Metal Gear Rising cancelled! In Japan…on the Xbox 360

By: Musa Afridi

  |   September 14th, 2012   |  

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Konami confirms that the Metal Gear spin-off will not be releasing on Xbox 360 consoles in Japan for unspecified reasons, making it a PlayStation 3 exclusive in the reason.

Metal Gear Rising was meant to be the first game to make use of Hideo Kojima’s in-house game engine, the Fox engine. However, due to a number of factors that was not meant to be and the game’s development was handed over to Platinum Games.

The studio has since added their own flavour to the game and are now gearing up for the release of Raiden’s standalone game, which is pretty much an adrenaline pumped slasher, but with a triple-A rating and loads of potential.

The game is set to be the first multiplatform release in the Metal Gear series as Rising is set to hit both PlayStation 3s as well as Xbox 360s for the first time. However, Japanese Xbox 360 owners, which one can count on the fingers on one hand, will not be getting the game on their consoles.

The announcement came officially from the publisher, Konami, which makes Metal Gear Rising a PlayStation 3 exclusive in Japan. This means that if a gamer does not own a PlayStation 3 in Japan, then Rising will be one game he will not be playing.

However, there is talk of developing and releasing the game on PCs as well, although Konami has admitted that they have not discussed the prospect in too much detail and are focused on releasing the console versions of the game first.

Hideo Kojima is the visionary creator of the Metal Gear series, which has endured and been cherished by gamers for 25 years. His studio, Kojima Production, recently released their in-house game engine, the Fox engine, which allows developers to develop the same game on multiple consoles simultaneously.

Metal Gear: Ground Zeroes will be the first game to be released using the engine and initial impressions are nothing short of mind-blowing. Whether or not the game lives up the hype or not is another story but Metal Gear games rarely disappoint, take Metal Gear Solid 4 for example, the game won virtually every Game of the Year award there was to win.

Xbox 360 owners, who do not live in Japan, will be eagerly looking forward to their first full-fledged Metal Gear release, although it will not be part of the core series and has none of the stealth and tactical espionage elements of its more historic elder brother. Nonetheless, the game looks brilliant and plays frighteningly fast, two things that many gamers cannot say no to.

But what about the readers; why do you think Konami decided not to release the game in Japan? Was it because of an exclusivity deal with Sony in the region or because there was no market for it? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.