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.

Posted in Editorial | Comments (0)
Tags:

PSP Moving from Strength to Strength

December 28th, 2007

psp star ocean ceramic

A few months back Itagaki-san (Techmo) shared his opinions as to why he believes the PSP has not been as successful as it probably should’ve been. Basically he said that Sony should have tried to attract GameBoy Advance owners from switching over to the DS.

I think that he proves a good point. The GBA was well known for its more ‘hardcore’ gamer games like Fire Emblem, Metroid, Advance Wars, Final Fantasy and Castlevania. This falls right in line with the PSP which is suited towards the gamers that like these games. The PSP’s software line up reflects this.

Unfortunately Sony dropped the ball and for no apparent reason slowed all advertising of the device in almost every region worldwide. And with this slump in marketing (as well as the mass market DS games that started trickling out) Sony allowed the PSP to be trampled on by the DS.

Despite this in the past year Sony has put its ‘clever pants’ back on and has made a few wise choices regarding the PSP. These choices teamed with some great software is helping the PSP start fresh and finally live up to its potential. So I want to reflect over the wise moves that Sony has made this year to help put the PSP back where it belongs.

PSP Slim/Price

Although they didn’t cut the almost useless multimedia features and opt for a more cheaper console. Sony did slim down the PSP not only in size but also I price. Currently the PSP is sitting comfortably between the $AUD250-$300 price range which is a very attractive price point when you consider that its only $50 more than a Nintendo DS.

But what I think makes the PSP even more attractive to any hardcore player is the price of the games. Great games like Ridge Racer 2, Lumines, WipeOut, Syphon Filter, Tekken are all down at the cheap $20-30 price range. It certainly makes DS games look like a rip off. I mean what would you rather LocoRoco, Tekken and Syphon Filter or Elite Beat Agents?

Sony have bought in a similar pricing model to hat it has with the PSP. Once a game doesn’t need to be full price, it isn’t. You can see this with PSP games across the board. There is a good balance between the $20-$70 where you hardly ever need to pay $70 for a game unless you are buying it within the first month of release.

Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions cutscene cel shaded

When you compare this to Nintendo’s dated pricing model then the PSP is more so at an advantage. Its rare to see anything beyond Petz Vetz and Brain training below the $35 price point. Yet if you compare the software out right the PSP’s games cost more money to make and take advantage of greater technology. Basically you are getting technically better software for a cheaper price.

Strong Software Line up

When people talk about buying a PSP they say that they don’t want to because it has a laughably weak software line up. This might have been true a few years ago but its certainly not true anymore. If you compare the software line up of games for the hardcore player of the PSP to the DS then the PSP comes out as a clear winner. In the past half a year Elite Beat Agents and Zelda: PH have been the only major software titles for this audience. Yet there has been a plethora of great games for the PSP, all released in the past few months:

PSP

And down the track theres God of War, FF: Crisis Core, Gran Turismo, FF:Dissidia, Star Ocean and more.

These games scream appeal to the GBA crowd or the hardcore gamer. I don’t know how any self respecting player can go pass Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions and Castlevania Dracula X Cronicles.

PSone Classics

Not only is there that strong line up of UMD games you can now download old PSone classics onto your PSP. Now admittedly the line up isn’t that strong yet but there are still a number of great titles that are worth snatching up. You can download them directly from your PC as well.

Conclusion

Its pretty obvious that I am hyped up about the PSP but I wouldn’t be if it wasn’t for a good reason. The console is moving from strength to strength and still somehow is overlooked. I just can’t understand how people can be overlooking such a good deal.

Posted in Editorial | Comments (2)
Tags:

MGS4 TGS Trailer Analysis

November 24th, 2007

Yeah, I know what your thinking, the Metal Gear Solid 4 Tokyo Game Show trailer came out ages ago. But I also know that chances are you’re bursting at the seams with anticipation for this game, so much so that even if I try to squeeze a tiny bit of juice out of this trailer it’d be worth reading.

This tiny bit of juice won’t be enough to quench your thirst though, so what I’ll be doing is backing this article up with several more analysis based articles right up to the release of this game. In the last 2 months I’ve finished almost every Metal Gear title (except for Portable Ops) and have been compiling data on everything that we need answers for. So to kick it off, lets turn back the clock to the TGS.

Now if your not sure what I am talking about then check out the trailer here. Also I suggest watching the E3 2007 trailer as well.

In the E3 trailer we learn that Liquid needs to discover more about FoxDie in order to understand how the nanomachines communicate with each other (and once he knew this he could obtain “total battlefield control”). Que for Naomi Hunter’s returning role in this series. At the start of the trailer she explains what I just said and sends out a help message for Snake to rescue her.

The first thing that you’ll probably notice is that her skin colour is much more tanned than the original MGS. The reason being that she should have always looked more tanned (due to her South African origin). Her skin tone in the original MGS was far to light IMO, so they have corrected themselves here.

