Konami has announced that the Metal Gear Online Beta has been postponed.

The Beta was scheduled to launch yesterday, the 21st of April but “extraordinary levels of traffic from all over the world have caused the MGO Beta servers to destabilize” meaning the “service has been unable to run.”

In a post on SCEA’s PlayStation blog, Konami confirmed changes to the schedule. Konami Online’s Brandon Laurino said “The MGO team in Japan is currently working around the clock to stabilize the servers, and is aiming to launch game play this weekend of April 26th. We must note, given the current situation, this is subject to change.”

“To compensate for the delay, the MGO Beta period has been extended a week, now ending on May 11th. IMPORTANT NOTICE: Please note that your MGO Beta UPVCs will only be valid up until May 5th 2008, so please make sure to register them by then.”

“We would like to apologize for this inconvenience, and thank you for your patience. We know that you can’t wait to get started with Metal Gear Online, and we truly appreciate your enthusiasm, as well as your participation in the MGO Beta test – which really helps make MGO the best it can be!”

Konami promised to keep Metal Gear fans updated on the Beta on konami.com, the PlayStation blog, Konami ID site and Konami Japan’s MGO teaser site.

[UPDATE] Konami US had earlier announced that they would be deferring the European public test as a temporary measure, only starting it once the server was stabilized. Apologising for the inconvenience and confusion, Konami announced that the start date was now planned for the 25th of April but noted that this “may change due to unforeseen circumstances.” In addition it also confirmed that the Beta test will now close on the 11th of May instead of the 5th of May.