Metal Gear Confirmed on the 360

“What’s the one franchise that every XBox 360 gamer has always wanted to play?” asked Don Mattrick, Microsoft Xbox’s Senior Vice President. Hideo Kojima turned up to tonight’s Microsoft E3 presentation to tell the audience that he is bringing the Metal Gear franchise to the XBox 360 with ‘Metal Gear Solid Rising‘. The ‘Tactical Espionage Action’ of Metal Gear Solid is now rebranded as ‘Lightning Bolt Action’, with Raiden as the lead character.

“Raiden is back!” Kojima shouted happily, to a mildly silent audience. This isn’t ‘Metal Gear Solid’, this is ‘Metal Gear Solid Rising’. A short trailer was shown, with what sounded like Colonel Campbel’s voice from the Solid saga and more flashing images which need to be decoded later. “I never said anything about Solid Snake”, Kojima spoke in English. No, Solid Snake made no appearance in the Microsoft presentation, and still remains an icon of the PlayStation brand. It looks set that Raiden may become the icon for XBox instead.

We all know that Kojima’s now infamous countdown teaser site has shown pictures of both Raiden and Snake. Does this mean that Snake’s reason for showing up in the teaser will be announced in Sony’s conference? The countdown is still ticking. Two hours to go.