Metal Gear Solid's Kojima snubs Revolution, opens door to 360

It is widely expected that Metal Gear Solid 4 will see all but the slightest phase of PlayStation 3 exclusivity, with series producer and famed serious person Hideo Kojima making noises that open the door for the Microsoft's Xbox 360.

The stealth king also poured a littlecold water on the chances of seeing the series on Nintendo's Revolution, a decision that will likely be made on the expected power of the machine rather than its controller, which would produce a stunning interface for the series.

“'Metal Gear Solid' has traditionally been with Sony, and I still believe Sony is the best match in terms of the full complete package as a game software,” explained Kojima to 1up. “However, for the online aspect, this is not the case. I feel no doubt that the online portion alone could be out on either PC or Xbox, maybe not Revolution, but other formats as well. The online aspect is completely different to the package that we have produced in the past on PlayStation.”

In answer to a direct question regarding possible 360 support, Kojima explained, “I want to express, first of all, it’s not that I don’t like Xbox or 360. It’s just that last year, our hands were really tied to MGS3, so the other Konami developers were able to get their hands on the 360 tools and hardware earlier. But we simply didn’t have time to do that last year. So, meaning that we were behind the other developers in terms of 360 development. Kojima Productions has this philosophy that we want to be the first in everything regarding new technology. So after we finished MGS3, the option was to work on the PS3 to try all the new things for Metal Gear Solid 4. The only reason for this is I’m the kind of person who wants to be the first person on the moon, and don’t want to be asking “what the moon was like?” from other people. So that’s the real story behind selecting PS3.”

It has been known for sometime that Kojima has had interest in the Xbox 360 and it is likely that Konami is eyeing the console's rampant launch success in the West with some interest. PlayStation 3 is still to receive a firm release date and murmurs from various componentry partners have cast doubt on Sony's heavy hinting that a Japanese launch can be expected in the spring of 2006. We firmly believe that a 360 port will already be underway as Microsoft's courtship of Konami, a key Japanese developer/publisher, continues apace. As to how long the PlayStation 3 will be able to claim Kojima's next installment of the seminal stealth series will be interesting to see...