Metal Gear Solid 4 Delayed To 2008

Gamespot is reporting that Konami has delayed Metal Gear Solid 4 until Q2 2008. Just the latest in the long lineup of huge title delays, Konami delayed the game for the same reason all the others were: polish. "According to Japanese and English language press releases on the Konami Web site, the game will now be coming to Japan in the first quarter of 2008, and other regions in the second quarter. The game had been due for a simultaneous worldwide pre-Christmas release exclusively for Sony's PlayStation 3 console. A statement from Konami gives the reasoning behind this decision, 'Konami has decided to delay the title's release in order to make further improvements to the quality of the game and provide even greater enjoyment for more customers worldwide.' It added that it would continue to work on the game to make sure it will 'meet everyone's expectations.'"

Comments

Re:Fair Translation?

[EveryNickIsTaken]

It means they need more time to prepare the Xbox 360 and Wii ports.

Re:Fair Translation?

[flyingsquid]

Konami delayed the game for the same reason all the others were: polish.

Oh, sure, sure. Your company screws up, blame the Polish. Bunch of racists.

2008 is when the PS3 may start selling?

[metamatic]

I'm looking at early 2008 as when I might consider getting a PS3. As well as MGS 4, there should be GTA IV turning up then.

Also, Sony has announced that they aren't going to ship rumble-enabled controllers with the US PS3 until next year, which basically amounts to them saying they don't want me to buy one this year.

OK then...

[rbarreira]

That pretty much confirms that Sony will massively fail at even coming near their PS3 shipment forecasts for the fiscal year. They are forecasting 11 million shipped during the fiscal year, and have shipped 2 million in the first half.

With MGS4 now out of the fiscal year (ending March 31 2008), a new round of doom and gloom for Sony has been ordered from the media. Publishers will pay attention to it, and Konami will too. If Microsoft is trying to get Konami to port MGS4 to the 360, this will make it much easier.

PS: Does it make any sense to release this game during the slow summer season? There could be further delays up to 2008's holiday season.

Re:Fair Translation?

[oliderid]

Oh, sure, sure. Your company screws up, blame the Polish. Bunch of racists.

Kaczynski brothers have lost the elections. They have to find new villains for the video game :-)

where have you been?

[insanius]

prepare the ports??....
Sony has the exclusive for X number of months(at least 6+)....so, no, the 'ports' won't be the reason that the 'original' gets held back...
the reason is the same as all of the other delays, the ps3 is hard to code for and the dev's didn't anticipate some of the problems they are now encountering...
this pisses me off because, the 'ports' will also be delayed because the ps3 date slipped...even though the 'ports' will probably be done long before Sony's exclusive grace period runs out.
shit, the 360 'port' might even be further along than the 'original' at this point....
 
it will be interesting to see how i get modded. and the score will be totally dependent on which fanboy group has more mod points at the moment.
be gentile ps3guys, i own one and am currently counting the days till Uncharted:Drake's Fortune drops so i can dust off my cheap blu-ray player....err, ps3...

Dismal Sales?

[fistfullast33l]

The sales haven't been beating the Wii. That's all fine and dandy, as neither is the "mature" 360. But when you line up the sales, you see that the PS3 is on track with the 360. Sure, it's comparatively weak up until this point, but the sales rates have been exactly the same.

Combine that with the fact that the PS3 is outselling the 360 in Japan, and it just doubled the 360's sales for last week (less than a month after the Halo 3 release) and even beat the Wii, and I'd say it's too early to put a death knell in the PS3 for this holiday season. You still have UT3 and Haze coming out, along with many other games on the horizon. Price cuts and game releases are both what hte consumer has asked for and what Sony is giving them. To write the console off this early is crazy.

Re:Dismal Sales?

[p0tat03]

The 360 isn't *all* doom and gloom. The attach rate (games sold per box) is huge compared to either of its competitors, compared with the Wii where attach rates are pretty dismal. MS *needs* a high attach rate due to their loss-per-box, whereas Nintendo will rake it in from selling hardware alone. Game publishers, on the other hand, rely on attach rate, because hardware sales mean nothing if everyone is still playing Wii Sports and not the *other* games. The 360 is getting all that publisher love for a very good reason - it is the platform that promises to help the people that prop a console up - the developers and publishers.

The PS3 is undoubtedly doing well in Japan, though my question would still be... what exactly are they playing? I've perused the shelves at the local Best Buy numerous times, and I'm hard pressed to find any game I want to play on PS3 that isn't available elsewhere. RE4 on Wii is very cool, and there are a *slew* of 360 games (Mass Effect being the big one for the next month) that I'm looking forward to. The PS3... besides MGS4 there isn't much on the horizon, and sadly that is even further away now.

State-side, it's pretty clear that Wii and 360 will wipe the floor with PS3 this holiday season. Of that I have no doubt, considering Sony doesn't have a single compelling (non-timed) exclusive coming out this holiday season.

Re:Dismal Sales?

[bigstrat2003]

Fanboy vision. The only difference between the two versions is achievements, which, I'm sorry, does not make a game better. If they're your thing, fine, but they have no bearing on the quality of the game, for better or for worse.

I also tend to dispute in general that the 360 has compelling exclusives. They have Halo 3, Forza 2, and DoA 4. I can't think of any other game which is exclusive to the 360 that's actually a really good, gotta-play game in its genre. I think the "PS3 doesn't have good games, 360 does" myth is pure bullshit.

Re:Dismal Sales?

[p0tat03]

Here ya go

The data shows attach rate on 360 doubles the PS3, and more than doubles the Wii. At an average of $60 a game for this gen, that's some extra $120 spent per console that's going towards (most probably) 3rd party publishers.

I call bullshit on that one - thats just FUD that you 360 owners love spreading - if the attach rate of the 360 was so brilliant, why has it only ever made profit in 1 quarter, even though its been out for nearly 8 quarters?

Because it's not great enough? This is especially true given the massive FUBAR MS committed with 360 hardware. They're spending an ass-load of cash repairing crapped out 360s, and that's hitting their bottom line. That, however, doesn't change the fact that 360 owners are buying *far* more games than the competition, which for publishers can only mean good things. In the end a console lives and dies by its 3rd party publisher support, which is why Nintendo isn't quite out of the woods yet - if they can't get 3rd party games on the platform the Wii's popularity will peak sooner than later.

Give some actual proof or shut the fuck up.

Deal, can we get *you* to shut the fuck up now? :)

Those 5 people with PS3s are gonna be pissed off

[ThirdPrize]

Big time!!!

Translation

[powerlord]

MGS4 will sell just fine without it being the "Holiday Season".

We have therefore decided to push the release date back so as not to compete for people's money.

We will use the extra time to polish the game, since we have the time anyway.