MGS4 Must Sell A Million On Day One News

Ryan Payton, the Assistant Producer for Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, has spoken out over his worries about the game's mounting costs. He stated that the triple A title, exclusively on the PS3, will have to sell one million copies in its first day in order to account for its lofty production costs.

These reports come from Reuters, where MGS4 was held up as a prime example of a dying bread: the third-party untimed exclusive. The article also pointed out that with as few as two million PlayStation 3's being sold (according to NPD) in the US up until last October - and sales figures not faring much better in other territories - selling a million MGS4 games in day one seemed unlikely.

This report sheds further doubt as to whether MGS4 will remain the untimed PS3 exclusive that it has previously been billed as. The first hint at a possible cross-over to the Xbox 360 came with comments made by Konami's Kazumi Kitaue last July: "Since Metal Gear Solid was born for the Playstation, we would like to keep it a Playstation game. But we might have to take some steps."

However, the PS3 has been able to turn its fortunes around during the Christmas period with some significant price cuts, which have made the system more attractive to consumers. This has particularly been the case in Japan, following a particularly successful fortnight in mid-November.