Yesterday, Jonathan let you all in on the weird and not very secretly coded message plastered across a teaser site for Metal Gear Solid. The last code is mostly likely the power button for a PC–at least that is what the symbol on my power button looks like, but it also looks like the one for the Xbox 360. Then again, if you looks at the codes closely, you would also see other gaming symbols that looks very familiar to you. Therefore, one might think that the “i” is for the Wii, and the “!” is for the Xbox 360 and the last one is for the PC.  Yet, the Wii most likely would not be able to handle an exact port of Metal Gear Solid 4, therefore I personally think this had to do with the Xbox 360 and PC only.

So, if my deductive reasoning (and upon further investigation-most of the internet) is correct, MGS4 will no longer be a PS3 exclusive in the near future. That, or all the old Metal Gear Solid games will be heading to other formats–but it is best not to think on this too hard and instead focus on the obvious.

All of the speculation from yesterday is getting even more heightened today, with people chatting on all sorts of forums, but if you look back on the actual beginnings of these rumors, the teaser site just makes perfect sense.

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Remember back in June when when all those Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots bundles for the PS3 went on sale? Did you miss out on your chance to get one? Well, Walmart has your back because they are selling the Limited Edition Kojima Silver MSG4 40GB PS3 Bundles for $399.99–but you may want to check for availability before you head down to you nearest boxmart.

You can, however order one online and if you want to save $19.94 on shipping, you can have it delivered to your nearest Walmart store for pick-up. Kind of like Circuit City but without all the lies.

Now that we know these bundles are still in demand after all these months, let us hope that those of us out there who still want the 80GB model will be shown some love as well relatively soon.

(Thanks VG247)

Available to the highest bidder on eBay right now is a modded 60GB PlayStation 3 system that has been completely reworked to the beauty you see above which, in addition to the lovely paint job, sports 15 white LEDs to light up the artwork, a modded Nyko PS3 controller with red backlit buttons, and the signatures of both series mastermind Hideo Kojima and Metal Gear Solid 4 voice actor Yumi Kikuchi.

In addition to the system itself, you’ll be getting a handful of other Metal Gear goodies, including launch day dog tags, a GA-KO alarm clock, custom embroidered Otacon patches, and other rare items.

15% of the final price will be going to Penny Arcade’s Child’s Play charity, so you won’t have to feel too terribly guilty about bidding. Of course, you will need to have a fair amount of cash handy to bid — with just under seven hours to go, the highest bid is currently $17,200. That’s a pretty penny (1,720,000 pretty pennies, to be exact), but hey — at least shipping is free.

If you’re like me, you’ve always wondered what our favorite Metal Gear Solid 4 characters would look like if they were redone to resemble small, cute anime girls.  Thankfully, Konami is going to make our dreams finally come true on December 11th!

The production of the Fugimate Sweet Snake figurines are all being supervised by Hiroshi Arakawa, who is the original art director for the Metal Gear series.  They’ll come in four different flavors: Ocelot, Solid Snake, Raiden, & Otacon.  Each are 7cm (2.76 in.) tall and will cost 2,940 yen (approx. $27).

I think it goes without saying that this will only be available in Japan, which just shows that we never get anything good here in the states.  I guess the only way we’ll ever see these is during a local convention, but you better believe they’ll be selling this for more than $27 bucks since its production is going to be limited.

[Via DannyChoo]

I’ve been saying it for over a year now: “The day Metal Gear Solid 4 comes out is the day I buy a PS3.” So on Thursday, June 12th, that’s exactly what I did. I even drove an hour to a Wal-Mart in a small town at 6 AM to make sure I could secure the special system bundle. Being a huge fan of the series, I wanted to savor the experience, so I waited until the weekend to start playing, when I could really devote my time to the game. In the meantime, I perused reviews praising the game for its brilliant gameplay and for fixing problems that had plagued the series from the beginning. Naturally, I was even more excited to begin playing. So imagine my dissapointment when I actually popped in the disc and found it to be more movie than game.

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Thank you, Yahtzee Croshaw. I knew I could count on you to be the guy who finally played Metal Gear Solid 4, stood up, and said “What the hell?” Reviewers everywhere have been slathering praise all over the game’s redundant story and brushing aside its ridiculously long cut scenes, but not Croshaw. This has to be the most spot-on review of MGS4 I’ve seen. It is a great game to be sure — when you’re actually allowed to play it — but yes, Kojima really needs an editor.

