Costly MGS4 Must Sell 1 Million on Day One

by Cavin Smith on November 29, 2007 at 1:10 pm

All of you PS3 hold-outs better be ready to pony up the cash when Metal Gear Solid 4 finally hits shelves next year, because Kojima Productions needs your support to continue working exclusively on Sony’s next-gen platform.

Assistant Producer Ryan Payton told Reuters that they’d need to sell over a million copies on launch day to justify development costs, showing that the Playstation brand isn’t merely suffering from the cost of the new console, but the cost of doing business.

Though it might seem silly to expect as many sales right off the bat, keep in mind that many games sell the majority of their copies during the first few days after release. In other words, a million would trend well enough for the rest of MGS4’s lifetime to justify the amount of money that’s already been poured into its production.

G4TV commentator Adam Sessler was quoted in the article as saying:

“No, ‘Metal Gear Solid 4′ isn’t the killer app. People who already own a PS3 will likely get it. But it doesn’t have that kind of broad-based appeal.”

It begs the question of whether or not gamers really care about such franchises as much as they once did. Looking at sales of such huge platform releases as Ratchet and Clank Future (only 75,000 in October), we might find that a majority of people are trending away from the series that built up the Playstation brand in the first place.

Sure, plenty of core gamers have been waiting for Solid Snake’s latest to hit before jumping on the PS3 bandwagon, but general public perception could be that the franchise is as old and tired as its geriatric hero. The last outing, Metal Gear Solid 3, only moved around 3.7 million copies. Impressive, but only about half that of its predecessor (MGS2, 7 million).

Kojima Productions remains bullish on the Playstation 3’s capabilities, but if their flagship title’s sales don’t live up to expectations, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to see it appear on other platforms down the line and it almost certainly bodes poorly for any future exclusives.

Source: [Reuters]

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