Ryan Payton, Konami spokesperson and assistant producer, has revealed that Konami’s hotly anticipated title Metal Gear Solid 4 will need to sell 1 million copies on the first day to justify the game’s costly production.

Despite MGS4 being one of the most anticipated PS3 titles, Payton believes it may struggle to reach the 1 million mark because the PS3 has a relatively low installed base. According to recent figures released by the NPD Group and Media Create, there are roughly 2 million PS3 owners in North America and 1.3 million in Japan as at October. By comparison there are 5.2 million Wii owners and 7.2 million Xbox 360 owners in North America.

Despite Komani and Sony’s insistence that MGS4 will be a PS3 exclusive, Payton’s comments call into question whether the next installment will make an appearance on the Xbox 360. Due to the high production costs of the game, Konami might have to take this step to secure a good profit by widening its audience to include both Xbox and Sony fans.

Notwithstanding Payton’s observations, he confirmed to Reuters that MGS4 is still a PS3 exclusive. “We’re telling our fans that if you want to play Metal Gear Solid 4, you have to buy a PS3. The PlayStation brand has always been good to us, and we’re pretty bullish on the PS3.”

As production costs increase, third party titles limited to one console struggle to produce profits. Particularly if that console is a PS3, which is lagging behind sales of the Xbox 360 and Wii.

Sony itself believes that the days of the third party exclusives are numbered. Peter Dille, senior vice president of marketing for Sony commented “We understand publishers are needing to recoup their investment. From our perspective, as long as the games aren’t going exclusive to other platforms, PS3 gamers are not actually losing anything.”

Sony seeks to deal with this issue by increasing its own game production, with Dille boasting that there are currently 15 internal studios working on PlayStation titles at present (more than Microsoft and Nintendo combined) and 15 PS3 exclusives on the cards for release between September this year and April 2008.

Although the PS2 has almost 100 titles that have sold over 1 million copies under its belt, the PS3 has just two. It is feared that Metal Gear Solid 4 does not have the appeal base to sell what is needed, however, on the other hand there will be gamers who purchase a PS3 to play this title.

Metal Gear Solid 4 is scheduled to arrive on the PS3 in quarter 2 of 2008.