A few months ago, I mentioned that with Metal Gear Solid 4’s ballooning budget, it was going to need to sell two copies to every PS3 owner in America in order to break even. With increased sales of the console, Konami is happy to report that they only need to sell one copy to 50% of American PS3 owners… on day one. That would roughly be equivalent to 1/3 of Halo 3’s first day sales. In other words, they’re still going to need about 80% of PS3 owners to buy their game, and this will not happen. It’s like they’re on the diving board of an empty pool, and they’re diving anyway.

Metal Gear Solid was a fantastic game for the original Playstation, and firmly cemented its main character, Solid Snake, into the pantheon of video game action heroes. He was a bad ass special forces type, who achieved his goals using stealth and rugged experience, had some kickass face stubble, smoked cigarettes and didn’t care what people thought about it, and had a gravelly voice that could melt panties. Over the course of the game, Snake averted a thermonuclear war, the creation of a race of genetic super soldiers, and killed his evil, faggy, British brother.

Fans were psyched for Metal Gear Solid 2 – which turned out to be a game about an effiminate aryan boy whining over the phone about his emotional problems with his girlfriend. The game also established Solid Snake as a bisexual chronic masturbator, introduced some bad guys and conspiracy theories that blew the franchise’s believability out of the water, and included a mini-game wherein you made hostages piss themselves by waving a microphone in their face. Thus shattering Metal Gear Solid’s legacy.

The third Solid game was a prequel about Snake’s father, who was killed off when the franchise was still on the original NES. It was as awesome as the first game, but it kept the second game’s legacy of whacky bosses and stupid conspiracy theories. The damage had been done, and Metal Gear Solid 3’s sales were hurt by it.

This is one of the main bosses from Metal Gear Solid 3, named "The End." His background? He is a Civil War soldier who invented the concept of sniping, and his body chemistry allows him to absorb moss via osmosis in order to survive while waiting for a proper shot at his target for days and weeks on end. The game takes places in the 60s, so he’s about 120 years old in that picture. Yes, really. Snake’s dad shoots him, causing him to jump twenty feet in the air and explode. This is how all of the bosses in Metal Gear Solid 3 met their end.

It looks like Metal Gear Solid IV will continue to travel down the path of the idiotic. Reportedly, camera angles and some control issues western gamers have had in the past will be rectified, and that’s good. What’s bad? Well, let’s just say there are better ways to spend a quarter of a billion dollars than using it to make a video game about a geriatric, bisexual clone in the middle of a X-Files season 6 style elaborate conspiracy theory.

So it’s come to this. Our dashing hero from Metal Gear Solid will be sporting a Mario mustache, grey hair, wrinkles, and be caught in the middle of a war between America, China and a buttload of Muslims, and all of this is a set up so the Japanese can preach to all of us about how to live in balance with nature, and how war isn’t good. Oh, and those countries will be armed with unbelievable giant robots who attack people by kicking them. Let’s just throw some starlight people in there, Roseanne Barr winning the lottery and going to Hershey Park, and at the end, reveal it was all a dream and Patrick Duffy was just showering all along.

Metal Gear Solid doesn’t have a huge amount of macho universal appeal, which is exactly what it needs to make Konami’s money back. The creators killed what made the original game popular so that Hideo Kojima could wax poetic about global warming and the dangers of the media in the internet age. It’s like Redacted needing to make 300’s box office. It’s political propaganda with guns, and despite there being a lot of love left for the franchise, not many people want to deal with some pussy’s opinions while they’re trying to choke out a terrorist. Personally, I will be picking up a copy of the game, but this franchise really is about as potent as George Clooney, and I’m predicting it isn’t going to make the numbers its developers want.

The inevitable failure of Metal Gear Solid IV, which will be the third consecutive strike in the franchise, begs the question: What will happen to this franchise when Hideo Kojima is fired?