Metal Gear Solid 4, originally intended to come out this coming Winter season, has been delayed to a Spring 2008 release according to Konami's Japanese website.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl aside, a playable Metal Gear Solid 4 for the PlayStation 3 was the main draw for attendees of E For All. While line waits for the latest Yu-Gi-Oh! on the Nintendo DS were minimal, Konami seems to have underestimated interest in MGS4 with a less-than-efficient booth layout for Kojima Productions' latest.
Ryan Payton:"The game is definitely under a lot of pressure... this could be the first "must have" PS3 title on store shelves ... people at Sony know that, and we've got literally 200 guys working on this title"
Here's the quote from the Spanish site, autotranslated roughly: I am going to advance something to you; yes, we are working in pack of PlayStation 3 that includes Metal Gear 4 Solid and the new DualShock. We want that it is in the street before Easter and that is our fight at the moment.
Impressions from the TGS demo. "The game plays like all the other MGS games did, except for one minor detail. If you want to make Snake perform a move that has nothing to with combat, then the "action" interface would be switched on with the triangle. Judging from the game's demo build, it is now safe to say that this game will definitely be as pretty as it looked in just about every trailer. All the real-time action looks extremely superb and the effects that Snake's camouflage suit look impressive. The portions of gameplay that have a lot going on in the screen doesn't appear to slow the game, or the visual prowess, down, so that appears to be another factor that ties in well with what looks to be another visual masterpiece."
@argon, agreed. The big name franchises have been trading at higher multiples for months (this title did not at the beginning of the simExchange). However, I think as the smaller titles that have been the biggest short targets fade from the exchange, these big titles will be more in control as shorts shift their attention.
@zeromous, coming down to the SKU would be too specific. If a publisher did a second print with some bug fixes (like one that prevents you from running an XBox 360 exploit), that would have a different Stock Keeping Unit number, but would essentially be the same game.
We are forecasting how particular games sell--there isn't really a need to forecast how a particular SKU sells. On a prediction market, you wouldn't want to list them separately as that only divides up the liquidity. There isn't much interest in trading Persona 3 to start with, there would be even less for each Persona stock if you divided it up by regular edition and special edition.
So in practice it would either be trading a Persona 3 stock that includes the special edition sales or just a stock that includes original Persona 3 sales. The former would be better since we are forecasting how the game did. Cutting off the forecast because the game is now a new SKU would shortchange the game.