Recently, a new official Metal Gear website by Konami sparked rumors of a new installment in the popular tactical / stealth shooter, Metal Gear Solid. Konami has now confirmed that the popular title is hitting the iPhone and the iPod touch.

When it was first spotted, the new MGS site displayed the Konami logo and an equation, with the subtitle “A Next Metal Gear Is...,” Neowin reported earlier this month, which pointed out that the equation was written in the “signature Xbox green,” while “the result looks suspiciously like the 360's green power button.”

All this turned out to be false, with Konami itself now confirming that a MGS 4 spin-off will have gameplay driven by the touch screen, but also Multi-Touch controls such as swipe and even pinch gestures, according to the same source. It should be noted that very few iPhone / iPod touch games use the pinch gesture for input. The confirmed launch date of Metal Gear Solid Touch is Spring 2009. The game will be released in North America, Japan, and Europe.

The website in question doesn't stop at MGS, though. By scrolling below the MGS gameplay screenshots – which, by the way, look great – banners featuring DanceDanceRevolution S Lite, Silent Hill: The Escape, and Furogga can also be spotted. These three will be released this year, in the same territories, except for DanceDanceRevolution S Lite, which won't see a European release on Apple's portables.

Konami, as many of you should know, is one of the best regarded game developers out there, with an impressive portfolio of shooters, horror-survival titles, and other evil-themed releases. MGS is one of its most popular franchises, having surpassed 22,000,000 units sold worldwide, as of December 2007. MGS 4: Guns of the Patriots has been keeping a lot of PlayStation 3 fans busy, since its debut in May this year.