Japanese Paper Hushes Up MGS4 Story

The Japanese business journal that first reported the possibility of Metal Gear Solid 4 coming to the Xbox 360 has apparently changed its mind about the story, but rather than retracting the report it’s pretending it never happened in the first place.

As is by now widely known, the Kabushkiki journal, published by Japanese investment firm Morningstar, reported a statement by Konami PR representative Yoshitaka Arai saying the company was investigating the possibility of bringing the hit PlayStation 3 release Metal Gear Solid 4 to the Xbox 360. The statement flew in the face of earlier and oft-repeated denials by Sony and Konami, but the recent addition of other PlayStation exclusives to the 360 catalog, coupled with the fact that Arai is a Konami employee, lent the statement considerable credibility.

But now, as GameCyte reports, it appears the journal is no longer willing to stand by the story. Instead of printing a retraction as you’d normally expect, however, the publication has apparently taken a page from the Augusto Pinochet school of journalism and decided to make the whole thing just disappear. The article has been drastically modified, and now quotes a different Konami rep talking about a different game series, although the date of the article as it appears on Japanese sites carrying the story has not been changed. A Kabushkiki representative told J-Cast News that the release should not be considered a correction, but rather a “second appearance” of the same report.

When contacted about the change, Konami once again denied plans to port Metal Gear Solid 4 to the 360, while Microsoft Japan had no comment.

Maybe this is how things are done in Japan, I honestly don’t know, but from a North American perspective the whole deal comes off smelling fishy. A retraction would make it clear that this was a legitimate mistake: The guy misspoke, or was misinterpreted, or was drunk and thought it’d be funny, or whatever. But this “second appearance” looks like nothing so much as a cover-up, with all the conspiratorial nonsense that implies. I have no idea if MGS4 will ever come to the 360 and to be quite honest I couldn’t care less, but if Konami is serious about making these rumors go away they’re doing a remarkably poor job of it.