Konami Insists the 3DS Naked Sample Metal Gear Solid Is a Full Project

When Nintendo showed off the new 3DS handheld, one of the most interesting things was seeing that third-party developers were ready to embrace it, with Konami offering a very nice looking demo of a new video game called Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D – The Naked Sample.

The name did not make it clear whether what people were seeing was just a kind of tech demo or the initial stages for a full title that would arrive after the official launch of the 3DS, a gadget set to offer full three-dimensional gaming without the need to use special glasses.

Talking to Eurogamer, Konami said that The Naked Sample game would actually be “a full product,” although recent comments suggest something else. On the Kojima Productions official podcast, Sean Eyestone, one of the spokespersons of the company, stated, “Of course, I think we talked about the fact that it is a sample. That's one thing. So you know, not saying that we won't bring it out in the future or anything like that. We can't say one way or the other whether or not something like that will come out on the 3DS. At this point we can't say anything. But what we did at the E3 show was a sample of what we can do with the 3DS.”

It seems Kojima Productions and Konami are unsure about how many hardcore gamers, the kind who would be interested in a new Metal Gear Solid title, will pick up the 3DS when it is launched, which could be in late 2010 or early next year. Nintendo has already said that it hopes third-party titles will come to the fresh handheld and that a variety of gamer types will pick it up to play Metal Gear, Resident Evil or the new Kirby.