http://www.gamespot.com/news/6182032.html?part=rss&tag=gs_news&subj=6182032 Ugh...hope Q2 doesn't suddenly turn into Q4.
Don't think its been quite that long, but that's probably not far from the truth. At least it won't stay in development for 7+ years like some other games...or I hope that doesn't happen anyway. I might be wrong, but I want to say that MGS4 has been pushed back more than the other MGS games (not even sure if any of the others were even delayed at all). It would help if Konami actually put out a demo for the game. Wouldn't really take any effort on their part since they've made demos for public events, but apparently a demo that is OK to be played by the public isn't OK to be played...well, by the public.
I guess this will delay my plan to buy an HDTV. But I think I will snap up a 60GB PS3 well before it comes out.
You of all people should know their reasoning behind this. They didn't want to release a demo of a game that plays different from the actual game. The majority of the masses aren't as hardcore as us. They'll play the game and will either enjoy it and be disappointed when the game play is different or dislike it and not give the game a fair shake.
I didn't quite like that reasoning. I don't understand why they have no problems going to these small, public events (where practically anyone can play the demo), but they can't release a demo for the game that could be played by pretty much the same people. The thing about gameplay changes just doesn't make much sense to me; just about every pre-release demo didn't fully represent the final game (including the MGS2 demo that was released 6+ months prior to MGS2 released IIRC). And with development wrapping up (or maybe not quite wrapping up given this news ), there really shouldn't be TOO many changes left to make in the final version that would really affect a up-to-date demo. Keep in mind that I didn't say Konami had to release the demo for free on the PSN. Actually, I think if Konami had a game coming out on the PS3 anytime soon (other than MGS4), it would probably be a sure-bet that a MGS4 demo would be included. Too bad Coded Arms PS3 got canceled...never thought I'd say that.
You kill me RC, you really do. I don't think I will ever win an argument against you. A demo is used to increase sales. If the game isn't released or soon to be released, how would they benefit from this? I would love to play the demo myself, but I can understand their reasoning behind this. On another note, KZ2 had a closed door demo I believe. If you can ask for the MGS4 demo, why not KZ2 as well? A good example is when Forza 2 released screen shots on Neogaf a month prior to the game being gold. The graphics looked horrible and they received a ton of flack for it. Che came in and assured/promised everyone the graphics would look better. What would've happened if they released a demo with those graphics? Megaton indeed....NG would've exploded. Have you read the forums regarding GT5P? It's a beautiful game, but you'll have your fanboys picking it apart trying to find any little flaw and making a huge ruckus out of it. What do you think would happen to MGS4? I reckon, the same thing. Internet is serious business, ya know. I guess if your line of thinking is bad publicity is better than none, than I would agree. With the way the internet is these days, I would prefer the latter. Packing in a game demo to increase sales of a average game is lame. I would never purchase a game I wouldn't like just to play a demo in advance. A demo should be free, but on the business side, I understand why they would do this.
Perhaps how I worded things earlier confused things, but I'm basically wanting Konami to release a demo of MGS4 because the release is pretty soon. The delay kind of pushed things back a bit. But even then, if they released a demo today, the gap between the demo being released and the final game being released would be almost the same as that of MGS2 (maybe an extra month or two). That said, I'm not even asking for a demo to be released today, or even anytime soon. I just want a demo prior to release (preferably ASAP though). Not sure if the current demo builds would be outdated in Q1 of 2008, but if they have new playable builds at CES, GDC, etc., I don't really see why they shouldn't offer those demos to PS3 owners as well. There shouldn't be too many changes between those builds and the final builds...not even sure recent builds will be that different to be honest (especially if they're limited in certain aspects). Along with what I mentioned above, I think a big difference between the two is that KZ2 was only playable behind closed doors, as you said. MGS4 has been playable to the public. I actually would love a demo of KZ2 though. They're basically opening themselves up to bad publicity just by having the game being playable at public events (people can criticize the graphics, controls, gameplay, bugs, etc.). I want to know why they're confident that this won't really hurt them, but a demo available to PS3 owners would. In fact, I'm pretty sure people gave some pretty positive impressions of the demos at these events (it certainly looked great IMO), so knowing that, it would seem as though they could release a demo w/o much (if any) negative feedback (they'd probably get a ton of positive feedback). I only skimmed parts of the GT5P demo thread, but the negative feedback I saw was basically the same as what I saw in previous GT5 threads that contained videos of playable builds. If it was only playable behind closed doors (with little info/media being released from the playable build), or if it wasn't even playable at all, I could understand. Yeah, I agree with you there. I was just throwing out a scenario that Konami might strongly consider. Of course, that's not the only way we could get a demo, assuming they don't want to do a PSN release. I think most publishers decide to offer demos with a preorder at EB/GS if they want to go this route, which would be fine with me. Probably some other methods as well (demos with magazines). How could you not be a fan of a game that has this:
I was probably going to play Jade Raymond's game anyway. In fact...maybe I won't even know the difference: Spoiler