Is There Any Truth in MGS4 Coming to the Xbox 360?

January 5th, 2008

metal gear solid 4 xbox 360 port

If you’ve been keeping your eye on the video game rumour mill over the past several months then its highly likely that you have heard about the constant stream of rumours about Konami planning a port of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots for the Xbox 360. This rumour has been floating around for a few months now, so I thought that it was about time I’d address it.

Is it Technically Possible?

I guess this would be the first question that we should ask ourselves. Unfortunately for us this question is difficult to answer. Not technically but rather we have no idea of the scope of MGS4. All that we have seen of the game so far is the first chapter and possibly some snippets of later in the game. As usual Konami have this one completely under wraps and the only real clue that we have is a quote from Ryan Payton saying that MGS4 is even longer than MGS3: Snake Eater.

So It looks like I’ll have to do some guess work here. Personally I can’t see MGS4 being any larger than 20GB in raw size. Which would mean that it would have to fit on two Xbox 360 DVDs. And really thats fine, games on the 360 are already 2 discs. I do think that in order to fit on the two discs or to just run on the 360 some settings will have to be toned down. It would probably mean lowering the resolution of some textures or something like that. Then again it is hard to say how much MGS4 will make use of the cell processor. But overall, from what we know now. MGS4 for the most part should run decently on the Xbox 360. Although I wouldn’t be surprised if (in typical Kojima style) MGS4 blows away our expectations and pushes the PS3 to the limits. Meaing that it could never be down ported to the Xbox 360. Argh this is so hard. ><

Would Kojima Productions want to port it over to the PS3?

For almost every rumour that gets released Kojima-san himself states otherwise. So its pretty clear that the team is not interested in releasing an Xbox 360 port.

metal gear solid 4 xbox 360 port

Although I think that all of this doesn’t matter because the fact is Konami need to sell too many copies of this game just to turn over a profit. And all of this pressure is going to be put on the North American sales because MGS is no longer a game for the Japanese (it simply doesn’t sell as well) and the PAL territory sales will make little difference overall. Now if you look at the previous sales of MGS games, namely MGS2 (because it was the most hyped) of about 7 million games in its lifetime. It becomes pretty clear that MGS4 will not achieve the magic 1 million sales on release especially with the small North American PS3 user base. So knowing this I think that Konami as a business might have stepped in and have assigned the team to work on a port after the PS3 version is completed, just to recoup production costs. Basically it all comes down to if Konami want to make a profit out of this game and chances are they will.

Once again on the flipside MGS3: Snake Eater had high production costs and still remained solely on the Playstation 2.

So What Would This Mean to Sony?

I think we all know the answer here, it means bad news. MGS4 is their ace in the hole for the hardcore user base, so no exclusive MGS4 can only be bad for Sony. And it would probably be the game in which defines the movement of developers dropping off with Sony.

Conclusion

I always use to think that an Xbox 360 port would never happen but ever since I started investigating it seems as though I just get more and more confused. So at the moment I’m not really sure what is going to happen. All I know is that come July I will be playing the best game on the Playstation 3. What about you guys, do you think that this port will take place? Will MGS4 just be a timed exclusive? Hit me up on the comments box or vote in the site poll to be heard.

  • Comment RSS
  • Link Me
Posted in Analysis | Comments (0)
Tags: , , , , , ,

Capcom gets Narcy over Okami Flak

October 26th, 2007

When Capcom announced that they were bringing an Okami game to the Wii last week, I was really excited. Finally the rumours were true, goodie. Although my excitement quickly waned once I got past the news headline to discover that it was a direct port of last years PS2 game. I was even more disappointed after discovering that there was going to be no extra content, nothing. Just Wii controls and thats it.

Its not just me that is angry, plenty of people are angry. Enough people to warrant this post from Christian Svensson(Senior Director of Strategic Planning and Research) on the Capcom America forum:

“A few points here… I get the issues, I really do, but people seem to be missing a few things. We selected Ready at Dawn to do the port. These guys are all ex-Naughty Dog and ex-Blizzard, and they have already shipped their own titles that have ridiculously high review scores and sales (and have more on the way). Their attention to detail and technical prowess is among the best of any team I’ve ever worked with.

If we wanted a cheap and dirty port, I could have turned around and picked any one of 50 houses and gotten it done for less and perhaps more quickly. Clearly, that wasn’t the approach we sought for a variety of reasons (for the fans, for the reputation of our company, for the potential of the product, etc. okami artwork

Lastly, if this were a quick cash in, let’s face it, there’s TONS of other products that had higher sales on other platforms we could have chosen to port, quickly and cheaply. Okami, as great as it was, wasn’t a huge seller on PS2 such that its quick and dirty port would be assured “sales success” on a new platform. We picked a huge game (read: expensive, especially on testing costs), with a ton of moving parts.

So, on the contrary, we have a lot to prove with this game and I know we, and RAD are up to the task. I apologize if I bristle at the accusation that this is a cheap port, but I do.

Given that the only port we’ve done to date was RE4, which has a 90+ gamerankings score and provided AMAZING value for the platform, has this really been Capcom’s modus operendi such that this allegation should be leveled at us? Zack & Wiki is getting better reviews than just about anything you’ll see this year on Wii, except possibly Galaxy. Shovelware is not what we do.

As I’ve said in prior interviews, we’re getting the game up and running first. The game is enormous. If after we have everything working correctly, cleanly and as desired so as not to “break” the amazing experience that is Okami, we will worry about potential enhancements. As we are NOT at that point in the process yet, we are loathe to even mention any potential changes or enhancements for fear of disappointing the fans/media.

So for now, if you MUST assume the worst, assume that you will have an amazing 40-60 hour adventure that is one of gaming’s most impressive pieces of art to play in fantastic new ways. If you want to hope for the best, well, perhaps we’ll have more to say in a few months, but for now we’re going to have to ask for your patience.”

This whole topic is rather interesting because I think both sides are justified. This is a port of the original game, there should be some sort of benefit for people that have played it already. Resident Evil 4 players got a number of improvements over the Gamecube version:

Adas missions are enough to warrant another purchase of this title(they are extremely interesting). Don’t know what I’m talking about? Watch these if you have completed RE4 already: Part 1 - Part 2

Capcom also should not get so defensive when gamers expect more from them. They are one of best developers in the world(second only to Nintendo IMO), so a port like this really isn’t their style.

On the flipside, it really shouldn’t matter if there is little in the way of additional content as this game is already ace. Bringing it to the Wii only ensures that the title gets the attention that it deserved(like RE4). Capcom chose an excellent studio to work on the game, which was a wise choice as this one isn’t going to be so easy to port across. My final point is that Wii owners should feel content with what Capcom are doing for the Wii: Resident Evil 4, Umbrella Chronicles(new trailer here, it keeps looking better), Zack and Wiki, Monster Hunter and now Okami. Over half a year ago I was concerned about Capcoms commitment to the Wii but now I am completely satisfied. Its a pity that other gamers haven’t recognised this yet. :(

To conclude I think that the most interesting part of this kufuffle is this quote:

“Zack & Wiki is getting better reviews than just about anything you’ll see this year on Wii, except possibly Galaxy.”

Its not like Capcom to boast about themselves in such a way. So this is very interesting indeed.

So what do you think about this whole drama? Be sure to hit us up via the comment box.

  • Comment RSS
  • Link Me
Posted in Industry Issues | Comments (1)
Tags: , , , , , ,