To be honest, of course they'll be looking into it..it makes sense financially. But the BIG question though is... Will they bring it to the 360? We'll see.

I can't help but feel this may cause a stir with PS3 owners. Don't know why though as every good game out there should be available to everyone. i.e Bioshock.

Im a 360 owner, not really bothered about the game coming to the 360 to be honest . . . . . . . But, just thinking . . . . How they gonna do it? I mean, this game was something like 25-30GB on a Blu-Ray wasn't it? I know its a moot point for people like me who have the 60gb premium. What are they gonna do for the countless other 20GB and Core users? . . . . . . But are they gonna have to cut stuff out? How many disks will it be? Imagine the time it would take to install those discs lol. Someone prove me wrong, I mean, if the 360 uses different compression ratios or different codecs etc. It would be a real marketing coup for Sony if Konami turned round and said "Well, we really wanted to bring MGS4 to the 360, what with the amount of 360 oners out there, but its just not technically feasible."

If it does come out, expect a release sometime in 2010 lol.

Amazing that this story refuses to die though

yeah would need to be multiple discs, i would think, cant blame them for thinking about the money to be made here,
although i just read on another site that this story is bogus, who knows so many rumours online, its like a never ending mothers meeting

they could take about 75% of the cut scenes out ,i got so fed up with having to watch a movie between actually playing the game.i know we need to know the story but not this amount. they could save about 20 g just by that !
would be good to see though i much prefer playing my 360 than my ps3 its all about the controller.

If we get this on the 360, we should promise to give the PS3 owners Halo . . . . . . . No wait, I mean PROMISE not to give them Halo lol.

Well, it was made clear that there wasn't alot of compression going on with the PS3 version, as Kojima wanted it perfect. i.e Sound files. No compression was made at all. So maybe they could reduce the size to less than 20GB. I don't know. It'd be interesting to find out.

And yes, it is amazing how it never seems to die, But it doesn't help when Konami reps say something like this. It'll never die... well not for a while anyway. Well your looking a good 2 years till a release if it did happen.

@2

I dont own any Chickens to count anyway!

Are you a farmer?

I'm sure MS would love to see this on the 360, but I really hope they don't do it at the expense of the integrity of the game itself. Given that it filled a Blu-ray, surely the only way they can hope to come close to the PS3 version is by shipping it on multiple (3-4?) DVDs and requiring a HDD install of each one.

I also wonder how many additional copies it would shift. Is there really still that much pent up demand for a 360 version or did everyone who wants to play MGS4 that badly already buy a PS3?

@2... The Blu-ray stuff is true, but you have to understand the way that information is stores on PS3 Blu-ray discs to understand why such a large amount of information is stored on the disc; which you don't.

Although, obviously I have no idea how big the raw game data is, I would bet it is less than 9GB. "But howz culd itz be thatz da casse!!!?!!?1one!1!!?!?" I hear the PS3 fan boys that plague these boards scream. Simple.

Although Blu-ray has a far larger storage capability than DVD, because the PS3 developers are limited by some users only having 1x speed drives, they have to duplicate information several times to reduce read time on the discs. That means the texture for Solid Snake has to be in 15-20 places on the disc so that the disc doesn't have to speed between quadrants to find the information – one of the key reasons read times exist.

However, with so much information duplicated, it means on a device such as the DVD drive contained in the 360 contains more usable space. In other words, a lot of the extra capacity of Blu-ray is rendered pointless by the need for multiple duplications of information around the disc.

Now movies don't suffer from the same problems because the data is stored on the disc in a uniform line – the player doesn't need to find it for the next thing, because it is right in front of the laser because of the linear nature of that usage method.

Of course, games, having data all over the place require information to be found. Now, if the PS3 had readers that operated at no less than 5x, it would be irrelevant, but because it only operates at a very minimum of 1x, it has a massive impact.

In other words, once you scrap away the FUD propagated by the Blu-ray consortium and look at the cold hard facts, you realise that chances are Konami will quite easily fit MGS4 onto a DVD.

@9

Nice post mate, but just want to ask one question (apologies to everyone if this turns into a tech board, please delete if not appropriate). If what your saying about duplicated data is true, then why didnt Sony offer a complete install, and not the multiple 4gb a pop installs whilst playing the game? Not doubting your knowledge mate, just finding it hard to believe that they will be able to fit it to 2 discs is all . . . .

Re: Lets not count our chicken just yet . . . .”
Posted by: Brett Stocks - 8 minutes ago
@2... The Blu-ray stuff is true, but you have to understand the way that information is stores on PS3 Blu-ray discs to understand why such a large amount of information is stored on the disc; which you don't.