The crux of this trailer really is about setting characters into their roles, the story finds uses for Naomi as well as other returning characters and introduces a new character. The scenes with Fox Hound don’t give away too much information other than:

In the next scene we are introduced to Drebin, a gun launderer with a strange monkey dressed in underwear.

What I am going to do now is skip everything else in the trailer, focus on one point for a second and then piece the rest of the trailer into a convenient, flowing storyline. After the TGS at the consumer expo E for All Ryan Payton(one of the game’s producer) revealed that there were going to be a total of five environments for MGS4. He only revealed three of them, being; the Middle East, South Africa and somewhere in Europe. Now this trailer actually reveals one more or so it seems; Solid Snake’s location of retirement; Alaska. Near the end of the trailer we see Snake and Liquid prepare for a battle between Metal Gear Rex and Metal Gear Ray(the same one from MGS2?). Now some may argue but this scene has all the constructs of Alaska.

metal gear solid 4 alaska

Okay, now lets piece together the rest of this trailer starting from the end with Johnny Sasaki whom has is a been featured in every MGS game in some form or another(read more here). We see Snake disarm him and get him on the floor. Now although the trailer doesn’t suggest this I think that after this incident Snake would meet(be reunited?) with Meryl as Johnny Sasaki is a member of the Fox Hound(which Meryl leads). We can see that this is the result because Snake is with Fox Hound at the start of the trailer.

So Snake teams up with Fox Hound, now before or after this(most likely before), Snake meets up with Drebin whom then helps Snake and Otacon ambush Liquid’s chopper, rescue Naomi and make a run for it. How do I know this? A fine eye my friend.

metal gear solid 4 eye have you

The chopper(well the convoy plane thing) holding Naomi was also seen in the E3 2005 clip. If you noticed the text on the tank in the scene with Drebin(Eyes on You) this is the same as the tank in the ambush scene as well as the chase scene (where Snake asks “Who the hell are these Patriots?”).

metal gear solid 4 liquid ocelot vamp

In the ambush scene right after the MGS4 calligraphy text we see Drebin’s tank burst through some gates and onto a landing pad where Snake and Drebin wipe out a few Metal Gears and soldiers. Later on in the montage part we see the plane take off (Otacon piloting) in this quick snippet we see Naomi being dropped into Drebin’s tank (his monkey friend also sits atop of the tank during these scenes).

metal gear solid 4 naomi hunter tank

So off the tank goes, through the middle eastern streets with Snake and Otacon following in the chopper above. Metal Gears drop into the area as they are trying to escape.

There are two interesting characters that jump in and out of these scenes, Raiden and Vamp. We see Vamp at the launching pad (with a large bullet shot wound to the head) and also on the streets throwing off his cape. Raiden is in the same sort of area. So what happens next? Cut and paste the awesome fight scene between in the E3 trailer. If you watch both trailers you can see how this then pieces together.

raiden vap battle metal gear solid 4

What I suspect Konami will do in thi part of the game is one of the awesome chase sequences. Much like in the escape sequences in MGS1 and MGS3. Which would be followed by the battle with Vamp. Although its a bit tricky to pinpoint how this will unfold exactly. Do you play as Snake in the plane or Drebin in the tank? If you fight Vamp that means that you’ll Raiden will be a playable character. I think that its likely that you’ll be able to control the tank, I’m basing this on what Ryan Payton said about the game featuring some gameplay elements from different genres.(Read more here).

Originally due to the trees in the landing pad area I thought that this might be the South African locale but because the trailer flow like it does this is obviously not the case. Also another point in question, why is Vamp trying to stop Snake get to Naomi? He’d be working for Liquid/The Patriots then.

After that juicy segment, we see Snake and Naomi by the tank, they begin to escape on foot. Naomi tears her clothes, I guess this is to make it look as though she had been kidnapped rather than saved. Otacon then starts talking about Sunny whom is obviously Olga’s daughter. This is confirmed at the end of the trailer. What I don’t understand is where she came from, was she on the chopper?

Meryl then introduces her squad, saying that they are there to investigate PMC (private military company) activity. This is followed by Snake holding a weakened (from the battle with Vamp?) Raiden in the chopper. He then takes Raiden to a cathedral where he meets Eva from MGS3. Shock horror. She’s about 70 years old and is a good guy(confirmed by Hideo, in his podcast..If I remember corretly). Why is she calling Snake, CQC Snake?

Conclusion

Well thats all I’ve got for this one trailer. I’m interested to know where the start of the E3 trailer fits in with what I have just been talking about. Next up I’ll start highlighting the questions that MGS4 should answer for us. Starting with Big Boss, I have a strong argument brewing as to why I think he is still alive and why he is going to be in MGS4. There is already some proof out there that he’ll be in this game, so as a pop quiz, can you find me some proof to his existence in MGS4? Let me know via the Contact Form and I’ll share what I have later on.

Posted in Editorial | Comments (2)
Tags: ,
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »