MGS4 no longer exclusive?!?!
 

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/751/751496p1.html

http://www.noooz.com/archives/2006/1...solid_4_c.html

http://www.joystiq.com/2006/12/17/he...ps3-exclusive/

Being reported as a rumor in many places. It is also rumored that an announcement will possibly be coming within the week. Most rumors indicate that MGS4 will release initially for PS3 followed shortly (3-6 months) with the X360 version.

I've posted this is general for 2 reasons. One being that this affects both X360 and PS3. And two, the most interesting piece about this is that if this game (which is a MAJOR "exclusive" brand) is going multi-platform, what's next? Not to mention the fact that this is japanese-Konami that might be moving away from japanese-developed-console exclusitivity for their biggest franchise.

Generally, this is not surprising because game costs are rising. It is financially smarter to offer your product to more people.
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Assuming that the X360 continues to sell at its current pace, and the PS3 achieves the same number of units that X360 pulled in one year, we would be looking at 8.7 million PS3s, and 17.4 million X360s. Konami and anyone else would be foolish NOT to release their games on 360, especially games (like MGS4) that fit the demographic of the system. And 360 will reach those numbers easily next year solely because of 2 games; Halo 3 and Halo Wars. Not that I'm a Halo supporter, but it's true and we all know it.

Needless to say, do you think MGS4 will be un-exclusified? Are there any other high-profile titles that will get the same treatment? Will it matter significantly in the console races?

If anything, I think we're looking at a possible "Resident Evil 4" sort of situation here, where MGS4 will have a period of exclusivity on PS3, and then eventually be brought out for 360.

Or perhaps a "MGS2 Substance" situation where it's re-released on PS3 and 360 with "extras."

Either way I do doubt that MGS4 will remain PS3 exclusive forever.

It doesent help that the X360 has been out for a year for if those numbers were true and the system was released around the same time the other two then there might be something worth mentioning, and think about it, the PS3 has been out for nearly a month, how many systems do you expect to be out at the time of writing?

I would have no problem waiting until next late '07 for this game, I will give Kojima all the time he needs for this one, not to mention more systems bought since this is concidered a killer-app.

This has been debunked: http://www.joystiq.com/2006/12/18/ko...ystation-3-us/

I wouldn't count on it coming to other platforms, at least not any time in the foreseeable future.

Meh, sounds like a typical rumor. I wouldn't put much stock in it unless there's actually something reliable backing it up. It doesn't really make a big difference to me either way since I'll eventually play the game regardless of the platform it's on. Maybe it would hurt PS3 sales a bit, but I think the total lack of availablity of the console is a bigger problem than whether or not a series is going multiplatform would be. And despite the popularity of Metal Gear Solid, I don't think it would be that fatal of a blow to the PS3 for it to go to the Xbox 360, since it isn't like a majority of people would avoid buying a system entirely just because a specific game is also on another platform.

If they do port it to the Xbox 360 I hope they don't take the "lowest common denominator" route and start simplifing the game to work with both system's weaknesses, though. I don't know how they'd convert the motion sensing features that are supposedly being utilized in the game on the Xbox 360, or how they'd be able to take advantage of the rumble on the Xbox 360 controller if the original PS3 version doesn't have it (the past MGS games always seemed to use the motion sensing in pretty gameplay-critical ways).

I'm pretty sure they already did that when they released Metal Gear Solid 2 on the Xbox and PC (not to mention MGS1 was on the PC, and Castlevania was on the Xbox).

Rumours are merely that. Rumours. Listening to them, especially in the gaming business, is a really fucking moronic idea.

I wouldn't say it's debunked, what exactly where they supposed to say? The chance of it happening is fairly large if you consider the cost it takes to create the game, and the amount of PS3s that will be out in a year. The only way it will stay a true exclusive is if Sony throws a ton on money at Konami, which they just might. Then again, MS has 13 billion dollars lying around every quarter and 8 million consoles already on the market.