Although, obviously I have no idea how big the raw game data is, I would bet it is less than 9GB. "But howz culd itz be thatz da casse!!!?!!?1one!1!!?!?" I hear the PS3 fan boys that plague these boards scream. Simple.

Although Blu-ray has a far larger storage capability than DVD, because the PS3 developers are limited by some users only having 1x speed drives, they have to duplicate information several times to reduce read time on the discs. That means the texture for Solid Snake has to be in 15-20 places on the disc so that the disc doesn't have to speed between quadrants to find the information – one of the key reasons read times exist.

However, with so much information duplicated, it means on a device such as the DVD drive contained in the 360 contains more usable space. In other words, a lot of the extra capacity of Blu-ray is rendered pointless by the need for multiple duplications of information around the disc.

Now movies don't suffer from the same problems because the data is stored on the disc in a uniform line – the player doesn't need to find it for the next thing, because it is right in front of the laser because of the linear nature of that usage method.

Of course, games, having data all over the place require information to be found. Now, if the PS3 had readers that operated at no less than 5x, it would be irrelevant, but because it only operates at a very minimum of 1x, it has a massive impact.

In other words, once you scrap away the FUD propagated by the Blu-ray consortium and look at the cold hard facts, you realise that chances are Konami will quite easily fit MGS4 onto a DVD.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Yes that is the case for some games but they've already said that MGS4 required the size of the blu-ray disc to do it and it was compressed for it to fit a blu-ray disc. The reason the it doesn't do what you've said is becuase of the 5GB install so these bits can be quickly accessed. Should it ever make it to the 360 you may require a hard drive to play it at all.

Although they've also said it's impossible to do on a 360

Is this just more spin to keep the game high profile? or are they chaninging their story?

Maybe they were expecting better sales...? and have changed their mind..? Lets face it.. companies have changed their minds before, and if they generally believe their is a "huge" demand for a 360 version, then as I said, it makes alot of sense financially.

Personally i think they should forget it and make a new game instead, one that concentrates on gameplay and not long cut scenes but then i'm not a fan of the series so i don't speak for everyone.

Kojima originally said that MGS 4 was possible on the 360 but could not be done because of the limitation of the disc space on the dvd. He wanted to make a game with all the things that he had in his mind and put it on a 50gb dual layer blu-ray disc.

Personally if this was able to come to the 360 I would not want any content taken out at all as it would be embarrassing due to PS3 owners getting a kick out of the fact that we got an edited version because of disc space.

At present the 360 has many games that were once PS only titles, some games like Ace Combat only appearing on the 360.

Its in Konami's interest to find a way of getting the game onto the 360 due to there being more 360's in people's homes than a PS3 as we can see from the total global sales where 360 is leading over PS3.

I dont think we will ever truly know what console is out-selling the other, and quite frankly i dont care. But think of it though. Konami had one console to worry about. Virtually everyone had a PS1 or a PS2 in their homes. Now its split down the middle. God knows what the production cost for something as massive as MGS4 must have been (Game developers are already stating that in the future, it wont be the graphics capabilities that will hold back future systems, butmore the time and money developers actually have to create a game), and if they have half the potential customers (more if you take into account some hardcore gamers have got fed-up and gone for the Wii option), then it makes even more economic sense to do so.

Call me a nostalgic old git, but I do think that the MGS series should stay with Sony. Its part of the consoles heritage (even if it isn't first party) and history. I'll get over it no doubt, like when I played Code Veronica on the Dreamcast, I felt dirty at first, but then grew accustomed lol

@15 err yes we do actually know which console is outselling the other, dont you check the NPD figures? Wii is number 1, 360 second and PS3 third.

360 also has been outselling the PS3 in Japan lately as from what has been said on all sites including this one...

@10: The problem with a complete install would be that when you want to play another game, removing it and then having to reinstall it. I'm a retailer so I'm not clued up on what Sony's strategy is – and unlike some of the fan boys on here, I'm not going to pretend to be – but I'm sure there was some technical reason – whether that is it being unfeasible or because of the problem installing and reinstalling would cause – why it didn't do it.

@11: From what I understand from what some of the developers at a major Sony studio that regularly shop in one of my stores have said, is that the install wasn't to speed up the process of reading from Blu-ray but because of the constraints on memory bandwidth that the PlayStation 3 suffers from.

What you say might be true Jack (own a 360 myself) just I have heard so much spin from all parties, that i dont know who to believe. Just pointing out that Konami are in a bit of a bind, im not taking a particular consoles side.

@17

hello brett nice post. Just curious, even the orginal 40gb PS3 would be able to do a full install and have some change left over for other stuff wouldn't it?

