Sony never struck a Metal Gear Solid 4 PS3 exclusivity deal with Konami or Kojima Productions. Turns out, Hideo Kojima himself didn’t want to release the game on the Xbox 360. That’s according to former Kojima Productions employee Ryan Payton, who was interviewed by author Steven L. Kent for his book The Ultimate History of Video Games Volume 2.
Metal Gear Solid 4 PS3 released in 2008 to universal praise
Considering the reception of Metal Gear Solid 4 on PS3, many wondered why Konami didn’t release the game on Xbox 360, especially since the console was extremely popular. The only logical answer fans could think of was an exclusivity deal. Not quite, apparently. “The prevailing belief around the industry was that Sony must have secured an exclusive deal for the game,” Payton told Kent (via ResetEra). “It wasn’t true. Had Kojima chosen to port the game to Xbox 360, his bosses would surely have approved the decision, but he wasn’t ready to make the jump.”
The actual explanation for Kojima not wanting to make the jump is Xbox 360’s technical limitations. When Metal Gear Solid: Legacy Collection was announced for PS3, the developer was quizzed about the lack of an Xbox 360 version, to which he replied that he couldn’t release Metal Gear Solid 4 (which is part of the collection) on Microsoft’s console because “the amount of data in MGS4 is just too enormous.” PS3 had the advantage of Blu-ray discs but the game would need around seven DVDs to fit on the Xbox 360. “When it’s the next [Xbox] console, maybe we can release it,” Kojima said at the time. “If we released a version on the Xbox 360 without MGS4, then it’s not The Legacy Collection.”
In other news, PS1/PSP classics in the revamped PS Plus will have custom video filters among other features, and a PSVR 2 event is rumored to be happening soon.
