Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection PS4 Will Launch Alongside PS5 Version on 24th October

This is gonna be a disaster 😅

Do we know if it is cross buy with the PS5 version?

Edit: to answer my own question my digital version preorder says PS4 & PS5 now so I guess it is cross buy which is neat

I mean, the lack of marketing around this coming out is wild.

This is going to be a hot mess of bugs and unplayability I feel.

I would be fascinated to know why MGS4 has never been re-released. I always heard that it was licensing issues with Apple over the iPod product placement. Which is a good demonstration of why games are not movies. That extra money may seem good in the short term but if it screws up your chance to make any more money off it in the future?
The other possibly is that infamous PS3 emulation problem, but I find that excuse a bit weak if true tbh.

I'm gassed for this, but for on the Switch! Portable MGS hell yeah

That's a great news boss

@Dellyboy awesome dude! I played them on Vita in 2013 and it was a real pleasure to just play these games anywhere. You’re in for a treat 👍

No physical for the PS4 edition means i will wait until I upgrade to a PS5 pro!

@ArmoredMore I played those games on Vita and loved them. I ALMOST got the platinum but gave up eventually.

Portable Opps with Metal Gear is always good. I may also treat me with a Steam Deck copy sometime. I am pretty sure the collection won't run that good on Switch.

I'd love to play MGS 1 again but feel it will look rough

Not too bothered about playing 2 and 3 again (great games but it's the nostalgia of the first game for me)

So as only want 1 game I'll wait and hope it gets a massive sale or comes to playstation plus

I’m debating whether to preorder this. Will the physical edition likely be discounted on Black Friday?

The price of this package is obscene… talk about gouging customers 🤦‍♀️

@LifeGirl it's common knowledge why MGS4 has never been re-released. Google it

I have the BluePoint remaster HD Collection on Vita, so not sure I’ll get this. MGS1 is the difference though, since of course that was conspicuously missing.

I do wonder how the Psycho Mantis boss fight is handled in this…

Are these games recommended for someone who loves Death Stranding (as in one of my all time favorite games) but hasn’t played any MGS game?

@LifeGirl Wow yeah I'd forgotten about the whole iPod thing in MGS4, you've got a good point. I think the cell architecture of the ps3 doesn't help.

But the hope is as this is Volume 1, hopefully Volume 2 will include MGS4, 5 and Peace Walker. MGS4 is too good to leave on ps3, it's the most unapologetically Metal Gear game.

Will wait to see the state of these remasters before dabbling in it.

Konami is Konami afterall.

@LifeGirl the excuse has been PS3 emulation in general.
all over the place on youtube, videos exist of ppl mentioning how hard it was for devs to do their games on the system.
if you want to believe that or not, is up to you to decide.
i'll be buying this, either way. it isnt overpriced, its like 8 games in one.
the hope is that there will be a volume 2. which would include MGS 4, Peace Walker, and Rising. (I hope Rising isn't in that)

Why do I get the feeling that the PS5 and PS4 versions will be exactly the same with no real benefit choosing one over the other

@LifeGirl MGS4 being a PS3 exclusive is to blame. Even Sony are struggling with their own PS3 hardware choices as shown by PS3 games on PS+ Premium being only via cloud streaming.

@Th3solution I’ve wondered about this myself

@Darude84 I would think, yes - if you’re a fan of Death Stranding then the MGS games are likely going to hit for you. Especially if you enjoyed the Kojima styled quirky narrative and flair.

If roaming the open world was your favorite part of DS, then these early games might not be up your street. MGS5 is the main game which has an open world that feels a little like DS.

However, these early games are going to definitely feel rough, gameplay-wise. Especially the first game. There’s a good chance that these remasters will improve some of the controls and modernize some of it, but time will tell.

PS3 games are not difficult to remake/remaster. Uncharted 1, 2, 3, The Last of Us were very straightforward ports. Anyone believing that that's the reason for MGS4 staying on PS3 is buying into the hype that it's some magical unicorn that only wizards can develop for.

@__jamiie The title being Volume 1 also strongly implies that MGS4 will be coming back in a Volume 2 or even 3. Even back in the day, MGS4 would have been easy to port to Xbox. There's a meme about needing 9 DVDs, but the file size is only about 25GB, enough to fit on 3 discs without even needing to compress the audio and video files. With some optimisation MGS4 could've been an easy 2 disc 360 game.

@itsfoz Maybe that's going to happen, but I don't think a retro game collection needs a heavy marketing cycle far in advance. We have a couple of trailers, probably another around launch, a press preview event. And you'll see online ads probably at the same time.

@__jamiie

They had to be recompiled. And chances are they had to rewrite some of the more “performant” code that was offloaded to the Cell’s SPEs on the PS3. For example, the PS3 versions of UC3 and TLOU offloaded anti aliasing from the RSX to one of the SPEs to speed up the routine. Whereas the GPU block on the PS4’s GCN handles that job; would have had to be rewritten from scratch. Not bone crushing work by any means though. ND handled it in house with a relatively small team.