It will come to other consoles just like the other games, which were exclusive.
GTA games were also exclusive but we all know what happened with those.

Still no talks of a MGS3 title on any other console.

Laffo.
Let's see the orginals Metal Gears were on MSX and NES so I gues that isn't exclusive.
Metal Gear Solid was on PSX as well as PC and later remade on Gamecube so that's not really exclusive.
Metal Gear Solid 2 was on PS2 and later enhanced on Xbox
This leaves us with Metal Gear Solid: Ghost Babel on GBC, Metal Gear Ac!d on PSP and MGS3 on PS2 as the ONLY TIMES this franchise has ever been exclusive.

But I bet NGC magazine were pretty chuffed with themselves for starting the 'rumour' that Twilight Princess would be Wii compatible.

I vaguely remember someone spreading some weirdo rumors that Nintendo had a portable N64, with dual screens too. Fucking morons, how the hell would want two screens.

You can't assume that 360 will continue to sell at the current pace, because sooner or later the market will reach saturation point. Pretty quickly, I'd say... considering that they already shifted 8,000,000 units.

Sales figures don't always imply installed base, especially when the hardware has had problems. The 360 certainly has a large installed base, but probably not 8,000,000 consoles, because some of those will have been faulty units. I imagine that the PS3 will have problems achieving the same sales figures as the 360 has demonstrated, too. In short, I think that 360 will remain ahead, but not by the same margin as you imagine.

That and I believe, at least for MS, sold and shipped mean the exact same thing.

Why wouldn't they sell at a constant pace? Because of market saturation? You have to be kidding me. PS2 has what, 100 million sold worldwide? Hell, the Xbox sold 24 million (almost all in the US/Europe) and I'm sure alot of those Halo2 owners will be buying the X360 for H3 next year. 360 has only begun to sell. I'm sure it will reach about 20 million by next year, GTA, Halo3 will guarentee that.

I wouldn't think that faulty units shipped from Microsoft to customers would be counted in the sales figures would they? I suppose from Microsoft they might be, but I doubt NPD counts them.

I think the whole X360 vs PS3 vs Wii will be decided completely in Japan. X360 is going nowhere there, unless they can get some Japanese love (aka MGS4, SqEnix, etc). PS3 will do well, assuming SqEnix stays in bed and doesn't jump sack for the Wii. The Wii WILL sell MANY units in japan. Hell, I really think they'll sell tons of units everywhere. They will probably outsell both the PS3 and 360, but they won't be THE next-gen console because they won't have alot of the biggest games. The challenge for Nintendo to get those games/franchises is getting companies like SqEnix to get out of the graphics race and join their simple/fun campaign. That probably won't happen, but you never know. 1.8 million consoles sold world wide in half of November... LOL

It really does come down to Japan. If Nintendo can recapture Japan like they have with the DS, then Sony will have neither the US or Japan by next year. This leaves Japanese developers a big question. Why should they majorly support PS3?

Market saturation. It won't kill sales straight away, but it will probably reduce them significantly. Remember that the PS2 was unprecedentedly popular. It came in on the back of the PS1, which is a little different from coming in on the back of XBox.

Of those 100 million PS2 consoles that were sold, how many do you assume were replacements? I'm on my third PS2. Most PS2 gamers I know have had at least two. How many do you suppose were from people 'trading up' to the slimline?

How many of those 100 million PS2s do you suppose were bought for a single game, and then lived out the rest of their lives as little more than DVD players?

You can't just look at the raw numbers and assume they represent installled base. You're suggesting that we can assume that the number sold represents the number of willing customers for any given game. That's simply not the case.

I'm not assuming. The console will continue to sell because of what it can do, and what's available on it. I seriously doubt there are multiple Xbox360s owned by the same person. Even if your console breaks, you can get it returned, and you sure aren't buying a new one (assuming its within the 30-90 days). Besides that, X360 has RPG with Oblivion, Sports with EA, racing with Forza/Project Gotham, and FPS with GoW, Halo, CoD etc. They have a good variety of solid titles, in HD, at a lower price. That will sell systems.

