Kojima claims PS3 Blu-ray too small for Metal Gear Solid 4
By Dave Parrack
Blu-ray is the future right? Now that HD DVD is dead, Blu-ray is now the one standard format to trounce all others and enable the ordinary consumer to buy in to the high definition market. Or maybe not, as according to Hideo Kojima, the format is too small for Metal Gear Solid 4.
We all expected Metal Gear Solid to be a huge game, hell, even the original on the Playstation had to come on to discs as it was just too big to fit on one. But I still expected the newly triumphant Blu-ray format, with its huge 50GB worth of data capacity to be able to manage Guns Of The Patriots, the latest instalment which is due for release worldwide on June 12th.
Hideo Kojima, the father of the Metal Gear series, gave an interview to Famitsu, the number one Japanese games magazine, in which he talked of having to cut and compress elements of the game in order to fit it all on to one Blu-ray disc. Here is part of the translated dialogue courtesy of Kotaku:
Kojima: For us, we’re not still not satisfied with the quality we can do. You know, there’s not capacity space.
Interviewer: Wait, wait a sec. Saying there’s not enough capacity, are you talking about Blu-ray?
Kojima: That’s correct. There’s not enough space at all. (laughs) …There’s not enough space. We always talked about where to cut and what to compress.
There’s two possible explanations for this unbelievable claim that it wasn’t possible to fit the game on to a Blu-ray disc: Either this is just designed to hype up the release, and get fan boys and the press talking about the game, and how impressive it must be if it has that much content to it; Or the storage capacity has simply been eaten up by lashings of uncompressed audio and cut scenes, which as we know, are usually numerous in Metal Gear games.
Either way, I don’t think this means that the format has already outlived its usefulness as some websites are claiming. Of course, as with all formats, developers and content makers push it to its limit, and while this does seem very early on in the life of Blu-ray for it to be happening, it isn’t as catastrophic as some are predicting.
What’s clear is that Metal Gear Solid: Guns Of The Patriots is sure to be one of the release highlights of 2008, and the fact that it’s a PS3 exclusive should have the fan boys frothing at the mouth. How many DVDs would the game have come on if there had been an Xbox 360 version planned?
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Tips N4G
March 7th, 2008
this pretty much makes sure MGS4 the best video game ever will never touch xbox 360
March 8th, 2008
PS3 exclusive should have the fan boys frothing at the mouth
April 18th, 2008
Funny, how the PS3 and its format (blu-ray) have been vindicated now. Remembering Xbox 1.5 fanboys spouting all over the place about how blu-ray would fail and gaming didn’t “Need” the format. LOL
Sony thinks long term folks, the PS3 is a 10 year runner not a Micro$oft Dreamcast-Box-1.5 that was obsolete a year after release.
Oh By the way kids, 1 layer of blu-ray holds 25GB’s of data, several companies have reported already its possible to do up to 8 layers on Blu-ray with a total capacity of 200GB !!!
So long Xbox 1.5 fanboys.
June 1st, 2008
Funny how this is the first real game to come to the PS3 since it has been released and all the PS3 fanboys are out and about saying the 360 fails with its DVD and how the PS3 is going to last 10 years.
The PS3 was a year late and is still short on games after more than a year of being on the market.
I have never played and MGS games and frankly buying a ps3 for one game that I have no Idea about doesnt intice me. Every game I like on the PS3 I already have for the 360, and I am more than hapy with the 360 exclusives like Gears, Halo and Fable.
June 1st, 2008
and as far as the Xbox 1.5 well there frankly is no such machine.
Funny how you consider the PS3 so much better when MGS4 is the only game to actualy be unplayable on the 360. And the only reason is that the PS3 uses blu ray. And the 360 has allt he best looking games anyways. I have yet to see a game that looks better than Bioshock or Gears of war on the ps3.
June 1st, 2008
What is he talking about? The BR can be burnt in 50G layers… up to 5 to 7 layers of 50 G each!!! One BR disk could take the whole series.