Metal Gear Solid 4 to Remain PS3 Exclusive

Both sides are going to try to claim I'm biased in this case, but non-fanboys who can understand basic logic will see my point.

In a talk with Kotaku, Kojima has once again stated that MGS4 is for the PS3, and PS3 only at this point.

"The PS3 is like the theatre, it's a little bit high-priced but it has to be high quality as well. The 360 is a DVD, it still needs to be high quality but you need more variations, while the Wii is almost like a TV channel, because every game you have it with your family".

"Read more..." for my thoughts.

I find it interesting that every other developer out there is claiming that the PS3 and 360 are nearly identical in terms of power, yet Kojima continues to claim inferiority on all the others. I'll be honest here I do think the PS3 has more raw CPU power than the 360. But developers continue to state that the 360 has the GPU advantage. Also, the 360 uses all of it's RAM in a big pool, developers are free to allocate as much as they need, where they need it. While the PS3 is locked at 256 system, and 256 video RAM. Of that, one bank is very fast, and the other is substantially slower. I personally don't know the specifics of the advantages of each layout, but I would imagine more developer freedom is ideal.

"But like I said, MGS4 is aimed for the movie theatre, it's aimed for the PS3, so the game's scenario and graphics need this theatre-type hardware. It's when a producer has a game that can work on the 'DVD level' that a game will go multiplatform"

This is the quote that made a million PS3 fanboys jump with joy. After all, they have that problem with sharing that I mentioned in my petitions post. Of course the Xbox fanboys were hurt by the proclamation, so now people who were once convinced that the game was going multi-platform, and jumping with joy at the thought, are now claiming that the game is crap, doesn't look that good, etc...

I expect the only real thing keeping MGS on the PS3 is that Kojima is Japanese, everyone knows how Japanese developers love their pre-rendered CG cutscenes. When you're rendering those in HD, you're going to be wasting MASSIVE amounts of disc space for something that could be done with slightly less pleasing (to most people, I personally don't like pre-rendered cinematics) results in-engine, real-time.

Plunkett followed up with this:

Since we've opened up this can of worms, I may as well get his thoughts on it. Why, I ask, do you think this rumour simply refuses to go away? "Because 360 owners want it on 360, obviously", he quips.

While I agree that 360 owners want it. Kojima has previously done nothing to subdue the rumour. Stating that the 360 could run the game just fine, and not actually coming right out and saying "WE WILL NEVER PRODUCE MGS4 FOR THE XBOX 360!" Which, if you read his quotes carefully, he still hasn't done. He simply stated that it's AIMED for the PS3. I'm sure MGS was AIMED for the Playstation, and MGS2 was AIMED for the PS2, but they were both ported.

Here is where the PS3 fanboys will accuse my of bias. I rushed out to buy MGS2 for my PS2, because the first MGS was absolutely amazing. I don't regret the purchase, but the story is absolutely garbage. The gameplay is solid, and good fun, but the story being such a mess really hurt the game in my opinion. Based on the trailers that have been shown, MGS4 looks to take the messed up story to a whole new level. That said, I am interested in playing the game, but after 2 being such a mess, I just can't picture myself buying it.

To conclude the whole thing, does exclusivity really matter? All consoles will have their strengths and weaknesses. If you want to fully experience everything this generation has to offer, you're going to need to buy all three machines. I don't currently own a PS3, as the game library is pretty poor at this point, and the price is much too high. The price issue could be helped if the 20GB model were more readily available, because I personally don't need wireless internet connection on it, or card readers. I do plan to get one when the game library develops some more though.

Read the whole interview here.