30th November, 2006: Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops hits shelves in less than a week in North America: The seventh installment (second chronologically) of the Metal Gear saga is set to go on sale in the US and Canada on 5th December, 2006, with the official Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops website (see www.metalgearsolid.com) going live tomorrow. The game is exclusive to Sony's PSP handheld console and features a single player story mode, which reveals more of Big Boss's and other characters' past, and a multiplayer online mode which allows you to compete with friends across the globe. As always, there is still no news about a European/PAL release date, although some suggest that fans in PAL territories may have to wait until summer 2007 to get their hands on this title.
10th May, 2006: Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops revealed at Konami conference in LA: One of the four titles Mr. Kojima chose to talk about at the Konami E3 press conference. Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, or MPO, is a fully fledged Metal Gear Solid title, which provides the missing part of Big Boss's story - explaining how the man who once saved the world almost ended up destroying it. It takes place six years after the events of Snake Eater, in 1970, two years before the "creation" of Solid and Liquid Snake. The game will contain a single player mode, as well as a multiplayer mode which will take full advantage of the PSP's WiFi capability. The graphics shown at the conference are like nothing ever seen before on PSP - they're almost up there with what the PlayStation 2 is capable of! The game will also include voice acting - a first for a Metal Gear game on a handheld system. Konami are planning to release a beta version of the game to the public in order to aid development, but how they plan to do this has not yet been confirmed.
View Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops E3 2006 trailer
9th May, 2006: New Metal Gear Solid for PSP: A new PSP Metal Gear Solid title for Sony's PSP is currently in production. Although details are thin on the ground at the moment, Kojima states that the gameplay will be of a style only possible on PSP. Shinta Nojiri (director and producer), Yamada-san, Noriaki Okamura, Shuyo Murata, and Kojima-san himself are all working on the game's development.
