Kojima says it would have been better if his team had released both Metal Gear games at the same time

The most massive Metal Gear game to date, and well.....it's going to take quite some time to finish. The Phantom Pain and Ground Zeroes are part of the same storyline, with GZ being the prologue, but bringing out both titles together, it's just not happening. Hideo Kojima recently sat down with Famitsu in an interview talking about the need to split them up into two games. The Phantom Pain is 200 times bigger, and aside from that, the PS4 will have to become more adapted with the gaming audience before bringing it out is even practical. That brought the need for bringing out the smaller and more "ready" Ground Zeroes title.

"It would've actually been better to release it all at once, but by the way things are going, it appears likely that Phantom Pain will be coming out around the time the PlayStation 4 becomes more spread out. That means we would've had to make people wait a while longer."

 "Prior to the announcement of Metal Gear Solid V, last year, we showed a Fox Engine implementation video. Then, we also showed the Fox Engine in a presentation video at GDC 2013. Since we revealed information on a regular basis, there were many who believed that Metal Gear Solid V was already complete, and there were many voices from fans saying 'we want to play it soon."

"However, The Phantom Pain has enormous volume, so it will require much more time. So, together with the marketing staff, we consulted 'what ifs' and such, and came to the decision of allowing fans to at least play the prologue, ahead of time. We want to offer it for as cheap as possible, so at first we thought about making it as a download only; however, after thinking about people around the world, and how some places don't have the best connectivity, we're preparing a physical version."

Kojima went on to suggest that those who have save game data from Ground Zeroes will be able to make use of it with The Phantom Pain. Sounds like a carry over for some extra content. Seeing as how The Phantom Pain will be an enormous open world setting, you likely shouldn't expect it to see the light of day until sometime in 2015. This is why Ground Zeroes is being released this coming Spring time. You have to give the players something to chew on until then right? Right.

Via Siliconera
Original Famitsu

Konami sees fit to add Julien Merceron to their Fox Engine arsenal, a man who already has some Square Enix under his belt

He was CTO for Crystal Dynamics, Eidos, and IO Interactive. Then served at Square Enix for a number of years, and now he is at Konami. Julien Merceron is a name you might have heard of every now and then, and since Konami has added him to oversee the Fox Engine based gaming lineup for the future, you're bound to hear about him again. He will be the technology director from now on, helping to push large open world games to the limit, a benefit to you and I of course.

What does this mean as far as content? Well, if you take a look at some of the titles made by the above mentioned companies, you can get an idea of the kind of quality that he had a hand in. How exactly this will affect his work with the Fox Engine and what kind of future titles will be produced is anyone's guess right now. The realm of Square Enix bleeding over into Konami is an interesting concept.

The European president of Konami Shinji Hirano stated in an interview with GamesIndustry International recently....."He will be a key member of our talented development community and be integral to ensuring that future titles will push the limits of what can be technically achieved, while ensuring they retain Konami's famed game play. We welcome him and his talents to the team."