Even if you can't assume the X360 will sell at the same pace, even if the pace halves, X360 will have 13 million sell through while the PS3 would have about 8-9 million. And that's assuming PS3 sells as well as the X360 has been. To me, that seems optimistic because of a few factors. 1) Sony is going to have a tough time really delivering units. Blue diodes and Cell yields will ensure that this console will have a tough time keeping good supply. 2) The PS3 is more expensive. That alone will make it a less bought item. Especially when you think parents buying for kids. $250 Wii vs $300 X360 vs $500 PS3... It's really not hard to decide. Especially when Wii has been getting such good press, and you can't see a dang difference between the 360 and PS3. When it was PS2 for $300 and Gamecube for $200, its easier to reach the $300 mark, it's not such a stretch. But throwing down half-a-grand for a game system? That is something earlier adopters and hardcore gamerz do, not the mass public.

Your argument seems to be that system-sell through isn't the same as the installed base. That is true. But you can't say that system-sell through doesn't reflect the total of installed base. Installed base matters to software companies because that is there clientel. Either way, there is no way PS3 is going to have more consoles sold, OR more installed base than X360 will next year. It just won't happen.

That may be the case. I don't personally doubt it, but you can't possibly assume that the 360 will have the same success as the PS2 did, through the whole lifespan of the console.

I was refuting the notion that there are somehow 100 million PS2 consoles out there. There's probably more like 40 million or so that are still functional. In other words, installed base for the PS2 never reached 100 million, and nor will installed base for the 360.

Where did you get the impression that I think the PS3 will catch up to the 360? I'm just saying that I think PS3 will close the gap somewhat. I'm still predicting that the 360 will be the undisputed winner of this generation, I just don't think that the installed base can continue to climb as fast as it has done in the first year since the launch.

Going back to your original post then, what kind of margin are you seeing by next year then?
I'm not assuming that, but it would be theoretically possible for X360 to have the same install base as the PS2 in America, keeping japan out of the equation.
Of course this is true, but the install base should continue to rise at a similar rate, because there shouldn't be too many re-buys/double owning at this point in the systems life-cycle.

I expect to see the PS3 have between a 40 and 70 percent as many sales as the 360 in twelve months time. There's already a couple of important exclusives expected for PS3, and that's going to help. Not nearly enough though. There's no way PS3 can really compete with 360 on equal terms. Not because of hardware, but because of price, and online services.

I don't disagree with your assesment of the relative positions. I disagree with your raw numbers. Also, you've put your estimate of PS3 sales at around 50 percent of predicted 360 sales. I think that with the exclusives, it could be higher than that. It might not be, which is why I'm hedging my bets, but I see every chance it could be. The games that are PS3 exclusives have big fanboy followings.

I mostly disagree with your assesment of 360 sales. I think that it has been running uncontested for the last year, and now it must compete with two other new consoles for the gamer's buck. You have to admit that could eat away at sales.

I still am not sure if the 360 has the same "lifestyle accessory" kind of appeal that the PS2 used to have. If you're going to base your predictions on America alone, then I can tentatively agree that it could be possible for the 360 to eventually equal the PS2, but a lot of things need to happen first.

I concede that point, and I predict that growth in the installed base of the 360 in the second year could be as much as 80 percent of the first year figures... but only if MS make the right decisions.

They've been doing admirably well so far, in terms of almost anything you care to name, but it needs to continue. They will live or die on the continuing strength of XBL and the XBLA in the year to come. Fortunately for them, Sony aren't exactly posing a threat in that department, but the Wii seems strongly placed to compete.

Getting back on topic no one has mentioned that any time that the MGS series has been ported, it's always been to a system of greater power. Granted it always was released on the "weakest" system at the time, but Kojoma strikes me as a man just full enough of himself to not want to port it to save the artistic integrity of his original product.

Furthermore, six months is a very short time. Just going off of memory I think each port took at least a year to come out.

