On the day when all news turns into mere jokes and memes, a strange new website has cropped up hosting the celebratory emotions surrounding one of gaming's most iconic experiences: Metal Gear. The Konami classic, fully developed by legendary auteur Hideo Kojima, would go on to become among the most revered experiences for popularizing the stealth-action genre, wherein players are tasked with keeping a low profile as much as possible throughout the story.
Metal Gear officially debuted on July 13, 1987, for the MSX2, proving that the showcased website is a bit early for birthday celebrations. The game wouldn't launch on the NES in Japan until late December of 2021. Titled simply metalgear35th, at first glance accepted merely as but a repository, the site in question no sooner takes visitors to a memorial NFT collection based on the Metal Gear series.
As one might guess, Konami's official auction will take place throughout July 13th, with consumers being privy to various digital assets in the guise of characters from the original Metal Gear. It's certainly not what fans had expected, but par for the course for Konami, who has been quite bullish in the realm of digitally recreating its pantheon of games for the crypto enthusiasts.
Related Article: Konami Brings 14 'Castlevania' NFTs as Part of its 35th Anniversary
Previously, the site had a mere photo of the all-too-familiar exclamation point, which would appear over Solid Snake after being seen or caught by guards in-game, and a 35 beneath it, giving way to insurmountable rumors that Konami may well be planning a remake or remaster. Unsurprisingly, this seems like it's not the case.
Konami's last auction, which was of Castlevania digital assets, netted the company a whopping $162,000, with one on average making about $12,000. That, too, was in celebration of the series' 35th anniversary. Despite their dwindling appreciation, the NFT craze is often even more lucrative than the highly detested microtransactions, which used to plague the gaming industry. Now, it's all about crafting beloved gaming IP into cashable digital crypto assets for large sums of cash, only to the detriment of its fan allure.
This isn't the first time some random website has cropped up and warmed the hearts of fans, as witnessed last in the silenthill.com site. It ended up being nothing but a troll in the face of Konami and is still to this day operational with all but an image of a Tweet from Silent Hill 2 artist Masahiro Ito, relaying: "I wish I hadn't designed fxxkin Pyramid Head." That's an actual Tweet, as the creator spelled out frustrations on the continued use of his character.
While the Metal Gear 35th anniversary site didn't amount to much, rumors have been percolating on the potential acquisition of Konami via Sony. Despite it being still very early to tell and April 1st still looming overhead, reports have been ongoing over the past week detailing a major PlayStation breakthrough - what specifically it may remain in stealth mode, but deleted tweets by Gavin Stevens point to a potential Konami purchase by the japanese gaming giant.
All should remain grains of salt until proven otherwise. Still, the fact that Konami is showcasing a plethora of Metal Gear NFTs in anticipation of an upcoming auction may well highlight little validity in the acquisition rumors. Still, fans can only hope that either PlayStation ponies up for the pantheon of classic hits owned under the publisher or Konami settles down with the abuse of its beloved IP.