Via The Escapist

In the days leading up to Metal Gear Solid 4’s release, the bundle featuring an 80GB PS3 along with the game was in ridiculously high demand. Websites offering pre-orders for the bundle were sold out within minutes (and in some cases, shut down entirely) and some stores held impromptu lotteries on launch day to decide who would be walking away with one of their very own. Luckily, Sony has noticed the demand and plans to ship more bundles out in early July.

“While we can’t provide specifics on inventory levels, the Metal Gear Solid 4 PlayStation 3 bundle is a limited-edition offering that’s experiencing high demand from Metal Gear and PlayStation enthusiasts,” the SCEA statement read. “We’re pleased with the strong consumer interest in the bundle and are working to ensure that additional shipments are provided to retailers.”

At this time, the 80GB bundle still seems to be one of the best deals for anyone interested in getting a PS3. Hopefully the people that missed out the first time will get a second chance at the bundle in the coming weeks.

Via GameRush

I’ve previously expressed my disdain for numbers cited as coming from VG Chartz, the videogame industry sales-tracking website, calling it “unreliable.” Given the amount of attention it’s been getting — the site has been sourced by publications like Forbes and The New York Times — Gamasutra’s Simon Carless dug into the website a bit to find out exactly how it obtains the numbers it shares. Here are a few choice excerpts from the piece, which you can read in its entirety right here.

…if they are sufficiently out, then VGChartz will retrofit their results – either weekly or monthly – to conform to the more ‘official’ data. But they won’t credit those firms as the source of the retrofitting – they’ll just bump their numbers around without saying why on the site.

…Let’s be clear. I think the concept behind VGChartz is a wonderful one – freely available data to let everyone see how well games are selling. And it’s absolutely true that all data is an estimate – not even major services such as Media Create and NPD get it exactly right.

But VGChartz is staffed by amateurs working in their spare time to estimate sales, and while they are perfectly smart, they are much closer to the SimExchange model of estimation than the Media Create method.

… [Site creator Brett] Walton freely admits the [MGS4] numbers were based on zero actual data for the entire European market, just pure extrapolation. It’s also very unclear how far the estimates for launch were based on real retail data for Japan and North America.

It’s a reasonable figure, of course, because the VGChartz folks are smart people. But it’s not a real figure. It’s a educated guesstimate, and it’s much more of an estimate than the subsequent Chart Track data for the UK, for example.

I don’t have some agenda against the site, as I’m sure someone will accuse me of, but I’ve always taken issue with numbers from the site being taken as absolute canon, or as a complete equivalent to groups such as the NPD. Walton claims that early sales numbers will be labeled accordingly, in response to Carless taking issue with the way the site marketed its MGS4 numbers. But is that really enough?

It’s Friday, and the 1UP Show is back. This week, the gang gets together to discuss Legendary: The Box, along with the game’s producer, John Garcia-Shelton. It’s essentially an FPS that has you fighting hordes of mythical creatures after they are unleashed from Pandora’s Box. Next up is Wheelman, based on the upcoming Vin Diesel movie, which is kind of similar to GTA, but with more emphasis on driving. They also take a look at the Metal Gear Solid 4 launch event and the Korg DS-10, which turns your Nintendo DS into a lean, mean, music-making machine. As always, you can download the show from Filefront by clicking the links below.

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Konami has canceled launch events for its new Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots game in the wake of an attack by a knife-wielding man that went on a stabbing rampage leaving seven dead. The company cited concern for public safety as the reason for the cancellation of the Japanese launch events, one of which was to take place in Tokyo’s Akihabara district, the site of the attack.

Players control a soldier armed with a knife and various other weapons who fights his way through a multitude of enemies by killing and disabling them in a variety of missions.

In the Akihabara knife incident, a 25 year-old man allegedly drove a two-ton truck into a crowd of pedestrians and then ran through the area stabbing and slashing bystanders before being arrested.

Sales of MGS4 in Japan will go on as planned and launch events elsewhere are still on.

via vnunet.com