UPDATED: Metal Gear Solid 4 Dated for Europe

[b]Updated: Following the "no comment" Konami made about the upcoming release of Metal Gear Solid 4 this morning, it has confirmed the June 12th launch date.

You might also want to check out the two new teaser websites Konami has launched for Metal Gear Solid 4 and Metal Gear Online. The latter site tells us, "Included with MGS4, the starter pack offers players a first bite of what awaits in the new MGO, while various expansion packs (planned to be released periodically after official service begins) will add additional maps, characters, and other features."[/b]


The release date for the long-awaited PS3-exclusive Metal Gear Solid 4 has been officially confirmed... sort of.

A podcast from Kojima Productions, which is developing the game, tells us, “We're announcing the release date. The rumours are true. Worldwide simultaneous release. North America, Europe, Japan and Asia. June 12th. Congratulations, we finally have a date.”

However, when SPOnG contacted a Konami representative to fish out more details and we were told that Konami Europe has not confirmed the release. When we asked whether the game will be released on June 12th, we were told, "No comment."

This is, however, a Kojima Productions podcast we're talking about, not the ghost of a rumour that has emerged from an 'unnamed source'. SPOnG expects to see an officially official announcement in the very, very near future.

Also in the podcast is MGS4's producer, Ryan Payton, telling us, "Unfortunately because of disc space, we don't have the space to include other languages, other voice-over (VO) files for the respective versions. So, the Japanese version's not gonna have English VO, and the North American and European versions won't have Japanese VO".

SPOnG, to be honest, can live with the fact that we won't get the foreign voice-overs. What we are interested to hear, however, is that Kojima is pushing the limits of the Blu-ray disc. A Blu-ray disc, bare in mind, can hold either 25GB or 50GB of information, depending on whether its single or dual-layered. So, either this is a bloody huge game, or Payton's making excuses for some hideously bloated coding.

That said, if a 'humorous' comment thrown in there by Aki Saito, Kojima's translator, is taken at face value, Kojima can't be pushing the limits of the disc that hard. “We do have an option of delaying the game and including it, but people won't like that...” he jokingly added. So, taking more time magically creates more disc space? Only if something has had to be optimised.

But we digress into rumour and speculation. Let us, for now, cover our ears as the Sony fanboys try to scream louder than the Microsoft and Nintendo fanboys - and we simply wait to play what could be one of the games of the next 3.213 years.

^{Source: Kojima Productions}