Exclusivities have always been primary ammo for companies engaged in the console war. While Nintendo has its hugely successful Mario or Zelda franchises, Microsoft flaunted its Gears of War or Halo shooters and Sony struggled to get its Resistance, LittleBigPlanet or Killzone 2 into the media spotlight.

But one of the hallmark franchises for Sony was Metal Gear Solid from Konami, which gathered a cult-like following and achieved some very big sales with the last version, MGS 4: Guns of the Patriots, last year.

Now, things have changed, as the creator of the series, Hideo Kojima, went on stage at Microsoft's press conference at E3 and announced that one of the next two MGS games, MGS: Rising, would make its appearance not only on the PlayStation 3 but also on the Xbox 360 and the PC, two platforms under Microsoft's grip.

The announcement made Shane Kim, vice president in charge of the Xbox 360 group, Microsoft, quite excited, as he declared for Kotaku that the platform couldn't be ignored by third-party developers and that it was much more profitable to bring a game on multiple platforms.

“I still think exclusive content is really important,” said Kim. “First of all, in games, we've said for a long time that a key part of our strategy with Xbox 360 was a level third-party playing field. Now we've effectively done that with Metal Gear Solid coming to the Xbox 360. The economics are such that third parties also have to support multiple platforms, and you can't ignore Xbox 360. It's the second leading platform.”

With the pre-E3 hype reaching critical mass following the appearance of some teaser websites, you can be sure that Microsoft is quite happy with delivering MGS: Rising, which will take the whole series into a different direction in terms of narrative content and story, through its gaming console. Look forward to more details in the months to come.