Modern day publishers don’t want to really spend a dime on older games. So chances are they don’t even want to dedicate a team to recompiling and rewriting SPE code. A lot of late era PS3 games offloaded normal GPU functions to the Cell due to a lack of memory bandwidth. Bioshock Infinite only runs on PS3 because of that capability. But it required complex code. Far beyond the 360 version of the game.

The Cell wasn’t really the PS3’s main issue. It’s main issue was low memory for the RSX and the RSX being a pretty weak GPU in the first place. It was an off the shelf 7800GT with its memory bandwidth cut in half. So it was out of date and hobbled right from the get go.

@Orpheus79V

If anything it would have ran better on Xbox 360. Probably significantly better. The game is super GPU limited. The 360’s GPU had way more memory to pull from compared to the RSX, which maxed at 256 megabytes. The 360 could use most of its 512 megabyte system memory as dedicated GPU memory when needed. Plus modern gamers really underestimate the 360’s 10 megs of EDRAM and what it allowed developers to do back then. 360 was the way better system from a performance standpoint.

Looking back Sony’s decision to use segregated memory for the PS3 really hobbled that system out of the box. Had the RSX been able to pull from the Cell’s block of memory that would have made the system much easier to develop for. Plus memory latency was always a problem on PS3 due to using entirely different memory blocks for the Cell and RSX.

Although there have been rumors floating around that the game’s code is actually a damn mess that was poorly documented. Which actually might explain a lot about that how that game ran on PS3 and that would have hurt a 360 port drastically.

The issue with PS3 emulation are the SPEs. RPCS3, the best (really only) PS3 emulator on PC shows that. Earlier PS3 games run DRAMATICALLY better under emulation than later release games. Because those earlier games didn’t take full advantage of the SPEs. MGS4 is technically an early game for the system so it’s likely that the SPEs weren’t leveraged for too much. It runs like a dream on a powerful gaming rig. 4K @ 60fps if your PC is powerful enough. It didn’t have a locked framerate and there are very specific times where it runs at 60fps on PS3. Not often at all but in very specific moments when it’s light on the RSX.

But later games are usually the problem. Because developers realized that the only way they were going to develop games that were more “equivalent” to their 360 versions was by leveraging the SPEs to do tasks normally assigned to the RSX. The RSX just couldn’t hang with the 360’s GPU.

Early games typically just used the two PPE cores combined with the RSX. They reused 360 code. And honestly this strategy ran like complete booty in many cases. So instead they started offloading what they could to the SPEs. And PS3 games started running better and getting close to their 360 version counterparts.

@OrtadragoonX people like yourself are the reason why Push Square comments work straight forward non condescending gaming talk I tip my hat in your direction Sir.

@Th3solution Thanks!

@LifeGirl I believe everyone's mentioned the typical reason with PS3 emulation. I would also add that the resources on having MGS4 re-released wasn't a high enough priority. Konami were invested in MGSV, plus the fall out of Kojima. Konami were more focused on pachinko machines and were expecting MGS Survive to be the cash grab and when that failed well.... the demand for MGS4 was there but the company did not care at the time. Heck, MGS4 was discovered to originally be developed for the Xbox 360 but development halted because of the disc limitations and Kojima was very into the capabilities of the Cell processor. If the 360 was on HD-DVD discs instead of DVDs, then the Xbox system more than likely would've had MGS4 upscaled to 4k today. But here we are.

@__jamiie It's not the difficulty, but rather if the resources and money spent are worth remaking it. PS2 games were remade on PS3 to compensate the removal of PS2 compatibility. Bluepoint was able to remake them but they had to do it from the ground up with the original game by its side. Same thing happened with certain titles like Assassin's Creed Black Flag having a free upgrade program if you had the PS3 version.

Your examples work because Naughty Dog are first party and therefore have first dibs on PS4's structure. And they already have the original source code. However, I would not say Uncharted 1, 2, 3 were straight ports. Uncharted 1 was remade and for the better. That game was difficult on PS3 and the removal of sixaxis made it more replayable on PS4. Uncharted 2 somehow gained a higher learning curve with the enemies being more aware. So Normal difficulty feels like how Hard felt on PS3 and vice versa. As for Last of Us, the timeline speaks for itself. Came out 2013, only months before PS4. The PS4 version was inevitable.

@InsaneWade It was technically very possible and I'm sure would have easily sold well enough many times over to justify the development costs. The fact that it's rumoured to be part of the MGS volume 2 collection proves that.

@__jamiie Indeed. I bet if Konami weren't so preoccupied with those pachinko machines we would've had another HD Collection early in the PS4 era. Before the licenses on some of the FMVs had expired.

@ArmoredMore A disaster remaster!