@15

MGS is part of Sony's heritage, sure, but you could say the same about Final Fantasy (well, from VII onwards) and that will apparently quite comfortably make the leap to the 360.

I don't think any third party developed and published title is guaranteed to be exclusive to one console any more, because there is always more money to be made by spreading bets across formats.

It places the console battle firmly in the hands of platform holders to provide the best hardware, the best online services and the best first party titles.

A 360 version of MGS4 might be a blow to PS3 fanboys, but given that Sony let both Final Fantasy XIII and GTAIV go, I can't imagine they'd take steps to stop Konami porting MGS4 either.

Kojima said MGS4 was "maxing out" the Blu Ray disc so it would be interesting to see how it would translate to standard DVD without multiple discs or a huge compromise in content.

Next week it'll be "Gears of War Coming to PS3"!

Mind you, although both great games, like Bioshock, the initial exclusivity novelty has worn off and Sony has probably got the most out of the game. Even if a 360 version does appear, its essentially a "PS3 port" like FFXIII will be.

Funny isn't it, I don't remember a huge demand or a fanboy chorus when MGS2 appeared on the original XBox, but then PS2 owners lynched Splinter Cell.

I'm glad I own PS3 for the in-house stuff! Go Uncharted!

I didn't buy it for my PS3, so I won't care more for my Xbox 360...

@21

I get the sense you have copied and pasted that from somewhere else.

I smell Sony fanboys panicking.

Oh dear, more comments on drive speeds... Well this little bit of information may prove useful to some people with selective hearing (or reading).. BTW the PS3 has a two speed BR drive not one -

"A 12x CAV drive like the one in the 360 will be 12x speed for around 15% of the outer disc, that figure is peak performance. The closer to the inner ring it gets the slower accesses get (5x speed on the inner ring) - probable average: around 8x speed. Another interesting thing seems to escape everyone is that the 12x DVD drive in the 360 only reads dual layer discs at a maximum of 8x speed. As it was in single layer, the 8x speed is peak performance. The 2x speed BD drive performs quite well in this case: a BD25 on PS3 fares better than a DVD9 on the 360. The great majority of 360 games are and will be pressed on DVD9s. Another interesting point with existing CLV BD drives is that they do not have the dual layer penalization with DVD dics. If a BD drive is rated to read DVDs at 8x, it will read dual layer DVDs at 8x as well."

The Metal Gear Solid series is hardly exclusive to just PlayStation, yes it has appeared on PlayStation 1, 2 and 3 plus also the PSP but there were versions on XBOX, PC, GameBoy Colour and also the GameCube.

Konami are a company that wishes to make a profit if they haven't generated enough from the PS3 then I'm sure they will wish to maximise return by releasing on other formats.

This isn't exactly the first game in the Metal Gear series and because of this, the storyline isn't exactly simple to understand - even for long running fans of the series. With this is mind, I suspect the storyline will be changed entirely for an XBox version = "He was a soldier of fortune...", chuck it on a DVD and the jobs done.

I'm a 360 owner. I'm a long running fan of the MGS series, played the previous 3 MGS games on PS1/PS2 from release date, But I haven't played MGS4, cause I don't have a PS3. I cannot justify £300 to play 1 game I want. Why should they change the story completely? Just because people have a 360 over a PS3 it doesn't mean they have not played a MGS game before.

From what I understand, they used uncompressed audio samples, but i am not sure how they managed to fill the rest of the drive up. I suspect uncompressed image files, and some poor attention to file optimisation. The texture sizes can't be that large, because neither the PS3 nor the 360 have enough memory to cope with them, and you would need models with so many vertices to fill 50GB that they would outclass modern computer animation. The Unreal 3 engine shows what can be done with a LOT less, plus there is the halflife 2 engine, crytecs stuff or the the engine that runs stalker, all of which matches or surpasses the quality of MGS4 and none of which require more than 1 DVD, let alone a full Bluray. I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of the disc is filled with poorly compressed pre rendered FMV.

Good choice for Konami; however, it would have to be placed on 2 discs, or else like Rimmer said, the quality will be so poor, as well they'd have to probably ease off some of the graphics... :(

Sounds good to me tho! :D

@25

The Math still adds up to 12x DVD being quicker and one thing you forgot to mention in that devs can put the code that needs to be accessed quickly on the outer part of the disc, but it's quite obvious anyway as it's the main reason why more and more PS3 games need manditory installs.

AFAIK the game has already been largely ported to 360, using the Unreal Engine, however there's a stand off between Epic and Konami about some changes they want made, which Epic can't be bothered to do. Mum's the word!

If they compressed the textures, and the sound, the game would equal to two dvd-9. It's possible and i hope it will eventually come out...

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