The 360 is arguably more powerful overall than the PS3. If that's what you were getting at.

lol, this is assuming Sony will have 8.7 million units available within the next year.

That's my point. If Sony can reach that production number, which is kind of doubtful, they will still be far behind.

I would imagine Sony will knock themselves out to make sure Konami keeps Metal Gear Solid exclusive, at least for the first year. At the moment, MGS4 is about the only reason to even think about owning a PS3.

What amazes me is that you'd launch a console with so many crippling production issues in the first place. Coupled with the high price, it may as well be an invitation to developers to jump ship.

The 360's going to sell at a much slower pace than last year simply due to their competition among other things.

Either way, I wouldn't be surprised if we see a very early price drop (my guess is $50-$100) for the PS3. That'd basically be all we'd need to confirm that it's doing badly.

I think part of what its going to come down to is whether or not Sony manage to hold onto some of their bigger exclusive titles. Its certainly arguable that most of the gamers who owned a PS2 owned it for the games, rather than the fact that it was published by Sony. The PS2 had a lot of the big name titles, so if you wanted to play the newest Ico, Final Fantasy, Metal Gear, Dragon Quest etc you needed a PS2.

But lately they have been losing a lot of exclusives. Virtua Fighter, Dragon Quest, Assasin's Creed and the 360 is starting to hit its stride. Its becoming a race for Sony to try and stabilise their user base before publishers look at them decide that they are going to be better off making 360 titles and porting them, exactly like the last generation.

Konami says that MGS4 is Sony exclusive, but the same thing was said about 2. Then Substance came out and was ported.

If Sony can hold onto its major franchises and gain some more 3rd party support, than it should be fine. If the costs of development deter 3rd party devs and say MGS4: Whatever is ported? Its going to hurt them hard. The indie titles that the PS2 had like Okami, Ico and Shadows of the Colossus will most likely go to the Wii due to the very cheap development costs.

Right now MGS and Final Fantasy are the major titles that are keeping people interested in the PS3. If it lost either of those or the go multiplatform we're going to see a huge drop in PS3 buyers.

Thing is, they had no choice. They already "delayed" the launch and any further would just hurt them even more. As bad as their launch might've been and the problems they're facing now, they can at least say it's launched, it's out there, and people are buying it. They painted themselves in a corner basically.

Which means next to nothing. Until we DON'T see a port ever it's still technically up in the air. Just look at RE4, and more recently, though everyone saw it coming, Assassin's Creed. We all knew it was going to be a multi-platform title, but that's not what Ubi said for quite awhile.

Bullshit. They could've at the very least prioritized the machine over all else in terms of production and started far earlier than they did. This is a combination of their artificial demand building strategy backfiring and terrible planning on their part. I still don't see why they'd do this to one of the few divisions that's actually still profitable.

Launching means nothing when you had something like 200k units on launch date with just a few units coming every week. Looking back on the PS2's launch, they handled the shipment and launch date much better than this.

I'm tempted to call this the most botched launch of any console (there are some close runner-ups though).

Why are people using Assassin's Creed as an example of the machine losing exclusives? It was announced as a Xbox 360 game (though not exclusively) before the PS3 announcement came. Even then, at E3 insiders mentioned that it was running on a hidden 360.

I expect SE to spread their titles across consoles to rake in the big bucks. Multi-platform is the way to make money these days, so we'll see everyone losing exclusives across the board. Heck, maybe we'll even seen "compilation" type deals where certain titles in a series are on one console, and one is on the other.

This gen is definitely looking like pure trash, though. Hopefully by late '08 these guys shape up, because either the console doesn't have the games there to justify their purchase or there are massive droughts where nothing worthwhile is available.

