In an interview with Reuters, Konami has stated that the upcoming PS3 exclusive title Metal Gear Solid 4 (MGS4) has to sell one million copies on the first day itself, in order to be worth the investment made towards it.
MGS4 assistant producer Ryan Payton told the news agency that as per internal calculations, the exorbitantly high production costs imply that MGS4 must reach platinum status in less than 24 hours time.
Payton’s words were:
We’re telling our fans that if you want to play Metal Gear Solid 4, you have to buy a PS3 … The PlayStation brand has always been good to us, and we’re pretty bullish on the PS3.
While the game sold around 6.6 million units on the PSOne system, on the PS2 Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty managed to sell close to 7 million units and approximately 3.7 million units of the Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater were sold. Now these surely are good numbers!
But on the other hand, one also has to keep in mind that till now only two PS3 titles have sold over a million copies and that target too wasn’t achieved easily.
The recent price cut of the PS3 along with the anticipation surrounding MGS4 could perhaps just make Konami achieve its target. Well, we’ve got to wait till 2008 to know whether Konami will be able to hit or miss the target