Konami teasing new Metal Gear

What we heard: Rumors of an Xbox 360 version of Metal Gear Solid 4 have been bouncing around for years. (Remember this one?) More recently, the last few months have seen whispers of the first Metal Gear Solid, released for the original PlayStation in 1998 and PC in 2000, making its way onto Xbox Live.

Now, both rumors have been restoked with a vengeance by a teaser page on the Konami site. Posted just as the Friday workday ended--a common publicity tactic by publishers to "build buzz" over a weekend--the teaser page bears a single line of text saying, "A next Metal Gear is…" Above the garbled English is an equation of sorts that has an upside-down exclamation point being added to a right-side-up exclamation point.

The sum of the two symbols appears to be a power button that looks extremely like the Xbox 360's on/off switch, and the entire equation is the same neon green as the Xbox 360 logo. The resulting spectulation has many a fanboy apoplectic, since Final Fantasy XIII and Tekken 6's multiplatform moves make MGS4 one of the few remaining third-party PS3 exclusives. However, a close look at the PS3 will show it has the same symbol on its power button, just above a green (and blue) light when the console is turned on. Given that it is, in fact, the universal logo for power switch on electronics, the Wii has one as well.

The official story: As of press time, US Konami reps had not responded to requests for comment.

Bogus or not bogus?: Not bogus that some sort of new Metal Gear project is being teased. However, the fact that one of the exclamation points is upside down may point to a third, non-Xbox 360 possibility...that the game in question is a third Metal Gear Acid. The PSP spin-off series uses an exclamation point as a substitute "i" in its title, just like the one in the equation.