Actually, in this one case, I wouldn't doubt that a large part of the shortages weren't artificial. They've been experiencing production issues for ages, including low yields (and various other problems with the Cell chip), Blu-Ray lasers, and just the difficulty of producing a high-end piece of hardware and getting it out the door. But you're right, launching doesn't mean a whole lot when there's only 200,000 consoles to ship. But they got them out in time for the holidays and gathered enough hype for it to matter. Believe it or not, a lot of news stations seem to reporting the PS3 as one of the top must-have items, placing ahead of the Wii. They would have suffered beyond belief if they further delayed the console, at least no they can build themselves back up and try to keep pace with Microsoft.

They should have done more to ensure a better launch, I agree, but they constantly fucked up along the way. To the point where they really didn't seem to have much of a choice. They chose the lesser of the two evils That's my point.



AC is viable because it was reported as a Sony exclusive. As I said, everyone knew it was going to be on the 360, but that's not Ubi was saying. Plus, the 360 project wasn't exactly titled "Assassin's Creed." The name was announced for the PS3 and for all we knew they dropped the project and took it over to Sony. Anyways it's just a recent example of a publisher saying something's exclusive when it's not. RE4 is a better one though, which is why I included it. That actually came as a surprise.

As for the second paragraph: yeah, no kidding.

Third: I disagree. I'm already enjoy this generation and have found a ton of good titles to enjoy. The 360 got off to a shaky start, but I have no regrets purchasing it. Same with the Wii, especially knowing great games are just around the corner. And though I won't be getting a PS3 for awhile, I'm sure it'll turn around like the 360 did. Good games will eventually come, whether exclusive or multi-platform.

Why?
They're selling out, although not as fast as the Wii is, and mainly because people try to sell them on eBay, but they're still selling out.
Sony is losing something like $106 on the $600 model and some $200+ on the $500 model as well. So yeah, I doubt they'd be that hard pressed for sales to bring about a price drop so early in the hardware's life cycle.

The Xbox360 might drop in price before Halo 3 is shipped though. It'd be a very bold move on Microsoft's part, but you just KNOW that there are hundreds of thousands of people out there waiting on Halo 3 to get a 360.

Either way, I wasn't surprised when I first read about MGS4 possibly going to the 360 when Joystiq reported it. In fact, I'd be more surprised if the new MGS game didn't get some kind of gaiden treatment with some new missions like the Subsistence and Substance of its predecessors.

The reported production problem wasn't even the CELL, as they were reporting excellent yields well before launch. The main problem was the blue laser diode for the Blu-Ray drives. Which gets me to another point: If that hadn't been placed in the machine, we likely would've saw it at a much lower price point and at far greater quantities at launch and beyond.

They're simply seeing what's happens when you try to force feed the public a format, even if it's got more the computer/motion picture industry behind it.

Agreed, there really isn't much more to it. The amazing thing is that for such a large company, they never saw these shortages and planned accordingly or anything. It's like a bunch of decapitated chickens are running SCEI at the moment.

Again, not viable. Ubisoft's long been suspected of having a very close relationship to Microsoft, so when they announced it was "exclusive" there was widespread skepticism already. Early reports about the game, while lacking the game, were still reporting on AC.

Either way you look at it, the sudden exclusivity seemed like a joke as the machines are nowhere near close enough to simply jump ship like that (nor are they close to Sony).

This is just my opinion of course, but it comes down to whether there are enough good games to justify the cost of the console and said games. IMO, none of them are there yet.

Wii - Nintendo's got it easiest here. Lowest price point and they've got blockbuster titles coming down the pipe. They're already known for pumping out concentrated awesome, so you can rest assured that you're getting your money's worth. The rumored drought of titles is a little worrying though, and it has many screaming "Gamecube Redux".

X360 - This is where we start getting a little fuzzy. It still lacks a diverse enough library to appeal to anyone except the same group of people the original Xbox did, so it loses gamers looking for niche titles and other titles coming out of Japan. Online is fantastic, but that doesn't make up for a variety of titles to choose from.

It may simply be me, but it's not worth it yet. If we see more good stuff from Capcom and Namco like Lost Planet it'll be more appealing to gamers that were more drawn to the PS2/Gamecube than the Xbox.

