Xbox 360 rumor madness: Metal Gear Solid 4 on the way (and Microsoft's secret kill switch)

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Man alive, this is more exciting than the Pentagon Papers. Apparently someone who used to work at Microsoft in some capacity has revealed a whole host of state secrets about the company, some of which may genuinely interest you. One: Konami and Microsoft are working on bringing Metal Gear Solid 4 to the Xbox 360; and two: All Xbox 360s have a built-in, remote kill switch that will disable the console in the event of an emergency.

The first, MGS 4 on the 360, isn’t all that surprising. Lord knows how much it must have cost to develop that game, and Konami would be foolish not to try to squeeze every last dime out of it. And you know Microsoft would throw Konami a few dollars to help market the game. “Xbox Live is brought to you by MGS 4… available now!” So that I’d consider totally plausible. E3 approaches!

(In other Konami news, what does this teaser poster mean? Speculation is that it’s a new Metal Gear game starring Raiden. Surely that must be a joke? Is Raiden the most hated character in recent video game history? He’s right up there with Kefka, I swear.)

As for the second item, a remote controlled kill switch… eh, that seems positively insane. Am I to believe that Microsoft has a Get Smart-like control room, where some manager will one day yell, “I want those systems shut down now!” The idea behind the switch, apparently, is that Microsoft would flip it, thus triggering a blown fuse and permanently disabling the console, in the event of some sort of organized Xbox Live cheating ring or highly sophisticated piracy group. I don’t know, it just seems a little too Hollywood to me.

Everyday life isn’t an episode of 24.