Happy MGS4 Eve!

Tomorrow brings us what is probably the most interesting game launch of the year: Metal Gear Solid 4. Sure, GTA4 had the biggest launch of the year, but MGS4’s launch has the most riding on it. After all, MGS4 is the most significant third-party exclusive for the PlayStation 3 yet (Sorry Haze), and Kojima Productions’ Ryan Payton famously said that MGS4 would need to sell one million copies the first day to be profitable. Will it hit that goal? I doubt it.

Before I continue, the common internet reaction to anything that’s perceived as being biased against a beloved franchise is to cry “hater/troll/anti-this or that/etc.” So let’s get this out of the way: I love the Metal Gear Solid series. I’ve beaten every one, I’ve got my copy of MGS4 pre-paid, and I’ve cleared my gaming schedule in anticipation. Heck, I’ve been to Kojima Productions. I’ve met the man himself. I’m a fan, plain and simple.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s continue. As much as fans like myself and countless others would like it to be the case, it’s doubtful that MGS4 will be the panacea for the PS3 that Sony and Konami would like. The once-mighty Metal Gear Solid series doesn’t have the same cachet it once had. While it sold well, MGS3 took a steep sales drop from MGS2, the best-selling entry in the franchise to date, and MGS3 appeared on a platform with a much larger install base than the PS3.

The Metal Gear Solid series has a reputation for obtuse storytelling, clunky controls, and long-winded, preachy cutscenes. If you’re a MGS fan, you enjoy the games despite some obvious gameplay faults. But if you’ve played one of the games and were turned off by these issues, it’s going to take a lot of convincing to bring you back to the series. After all, if you didn’t like the gameplay in a franchise, are you going to return when its prettier next-gen sequel shows up? Not me.

On the other hand, if you’ve never played an MGS game before, are you going to be interested in this one? If you didn’t know better, you might suspect that it’s just another shooter. Are you going to choose it over Resistance, Call of Duty 4, or any of the countless other shooters out there?

None of this is to say that MGS3 was a failure (it sold roughly 4 million copies) or that MGS4 will be either. It will be a hit. The question is how big of a hit will it be? Will it move PS3 systems? I only have anecdotal evidence to back it up, but my gut is telling me no. Sure, it will move some units – after all there are two new bundles packaged with the game, which will skew the “system seller” data by default. But the goal isn’t just to sell those few bundles, it’s to generate a sizable uptick in consoles sales – which, according to analysts, not even GTA4 managed to do.

But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Sales that are lower than Konami expects might prompt the publisher to port the game to Xbox 360 to mitigate the revenue shortfall. On the other hand, better-than-expected sales may prompt Konami to do just the same and bring in even more money. Either way, a new audience would get to experience this sure-to-be excellent game.

Like I said, I don’t know how the MGS4 launch will shake out, but the fact that it prompts so many questions is what makes it the most exciting game launch of the year in my mind. Will it sell a million day one? Will it move PS3 systems? Will it do better or worse than Konami expects? Will it come to Xbox 360? I’ll be watching closely to find out. I imagine many of you will be, too.