Nintendo appears to have a pretty damn big beginning of 08 lineup with Wii Fit, Smash Bros Brawl, and Mario Kart all lined up. Two of those games are historically bigger sellers than Metal Gear, and brawl is likely to appeal to many of the same people (especially now that snake is in it).

It could be that it's being pushed back to try not to get overwhelmed upon release.

So with this extra time, and with all those developers (a few million to the budget being incidental), this game had BETTER be all that was promised, even if not everything expected.

People don't be foolish and think that anything on the wii is a reason for the delay. PS3/wii ownership does not over lap much.

Konami made the mistake of releasing MGS3 after GTA and they payed for it but they learned their lessons well. Now they will stay the hell away for GTA and release MGS a few months after it.

 Are you kidding?  this is VGChartz.  Everything eventually becomes a Wii pissing match.  Yes, pun intended.

This is pretty significant!

Firstly - cue John Lucas. Everyone remember his initial "crazy" theory about MGS never hitting the PS3? I'm not saying its going to happen - but its been delayed twice now. I wouldn't be surprised to see another delay.

Secondly - apart from more time to polish the game, any delay means there should be MORE PS3's available (larger install base) by the time it hits. Konami are not taking it on their own shoulders to be the ones responsible for the increase of the install base.

...

Now - the important issue. Sony has forecast an ambitious PS3 target for this fiscal year. The only way they can get close, is for some killer titles to hit Q1 '08.

Nothing they had "lined up" for the quarter is bigger than MGS4. It probably could have sold 1m PS3s worldwide.

Now that Konami has shifted the title to the NEXT FY (starting April '08) - this will have no impact on PS3 sales for this FY.

Surely this places even more pressure on Sony. If Sony misses their forecast by a significant margin (say 7m PS3s instead of 11m), this will make them look *real* bad - and will seriously scare companies putting a lot of focus on PS3 software (including Konami).

If it happens - I'd almost guarantee a delay until Xmas '08 - and the PS3 version gets released along side a 360 version (worldwide). If you can get the install base you want for your game - go multiplatform, and release it on another console at the same time.

I'd say there is a 20% of this happening at the moment. It will also be interesting to see if Sony respond to this, and attempt to downgrade their PS3 fiscal forecast. We'll know for sure by the end of the year (end of this qrt). 

I didn't expect this. I was sure the delay to 1st Qtr 08 would be the last one. I do agree that it will have a negative impact on PS3 sales. Sony needs to get its big hitters out as soon as possible. The longer the wait the further behind they get.

That's quite insightful. Sony's forecast just went from "impossibly deluded" to... well, words can't describe it really. The only way they can get even near it is to flood the retail channel this holiday season, but that will also cause shipments to be about 0 in the January-March period.

As for Konami, this will increase development costs even more, and I don't see any way that they can get their money back without either a check in the mail from Sony, or going multiplatform (which they have mentioned at least once). I wouldn't say that they're about to cancel the PS3 version, but they might well be looking at a 360 port.

Can a week go by without bad news for the PS3 coming out?

Smart move by Konami - make sure the game is as good as possible and wait for the PS3 install base to grow to ensure significant launch sales. Of course the only problem with that is Sony's struggle to move units. Even by the 2cnd qtr of '08 the chances of the PS3 closing the installed base gap to less than 7M are slim to none.

When Konami looks at the potential sales of a 360 release the downside of "exclusivety" becomes glaringly apparent.

I'm pretty sure Konami has a similar fiscal year to Sony and Nintendo. That is Q1 2008 was already April-June, and MGS4 has been moved back to July-September. If they've been speaking about fiscal quarters instead of calendar quarters, then they never would've been part of helping Sony reach their shipping goals anyway.

Remember what I said about 2008. Some titles will get delayed, new titles announced, other will get canceled, go multiplatform or switch platforms entirely. I said that it was premature to declare that 2008 would have the best lineup for Sony. We won't have any idea who has the best lineup for 2008 until at least E3 or mid-summer.