PS3 - One word: Bloated. Priced too high, more bugs than a barn, and slim pickings in terms of games. The online is slowly coming together, but there's already a long wait for worthwhile titles and then another vast expanse of time to traverse before getting to the heavy hitters. Sony's expecting this thing to be a PS2, but sales are likely going to crawl outside of the holidays. Hence, developers are going to get a clue and start heading to the cheaper-to-develop-for Wii and equally-capable 360.

Far slower sales than predicted, bleeding exclusives left and right (don't think this is going to stop with MGS4) and the competition dropping their prices, as you said with Halo 3 will force their hand.

It's either do that to keep their console viable as a gaming platform, or start moving it toward entertainment and bail out of the industry. Post-holiday sales will probably be awful due to a combination of the issues stated before and collapsing demand.

You say this like I'm defending Sony. You're right, of course. But they're trying to push a new format, much like they did with the DVD.

Like I said, everyone knew it wasn't an exclusive. It was just an example of a company saying something was an exclusive when it's not. Simple as that.

No launch is really worth it right away. But chances are, if you're buying a console at launch, you know what's coming down the road. And that's enough for some people.

I lost complete faith in this concept with the Dreamcast. I still bought ne years later, and I still love it, but I certainly didn't see that road coming for it.

I seems like the 360 is becoming the PS2 of the next generation. It has a head start above the rest, but there's also some fairly high ranked titles coming out for the PS3 and Wii which would knock it off it's feet and ultimately make it another Dreamcast.

Since Virtua Fighter 5 is coming to the 360, they're still a solid contender. You know how people started making multi platform games for the GC, PS2 and xbox, and in the later years all we'd see from the GC was movie titles and/or titles which are specifically pushed to all three consoles? Yeah. The same will most likely happen for this as well.

MGS4 would certainly boost the 360. I mean, people will buy a PS3 just to play MGS4. But if you can pick up a console a couple of hundred dollars cheaper, with more of a variety of games, and get your favorite title (even if it is (possibly) dumbed down/not as high quality) I'd say most people would swing for that option.

Oh, no. I'm not saying you're trying to defend the company at all. Heck, I don't think anyone is here nor do they need any defending (they've got people whose job is to do just that).

I agree that they're trying to promote their format, but they've gimped one of the their most successful products with it. I'm glad you brought up DVD, as they were also behind the push for that as well (along with many of the same companies behind Blu-Ray).

Aye, which makes me think there was some "moneybags" being passed around in order to make it seem it was exclusive. Either way, something odd was going on with that whole deal.

Of course, but those are early adopters. Over 90% of a console's sales are those who wait after the launch, so they have to make sure that the machine is priced to appeal to these folks and that the games are there as well. This is easy enough to demonstrate when the expected 360 price drop comes around along with Halo 3.

I was just running through some other articles and came across this:

Now, while this doesn't prove anything either way, its not something you want one of your critical 3rd Party devs to say if you were Sony.

What it comes down to is profit. At the moment dev costs for the PS3 are very high, though they go down eventually. But a game has to sell a lot of copies to make it worthwhile and if the games have lackluster sales, then the option of moving/porting to a system with a higher attach rate becomes more tempting.

No kidding.
In fact, I'm planning on getting a PS3 because of Metal Gear 4. Seriously. If it goes on the 360 then I'll probably just settle for that system when I do buy another console.

I've actually gotta wonder how much sway MGS still holds in the US. Every new iteration has sold less and less in the States with MGS3 only selling, what, 700,000 copies? Who knows how MGS4 will sell, but if the past is any indication it will see a further decline in sales. I doubt it, since more hype seems to be placed around MGS4, but is that because it's one of the few reasons to buy a PS3? And if so, does bringing it over to the 360 lower the anticipation, even just a bit? It's going to move systems, but I'm not sure if it will really have the pull people expect it to. I mean, the PS2 was a pretty good price when MGS3 came out, and I doubt the PS3 will see any kind of price drop before MGS4 hits the shelves...