Japan. If the game is big in the U.S., it will do better in Japan. And I do not think that the hype works for you the other way around."

4 of 46 comments (clear)

  1. MGS, still playing it by Killjoy_NL · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I guess you can call me a fanboy, but I've been with MG since it's humble beginnings on the MSX computer.

    Worked all my way up to the PSX version, PC version, PS2 version and last but not least, the GC version (which is just a remake of the PSX version with updated graphics and a Nintendo reference here and there that could have been kept out of there in my opinion).
    From what I've seen online (movies, interviews, snippets, rumors), MGS3 is going to be one hell of a game.
    In this episode, you also have to keep yourself fed, by eating snakes even.

    Enough bla bla, I love it, period :D

    --
    This is the sig that says NI (again)
  2. If That's So... by Painaxl · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "You know, it sells better in the United States. There are more people who buy the game and are waiting for the game."

    If that's the case, then why not release those sweet limited edition packages in the U.S.? I realize that LE packages for games are considered something for the eastern market only, but why? I would buy a Limited Edition Metal Gear Solid 3 package for sure if it came with the U.S. version of MGS3.

  3. Re:Why Japanese hype doesn't always translate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    It's more than just that. Japanese humor and culture in general is very quirky. You can see it in a good deal of their television (not just anime, although a good deal of anime is indeed quirky as all hell), as well as in their comics and contemporary writing. If you get the jokes, they're often very funny. If you don't, well, it's just alienating and weird. And it takes a good deal of cultural immersion to even begin to understand the culture of any country.

    So yeah, I think you have a point, but there's definitely more to it than just that.

  4. Re:I got trolled for saying that... by Phil+Wilkins · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Ahahhahahhah!

    Yeah, the MIPS instruction set is great. The tricky bit is orchestrating 4 processors, each connected through a different bus, with differing (some secret) protocols, different instruction sets, and different RAM areas (VU0 can access EE memory, but everything else goes through DMA). Plus there's a sound core, an MPEG accelerator, and the graphics chip, all of which need to be addressed at a hardware register level to achieve best performance.

    Speaking as a console developer, the instruction set of the core processor is generally the least of our worries.